Imraldera marched back to the sick chamber, where Sun Eagle lay. The cat-man followed, but she turned in the doorway and raised a warning hand. “Stay out,” she said. With that and nothing more, she shut the door in his face. Not one given naturally to following orders, Eanrin put a hand to the latch. But he thought better of it and stepped back, staring at the door as though it would open by magic. Then, with a curse, he stalked down the hall.
Imraldera waited until she heard his footsteps retreating. She turned and found Sun Eagle watching her.
“What’s to be my fate, Starflower?” he asked. “Am I to be given over to monsters?”
She shook her head and moved quietly to the bedside. He reached out to her, but she pretended not to see and sat instead on a nearby stool. For a little while, she studied her own hands folded in her lap. Then she said, “She claims you murdered her people.”
Sun Eagle shook his head. “I never saw her. Not until some few months past, by mortal count, when she and her lion set upon me in the Wood.”
Imraldera looked up and found that Sun Eagle was no longer watching her but had turned his gaze to the ceiling. It was an unusual enough ceiling, for in the shifting of moments it could seem to be made of molded plaster painted in a mural of leaves and sky; then, without altering, it was leaves and sky in truth, gently blowing in a breeze. Such was the way of the Haven, built in the Between but linking the Far World and the Near, existing both in and out of Time.
Sun Eagle’s eyes were bright with tears.
“Do you remember that day?” he said softly.
She did not need to ask which day he meant. Across her mind flashed vividly the memory of a fog-shrouded morning when a young man armed with a stone knife descended the deep gorge and, secured to his own world by only a cord, passed into the Gray Wood.
The cord had broken. And she had known he would never return.
“I was frightened at first,” he said. “When I realized what had happened, I thought my heart would burst with terror. But then I heard Bear—my red dog, you recall—baying in the shadows behind me.”
Imraldera nodded. She remembered the warriors trying to hold back the shaggy hound, which had broken from their grasp and pursued his master even unto certain death.
“He found me and stayed by my side as we wandered forever in this interminable Wood . . . even as we discovered the secrets of fey folk and Faerie beasts, and the dreadful truths of immortality. Always beside me, my comfort and friend.”
“Where is he now?” Imraldera asked, afraid of the answer she knew must come.
Sun Eagle’s mouth twisted bitterly as he continued to stare up above. “Ask Nidawi the Everblooming. Ask her cursed lion.” He drew a shuddering breath, closing his eyes but unable to force back the tear that fell over his dark and hardened face. “They came upon me by surprise. I had never seen her before, never met her or that white devil companion of hers. But they fell upon me when I was vulnerable, and if not for Bear, I should have perished by their bloodthirsty claws.”
Imraldera wiped away the tears that were streaming down her cheeks. Sun Eagle, realizing suddenly that she wept, turned to her, struggling up on one elbow. “Please tell me,” he said, “that you cried such tears for me when you thought me dead.”
“It was a long time ago, Sun Eagle,” she whispered.
He nodded. Then he touched the cord around his neck from which hung two beads, the red one marked with a panther and the blue one marked with a white starflower. He hesitated a moment, then tore the cord from his neck and offered it to Imraldera. She looked up, startled.
“You gave me this. Do you recall?” said he. “You gave me your name mark to carry with me into the Gray Wood. Your father gave me his as well, and it was a mark of honor. But when you gave me yours, Starflower, what did it signify?”
Imraldera shook her head.
“Tell me. Please.”
“That I would wait for your return,” she whispered.
“But you did not wait.” Despite the bitterness, his voice was gentle. “You are here, far from our homeland. And you speak with a voice now, like a man.”
“The curse of the old god is lifted,” she replied, her eyes flashing. “The women of the Land are free, and we speak with strength equal to any man’s.”
“So I have seen,” he said. “So I have heard. But I did not hope to find you alive and liberated. And certainly not so far from hearth and home!”
She told him her story then, her long, difficult tale, even as he lay back upon the pillows and fingered the cord and the two beads in his hand. As she talked, the light deepened and stars appeared on the ceiling. But a fire came to life of its own magic in a fireplace that looked like the bole of a tree, and Imraldera continued her tale. Even the noise of Nidawi and Lioness faded at last until only Imraldera’s voice and the crackling of the fire could be heard in that room.
When she finished, Sun Eagle, who had not once interrupted, nodded quietly. Then he again held out the cord and the beads. “You are right,” he said. “It was long ago. It was a different life. And you are not bound to wait.”