Foxbrush raised his haggard face. It was a titanic effort, for he felt his weakness pressing him down into the sucking floor. But he raised his face and looked across the gloomy hall to Daylily. Beautiful Daylily, powerful Daylily. Strong, unbending, unmoving Daylily.
She met his gaze. For a flash as bright as the Bronze—brighter even—she saw him and knew him. She could not see the figure crouched before him, for her memories of Lionheart were not the same as Foxbrush’s. She could not see the Great Hall of the Eldest, for all around her was nothing but barren wasteland under a starless sky. And in that sky, the forms of the stolen children floated and gave of their memories, gave of their essence, feeding into the greedy will of Cren Cru as it sought to latch hold of that which it could never have. Cren Cru was all that was left now in this place of her mind. Cren Cru was . . .
But then she saw Foxbrush sinking into the dry, dusty ground, brought low with shame. She saw him and drew a surprised breath, for she knew it was him, truly him. Not a mere memory, but Foxbrush himself, clad in those ugly, stinking garments, his face half hidden behind a ragged beard.
She opened her mouth to speak his name. But to her horror, she realized he was looking at her.
Just as she saw him in his true form here, so he saw her. Not the self she always presented, not the beautiful girl, the ruthless conspirator, the cold, unreachable beauty. He saw her.
He saw the wolf.
“Daylily!” Foxbrush cried, all thoughts of the near-Lionheart forgotten as he stared at the red she-wolf bound with bloodied chains to the great stakes. How he knew that foam-mouthed beast for the girl he loved, he could not say, for reasonable thought had long since fled. He knew in the depths of his frantically beating heart, and he surged toward that knowledge, pulling against the will that sought to swallow him.
“Foxbrush,” said the wolf.
And at the sound of his name falling from that mouth, Foxbrush felt his strength reviving. He fought the hold Cren Cru had upon him, heaving himself up and onto his feet. The floor remained unstable, but the tiles had shrunk now, and he stood up to a full man’s height. On unsteady but determined feet, he started toward her, toward the wolf. “Daylily,” he said again, his hands reaching out to her chains, eager to free her.
The figure of Lionheart lunged at him from behind, wrapping powerful arms about him and hurling him from his feet. Foxbrush fell upon the tiles, which shattered like shards of glass into blackness. He put up both hands to protect his face, but now the figure of Lionheart was gone and, in its place, a shadowy form swooped down upon him and struck him again, on the face, on the chest. He tried to hit it, but something bit his hand with razor teeth and worried it like a dog pulling flesh from a bone. Foxbrush screamed and pummeled at nothing, for there was nothing to strike: no body, no form, only teeth and biting pain.
Daylily watched, and the wolf surged against her chains, ravening. “Let me loose! Let me loose!” she roared. “Let me kill it!”
“No!” Daylily cried, lost in her mind, uncertain of her own body and form now. Was she herself? Was she the wolf?
Was she Cren Cru?
“Let it go.”
From somewhere up above, the song of the wood thrush fell down upon Daylily. The next moment, she felt the bird himself alight upon her shoulder, though she wasn’t even certain she had a body anymore. She turned to the bird, and he looked at her with his bright eye. How could he follow her, even here, even into the heart of the Mound and her own blighted mind?
“Let it go. The time is now.”
“If I let it go, it will kill us all,” Daylily whispered.
“No, Daylily,” sang the bird. And suddenly he wasn’t a bird anymore. She found herself standing beside the form of a man, but not exactly a man. More like what man was intended to be at the beginning of Time and the Near World, before the ravages of mortality took hold and corrupted what should have been most fair. This Man was the realized ideal, the realized potential, and more besides—so much more! This form he wore could only just contain the glory of his majesty and the Song that burst from the inner depths of his being.
She knew him at once. She had seen him before, in the House of the Eldest. She had seen him enter the gate and then, two hours later, walk away again, and she’d never spoken to him. But she had known, even in that distant glimpse she’d had, that this person, this Man, was someone she must either love or hate. There could be no other response to him.
He looked at her now with his ageless eyes: deep, bottomless wells of kindness and strength. The Prince of Farthestshore, Lord of all the Faerie, son of the King Across the Final Water.
“No, Daylily,” he said to her. “It will kill you only if you cling to it. But if it dies, others will die as well. For they need you, Daylily. They need you as you truly are. Not this thing you pretend to be, this mimic of the real woman.