The stranger took a step forward, her hands outstretched. They were very alike, those two women. Neither tall, both slender, their dark hair falling away from faces full of sorrow. But in the one face there was hope, while in the other there was only despair.
Imraldera, still struggling with the newness of the words upon her tongue, said, “Fairbird, my darling—”
“Away from me!” Fairbird signed. She turned to flee, nearly falling over Frostbite as she went. She grabbed the dog by the ear and tugged, urging her to follow her back to the village, away from this woman with an unholy voice. Let the skin lie in the water and rot! She must get away, and she must not remember.
But Frostbite would not be moved.
The old dog, her mind as slowed by age as her body, stood with her lips drawn back. Her cloudy eyes could see little, and her ears did not know the voice of the stranger. But her nose . . . her nose was as good as it had ever been.
Suddenly the dog yelped. She tore from Fairbird’s grasp and flung herself upon the stranger. Fairbird gasped, thinking her lurcher would tear the girl’s throat out in her efforts to protect her, and she flung herself after, desperately trying to catch hold.
But the dog, still barking and yelping, stood with her paws on the stranger’s shoulders, licking her face and whimpering, her tail wagging as though it would break. The stranger wrapped her arms around the dog’s hulking body, burying her face in the gray, musty fur.
Fairbird stared. She had been betrayed so many times in life. First, her mother died before she could know her; then her sister was cruelly wrenched from her by a father who appeared as cold and heartless as stone. Only Frostbite had been true. Only Frostbite had remained by her side as the darkness of her god threatened to swallow the last shreds of hope she clutched for herself.
Now even Frostbite betrayed her. It was the final blow.
With a sob, she turned to flee.
“Wait!”
Fairbird stopped. Something in that voice compelled her to stay, to hear words that might be as arrows.
“I told you once,” said the stranger, “that when you heard me speak your true name, I would return to you. Will you hear me now? Will you let me speak the name that is truly yours? If I speak it, will you know me at last?”
Fairbird stood as silent as she had lived.
“Gift,” the stranger whispered, putting Frostbite gently from her and approaching Fairbird’s rigid form from behind. “Love Gift. Gracious Gift. Gift of my mother to me, to my father, to the worlds. That is your true name, Fairbird. You are my Gift.”
Fairbird’s hands trembled. She signed, “I killed my mother. I killed you.”
“You gave us reason to die, my darling. You gave us reason to die, and in that, you gave us reason to live.”
Her eyes stricken with tears, the silent girl turned to the one who spoke.
“My Fairbird,” whispered Starflower. “My sister.”
Then suddenly Fairbird was in her arms. She was a young woman now, but she felt no more than five years old as she buried her face in the shoulder of that stranger who was no stranger but who was in fact the dearest of her heart. She wept and felt the tears of her sister falling in her hair and down her neck. Frostbite, in her joy, pressed up against their legs until they fell over in a pile.
They lay together, the three of them, nobody speaking and nobody signing, trying to explain. Frostbite knew best. Let joy be joy without words! And they followed the old dog’s example.
But at last the time for stories came. The girls’ hands flew as they talked in the silent language. But at last Imraldera came to the end of hers, and she put her hands in her lap.
“The curse is broken,” she said out loud.
Fairbird shook her head. “I cannot believe it,” she signed. “How can a god die?”
“He was no god,” said her sister. “He was Faerie kind, a creature of the Gray Wood.”
“He has been our god for generations.”
“Sister, listen to me!” Imraldera took Fairbird’s face in her hands. She could still see the child whom she had snatched from Wolf Tongue’s grasp and whom she had told to sit by Frostbite and stay behind. Fairbird was grown up now, and so beautiful. What a terrible thing was the Faerie world, filled with immortals caring nothing for time! Eanrin had explained much to her on their journey to Redclay, things Imraldera had not wanted to understand.
It did not matter. The child Fairbird was gone, but Fairbird herself was present. And they had so little time.
“The curse is broken,” Imraldera said again. “You are free. You may speak as boldly as any man, and you can make them listen. You must tell them, Fairbird! You must tell the other women. It was the Giver of Names who freed you. It was he who gave you your name and now gives you a voice. Do you understand?”
Fairbird’s brow drew together. “But I cannot speak. I am not brave like you.”