She could feel him shaking his head in denial. “But you’re blind!”
It was so good to be held by him. It was the first time she had felt as if she were really home safe, and she didn’t want the feeling to end too quickly. She had walked for two days to get here, coming up out of the wasteland beyond the valley and through Declan Reach where the bodies of the dead still lay uncovered, the scavengers beginning to feed by now. She had crossed the divide and descended the inner slopes through familiar forests until she had reached Glensk Wood and this moment. She had avoided being seen except at a distance and reached Pan’s home without a direct encounter with anyone.
She had traveled a landscape rendered gray and colorless by her change in vision, a condition that by now she realized would forever give rise to aching memories and dark emotions.
All the way here she had been thinking about what she was going to do. In the beginning of her journey, when she was still in the forest and confused about her direction, she had thought she might not be able to find her way back at all. But the scarlet dove had saved her. It was more than an indicator of her condition and a reminder of what was lost; it was also her personal guide, designed to bring her back to where she needed to be. She followed it out of the wastelands to the exterior slopes of the mountains that surrounded her valley and from there upward to Declan Reach.
Then, quite suddenly, it had disappeared. She assumed it had done what it had been sent to do, and so it was gone for good. She didn’t see it again, in any case. Once through the pass and inside the valley, she was on her own. Even though she looked for the dove repeatedly during the remainder of her trek, there was no sign of it. She would have welcomed even a momentary glimpse, would have treasured even a brief reminder of the brightness of its scarlet hue, but it did not return.
Already, she realized, she was forgetting the color of things. Already, her memories were fading, the colors she remembered washing out, their glow fading away.
“Pan,” she said, forcing herself away from him, holding him at arm’s length as she stared up at him with her cloudy eyes. “I can see, Pan. I’m not blind, even though I look as if I am. But there is a reason for this. I have to explain so you can understand.”
“I don’t need to understand,” he replied quickly. “I’m just glad to have you back safe.
I thought I might have lost you.”
Then she really was crying, and they hugged each other anew, arms wrapped about each other, so grateful for the moment they couldn’t speak.
Again, she pushed him away. “Pan, you have to listen to me. Come over here and sit down. Close the door.”
He did so, and they sat together in front of the cold ashes of the fireplace. Panterra brought out blankets in which they wrapped themselves in order to fight off the night’s chill. It was somewhere in the hours before sunrise by now—Prue couldn’t be sure exactly when. She’d been walking a long time in the darkness, so she knew it was after midnight. She thought momentarily about eating because she was very hungry, but she decided it would have to wait.
Slowly, meticulously, she told him everything that had happened to her after he had gone off with Arik Siq, leaving her a captive of the Drouj. It took her a long time, and she stopped and started again repeatedly, choosing her words, not wanting to leave anything out or diminish its importance. She replayed the events of the ill-fated rescue attempt by Deladion Inch and of her efforts to hide in and ultimately escape from his fortress lair. She skimmed over the parts that were too scary to dwell on, especially those in which she had faced the demon that had pursued her. But she stressed the parts that involved the danger to him. She didn’t want him to underestimate that old man. She didn’t want him to think this was a hunt that he might escape if he were in the least way careless. The demon wanted his life and it wanted the black staff. If he valued both, he must begin to think now on what he was going to do.
She would help him, of course. That was why she had come back. That was the bargain she had made with the King of the Silver River, and the loss of her ability to see colors was the price she had paid. She didn’t try to downplay how important that was, but she did insist that it was worth the trade to get the use of her instincts back again in a way she could depend upon. The King of the Silver River had been emphatic that if she did not come back to help Pan, the demon would find a way to kill him.