Foxbrush yelped and nearly fell over backward. She looked like something from a dream or a nightmare, beautiful and awful at once.
“He is drinking,” she repeated, her breath so cold it steamed in the air. Her eyes stared straight ahead, not at Foxbrush, not at anything, wide open and unseeing. She lifted her hand and pointed to the children up above. “He is sucking the life of Southlands through the lives of Southlands’ firstborn. He is drinking their memories. He is drinking them.”
Foxbrush looked again at the children. Many of them were so far gone! What would happen when they faded away entirely?
“We must stop him, Daylily,” he said, turning urgently to her. He wanted to reach out and touch her but somehow didn’t dare. “You must help me.”
She cannot help you. She is ours. She is—
“Mine,” Daylily whispered.
Mine!
Daylily took a step toward Foxbrush, still without seeing him. Her upraised arm reached out, stretching toward his face. He knew he could not let her touch him, and he stumbled back. Then he turned and ran.
You have so many fears. So many wonderful, fascinating, mortal fears! And we know what to do with those.
The enormous tiles beneath Foxbrush’s feet shifted, then rippled like water. His feet sank into them as though he had tried to run over the surface of a bog, and he was dragged down to his knees. He struggled to pull himself free, but it was useless.
“Useless.”
There are some voices that sound far worse in memory than they ever were in reality. So it was with this voice. The very sound of it was dread and rejection, all things most shameful falling upon Foxbrush’s ears. He turned, his eyes widening with terror, to what he knew he must see.
Lionheart stood above him. But he was taller here in this place of Foxbrush’s memory than he ever would be in the real world; Foxbrush always thought of Lionheart as much bigger than he was.
“Useless,” said the figure of Lionheart, and he laughed at Foxbrush’s plight. “That’s what you always were. From the time we were children, what have you ever been but a useless tag-on? And you think you can be Eldest?”
You? Eldest?
The words poured from Lionheart’s mouth and rushed together around the pillars, across the windows, through the galleries, among the drifting bodies of the children. The floor beneath Foxbrush churned at the sound, sucking him farther down. He gasped and put his hands out to try to pull himself up. But his hands caught too and sank to his elbows. He glared furiously at Lionheart, who was laughing now.
“A king, Foxbrush? You weren’t even a good damsel in distress. Didn’t you cry when she pulled the button off your shirt? I think you did. I remember!”
We see it in your mind!
“And that mother of yours . . . do you know why she never wanted to see you? Why she hid herself away in her rooms, a half-crazy recluse? Do you know why?”
We see it in your mind!
“Because you look like your father. Oh, not everyone can see it! But she can. Every time she looks at you. He was a weak man too, and he knew it. So he set out to prove his strength, and he subdued her, and he beat her, and she could only pray that he would leave again on one of his long trips to the lowlands. And you . . . you, Foxbrush . . . crying at the window as you watched his carriage roll away. ‘Where is Papa going?’ you’d ask, and what did she say to you, Foxbrush? What did she say?”
Tears streamed down Foxbrush’s face, and each one that fell seemed to drag his head after it. He sagged, his arms and legs caught in the floor, almost willing now for it to swallow him up.
“You know what she said.” The figure of Lionheart crouched before Foxbrush, caught his chin in one hand and forced him to look up, to meet those hateful, laughing eyes. “Tell me, Foxy! Tell me what it was!”
“She said . . .” Foxbrush choked on his own tears. They sat as bile in his throat. “She said, ‘He’s gone to the Dragon’s own house, and may he never return!’ ”
“Well done.” The figure of Lionheart grinned. He let go of Foxbrush’s chin and patted his head like a good dog. Then he sat back on his heels, and his grin grew lopsided, turning into a leer. “Then one time he left, and he never did return. One day, in another vain proof of strength, he ran afoul of a duelist’s blade, never to rise again. Another failure.
“But your mother looks at you, and she still sees him in your eyes. You are so like him, Foxbrush! Useless. Worthless. Will you be Eldest?”
You?
“Will that somehow prove your strength? Will you take a girl like her”—with a sweep of his arm to where Daylily stood staring down on the two of them, unseeing—“for your bride? You, of all people?”
You?