Foxbrush! Where are you, Foxbrush? I am coming for you!
The Prince of Farthestshore smiled. Then he called in answer: “This way!”
The sylph, who had so long searched (without knowing how long, for time did not matter to its breezy consciousness), heard the voice of the Lumil Eliasul and let out a gleeful screech. Then it whipped and blew to this place that was neither in the Near World nor in the Far, nor even in the Wood Between. Summoned by its Lord, it skirted all boundaries of all worlds and came to this place of vision.
“Aad-o Ilmun!”
“And I thank you for it,” the Prince replied with a smile as the sylph, its form only just discernible to Daylily and Foxbrush, cavorted before him. “Are you ready to fulfill your promise to Lionheart?”
“I am,” the sylph replied, eagerly dashing to blow amongst the treetops of the orchard, only to gust back in an instant to where the two mortals stood waiting. “I am ready! Are you Foxbrush?” it asked, turning to Daylily.
“No!” said she hastily, and the sylph addressed itself to Foxbrush then, reaching out to snatch him up.
“Come!” it cried. “Back to your own land! Back to your own time-bound world!”
“Wait!” Foxbrush cried, for the sylph would have carried him off at once if it could. He turned to Daylily, and he found it suddenly difficult to breathe. She was so wild, so disheveled, and so strong, stronger than he had ever seen her. But she was weak as well, he thought, and there was a vulnerability in her eyes that he had not seen— No! This was not true. He had seen something like it once before.
In the look she had given Lionheart the night he left her standing on the dance floor.
“Daylily,” he said, “I won’t marry you.”
She closed her eyes, though only for a moment. Then she looked at him and said, “I know.”
“That is,” he hastened on, “I won’t marry you unless . . . unless it is what you want. Not what your father wants, or the barons or Southlands or politics or . . . or any of those fine excuses they’ve fed you all these years. I won’t marry you for those reasons, because I love you too well.”
He put out his hand, and in that light she saw it as whole, just as the shadow it cast. “Come back with me. Help me save Southlands in whatever capacity you see fit. As my queen or as my friend. Either way I . . . I don’t think I can do it without you.”
She caught his hand in both of hers. She said only, “Foxbrush!”
Sometimes there is no need to say more. Especially when sylphs are catching you up and hurtling you across time and space and worlds. Sometimes the clasp of hands—the one strong, the other weak—is more than enough. For through the clasping of hands, the pulse of blood may be felt; and the equal pulse of love and the understanding of love without words.
17
MEANWHILE, LIONHEART FACED his imminent hanging.
Twelve hours or so of living under the looming threat of death made the certainty of death no more palatable now. His heart beat a frantic pace in his throat as guardsmen hauled him roughly down the stone stairs of North Tower. He could hear shouts going up throughout the House as word of the baron’s rescue traveled.
“Lionheart! Lionheart, I’m sorry!” Felix gasped from behind. Lionheart tried to look around, to catch the young prince’s eye. But he was struck in the jaw and told to face forward, and he did not have the strength to disobey.
So, in the wake of the baron’s wrath, they marched at double-time down the stairs and through the Great Hall. The baron did not pause and waved away all those who flocked to him full of questions and concerns. He led them all out to the courtyard alight with torches that cast an eerie glow in that predawn gloom. A glow that made the scaffold standing in the middle of the yard—right where the old Starflower fountain had been before the Dragon destroyed it—look like some sort of otherworldly creature. Perhaps a dragon itself.
“Iubdan’s beard!” Felix exclaimed when he saw it, yanking against the strong arms of the guards who held him. “Are you all out of your minds?”
Sir Palinurus and other lords of Parumvir staggered down from their chambers and, nearly as frantic as the prince himself at the sight of Felix so near the scaffold, fell upon the baron like so many vultures, pecking him with protests. But guards with fierce and frightened faces pushed them back, using the butt end of their lances roughly enough to show willingness for more violence if necessary.
The baron stood ringed in torchlight, surrounded by his guards, and his face was unreadable. It was not difficult to believe that he could and would order the death of his strongest ally’s crown prince.