“Twelfth Night is near,” said he. “It is time you learned, Initiate. It is time you knew.”
They progressed in silence through the Wood, following the Bronze. Their wounds pained them, but they moved as though they felt nothing. The dominant force inside them did not heed pain.
They crossed into the Near World, back into Southlands, and still their Path led them on. The bronze stone around Daylily’s neck heated until it scalded the skin over her heart, but she did not try to move it. She followed her Advocate until at last, even as Foxbrush had stood with Nidawi, she stood before the Mound of her master. The Mound she had seen in nightmarish visions and hoped, upon waking, had been nothing more than a nightmare.
The Mound into which she had sent children.
Cren Cru sucked at the life of the land. And though he had no face, it seemed to Daylily as though he smiled upon her a hungry smile. And he said, using her own mouth: Mine.
“I was lost in the Wood Between,” said Sun Eagle, standing stern beside her. “I was young, and I knew nothing of immortality or the Far World. I was ignorant and weak and small. I should have died. But Dinhrod the Stone found me, and he became my Advocate. I was brought into the Circle of Twelve and given the Bronze. And now, all those who dwell in the Far World fear me.”
Fear us.
“But,” said Daylily, struggling to find words of her own, for she felt as if her mouth no longer belonged to her, nor her voice nor her heart nor the blood in her veins. “But you told me Dinhrod the Stone is dead. You were stained with his blood.”
“He died on Thirteenth Dawn,” said Sun Eagle. “Twelve days and twelve nights, we gather the firstborn and present them as tithe. On Thirteenth Dawn, the Advocates themselves contend for the right to enter the Mound and become one with the master. Dinhrod was not victorious. He was slain by his brethren, and he died in my arms. Another won the honor to enter the Mound.”
Mine.
Daylily stared across the way at the great, thorn-clad growth of Cren Cru. She saw a little door, scarcely more than a hole in the side of the hill. Through it poured an awful stench. She remembered then with dreadful clarity all those nightmares she had tried to forget, all those children whom she had helped to carry, helped to lead.
The tithe of firstborn. The spilling of blood to make new life. A home. A stronghold among the worlds. We must, we will, we need to possess!
“Twelfth Night is near, when we will make the final offering,” said Sun Eagle. “Then, come Thirteenth Dawn, I too will fight. I will battle my brother and sister Advocates for the right to pass through Cren Cru’s door.”
There was deadness in his voice. Daylily looked up at him, and in his eyes, however briefly, she thought she glimpsed . . . what was it? Desperation? Fear?
But when he turned to her, all such traces were gone. “It is the best end. It is the only end. Should I be victorious, I will enter the Mound, and you will become Advocate in my place. And you will take an Initiate, and the circle will be complete, never again to be broken. All this Land will be your home. No more Twelfth Night. No more Thirteenth Dawn.”
No more failure. No more searching, searching, searching. No more desolation. We will be home. They will be home.
I will be Home.
“And we will rule,” said Sun Eagle. Daylily realized that her mouth had also moved in time with his, had spoken words that were not her own.
The wolf inside her snarled and tore at her with a fury she had not yet known, and she screamed at the pain of it. Even as she screamed, however, she turned and fled. The wolf drove her, and the Bronze did not burn or try to fight. She fled to the sound of frantic, haunted howling, away from the Mound, away from her Advocate, away from herself. But the wolf pursued, and the wolf would catch and devour her if she did not give in to the call of the Bronze. What escape was there? Death on every side, as sure as when she’d walked the paths of the Netherworld!
As sure as when she’d betrayed Rose Red.
There was no hope. No light burning in this darkness. Even the glow of the Bronze itself was as black as pitch, as empty as a bottomless chasm.
She collapsed. She did not know if she lay in the Wood Between or the Near World or the Far. It did not matter to her then. The wolf worried at her, but she could feel the wolf even now being dragged back in chains. Cren Cru, who had taken her, who had become her, who was more Daylily than she was herself now, would overpower all and drive her to whatever end it saw fit. And she would convince herself that it was her own choice and her own doing. But for this little slice of existence, she knew the truth.
“You’ll have to let it go.”
She shuddered at the voice of the songbird that alighted on the ground before her. In this dark place, his white, speckled breast seemed to glow with his own light.
“What are you doing here?” she gasped, the words scarcely audible.