NIDAWI PROWLED THE SHADOWS, moving slowly on her hands and feet like some long-limbed lion herself, placing each foot and hand silently before its mate. Shadows danced across her face, but fire danced in her eyes as she watched the Haven door. The Haven itself was not constant before her vision. Sometimes she saw a great and beautiful house; sometimes it was only a thick grove of trees. Either way it was unassailable, at least in her current strength.
But the door she could watch. She and Lioness.
Days and nights both passed and did not pass in this realm without time, for nothing was stable and nothing changed. Around the Haven itself—perhaps due to the occupant, who was herself once mortal—time seemed to linger, counting out hours and moments alike. But a few paces beyond, there was only the Wood and immortality. Nidawi cared nothing for time, and in this at least she had the patience of mountains. She watched the gloom of night fall and retreat into the gleam of morning more often than she bothered to count. And still she waited.
She could hear voices now and then. Just now, for instance, on the other side of a hawthorn tangle that was also a hard stone wall, she heard the Faerie man and the mortal woman who had turned her away from their door (the beasts!), arguing. She crouched beneath the branches, listening and sniffing and watering at the mouth in the eagerness of her desire.
“You brought him here yourself!” the woman said, her voice tense with anger. “You told me you heard the song of the Lumil Eliasul, and you followed it to him. Is that not sign enough for you? Does that not tell you of our Lord’s will?”
“I hardly need remind you,” the Faerie man replied, his voice too light and cheerful to be sincere, “that the will of the Lumil Eliasul is not always so easy to interpret as all that. To be sure, I believe I was led to this Sun Eagle of yours. However, I don’t believe that means we should swallow his every word like rich cream and do anything he asks of us.”
“What then? Do you think the Prince would bid us toss him to the lion?”
“I’m not saying it hasn’t crossed my mind—”
“Don’t play the fool, Eanrin. Not now. That is never the way of our Lord, and you know it. We are here for the protection of mortals and immortals alike.”
“Yes, but protecting this fellow doesn’t necessarily include traipsing off back to the South Land again, leaving our watch unguarded.”
The woman heaved an exasperated sigh. “That’s not what I’m proposing, and you know it. I will take him myself to the South Land and learn if what he says is true. If it is, and my people are in more danger than when I last left them, I will remain and help.”
The Faerie man did not respond. Nidawi strained her ears for some moments but caught only the sound of his breathing. Then he said, “Remain and help, eh?”
“Yes.”
“And you’ll return when?”
“I don’t know when.” She snapped this last, sharp as an iron snare. Even Nidawi blinked and drew back a little from the bush before pressing her ear to it once more.
The Faerie man, still bright as a morning song, said, “And that’s exactly why, if you insist upon this mad little scheme—rushing off without a word from the Prince and so forth—I intend to go along.” His voice hardened a little then. “Someone needs to make sure that spinning head of yours stays attached at the neck.”
“And leave our watch unguarded?” she replied.
“I’ve checked the gate locks. They’ll hold well for a spell or two. And if I have my way, we’ll be gone no longer than a lick of my whiskers, which isn’t time enough for anything too dreadful to happen, even in the Between.”
“I don’t need you along, Eanrin.”
“I say that you do.”
Nidawi waited for more, but no indication of plans or pursuits came. At last she crept back and found Lioness waiting nearby, growling softly, her tail flicking across the forest floor.
“They’re leaving soon,” Nidawi whispered. She wore the form of a woman, not yet old but lined about the face with sorrow and rage. Her wild hair was tied back from her face and held in place by sticks and bits of bone, as if she were dressed for battle, though she was armed only with her four strong limbs and her long, curved fingernails. “When they do, they’ll take one of their dragon-cursed Paths, and we shan’t be able to see them. But you’ll smell them, Lioness, and we’ll follow. They shan’t be able to stay on the Path forever!”
Lioness nodded solemnly, her growl never letting up.