The girl had looked right into Daylily’s eyes. Daylily had seen the pleading, the desperate hope. And yet she had said nothing.
All of this washed over her, and she reached out to support herself on the scaffolding. Then, as the echoes of Foxbrush’s question faded into silence, she said, “I will speak for my father.”
All eyes fixed upon her, including the baron’s. He watched this unknown creature with fearful eyes. For this was not the girl he had crafted and formed so carefully over the years to fulfill his intended purpose. This wild thing, this wolfish beauty, was something he dared not name. She could not be his daughter. But she looked down upon him, and in those wolf’s eyes he saw, of all strange and horrible things, kindness.
“I will speak for him, my lord,” she said to Foxbrush. “I plead for his life not on his own merit, for indeed, he deserves nothing from you. But I ask you for undeserved grace in light of the grace you have so recently shown me.”
Lionheart thought he must have died in truth, hanged some moments ago by the neck. For only in some other world beyond the veil of mortal life would he ever have expected to hear such compassion from the mouth of Lady Daylily!
But Foxbrush nodded solemnly. “Very well,” he said. “I will spare his life. But I hereby strip him of all his property and riches, bestowing them upon his rightful heir, Lady Daylily of Middlecrescent. And the former baron will be escorted to the borders of Southlands within a month’s time, never to return. Should he ever be discovered within my realm again, he will be thrown once more upon the mercy of my court.”
So the baron was hauled to his feet, still with the baroness clinging to him, weeping gently in relief for his life. He was escorted out of the yard, with all the eyes of his friends-turned-enemies watching. He cast a last glance back over his shoulder at his daughter and the man who would be her husband.
And he thought, It was a good plan. It might have worked.
Then he was hurried into the House under armed guard, and the door shut behind him so that he did not hear the murmur that erupted in the crowd at his going. The murmur soon turned to something like a cheer. Then someone shouted out in a clear, golden voice:
“All hail Eldest Foxbrush!”
“Hail!” responded the crowd in spontaneous agreement. Hands rose in high salute, and the cheer burst out in good earnest now, as though a coronation had just been held, not a sentencing. Foxbrush, standing on the scaffold with Daylily on one hand and Lionheart on the other (poor Dovetree collapsed to her knees and shivering behind), gazed out into the throng of those who were now his people. And he thought he saw the whole of Southlands, both ancient and future: the wild jungles of yesterday, the shining cities and ripening orchards of tomorrow. He loved it with the love of pounding blood. For he was king, both now and then. He was the King of Here and There.
A bright face caught his eye. A face he almost recognized but couldn’t quite see behind the double eye patches it wore. A brilliant smile and a wave, and the face disappeared into the throng before Foxbrush could even say for certain that he had seen it.
None of this mattered, though. For suddenly Daylily took him by his ruined hands, turned him to her, and pierced him to the quick with the intensity of her eyes. To his relief, she closed them and leaned in to kiss him. He’d never kissed anyone before. But then, he’d never saved lives or passed sentences or ruled nations before either. He could learn as he went, and somehow he didn’t think the learning would be all that bad.
The cheers of the crowd grew, and Felix whooped and hollered as loudly as the rest of them, raising his sprained wrist above his head. For this is how heroic tales should end. Everyone knows it, poets and soldiers, peasants and nobles, ladies and gentlemen and children and grandparents. Everyone knows this: The end of all stories of love and blood should be a kiss. The kiss of true love found and finally recognized.
Lionheart, standing by, grinned at the dazed expression on his cousin’s face and even clapped Foxbrush on the shoulder. He could not quite bring himself to look at Daylily, but that didn’t matter, for neither did she look at him. She smiled as she had never smiled before, and the smile itself turned into a laugh.
She reached up and patted Foxbrush’s cheek. “You’re going to have to shave this beard,” she said.
“Iubdan’s razor, yes!” Foxbrush replied.
Epilogue
IMRALDERA STOOD in the doorway of the Haven. Around this space of existence, twilight was falling, turning the brown and green shadows of the trees to violet and dark blue. She gazed far into the surrounding forest, into the deeper reaches of her watch. Searching the Paths for any sign of . . .