Then he picked up the sound of footsteps and knew he must be drawing near to the mortal caught in the center of the swirling air.
A flash of red drew his eye, red like water or like fire. He saw the mortal at last: a tall, straight figure clad in light, flowing garments that lent themselves naturally to the pulling winds. The red he’d glimpsed was her flowing hair.
“Let her go!”
A dozen unseen faces turned upon him; their unseen eyes fixed him with angered stares. The song turned to a snarl, and he felt them massing together into one great body, ready to blow the flesh from his bones in their anger.
The warrior stepped forward, unafraid. He could see little enough other than the young woman—not much beyond girlhood, he realized—who stood with her back to him, her hair and white gown beating the air behind her in the ferocity of the sylphs’ breath. He did not think she could hear his voice, but that did not matter. The sylphs could.
“This mortal is of my kin,” the warrior declared. “Born of the Crescent People in the mortal Land Behind the Mountains. You will give her back to me.”
The sylphs, wordless in their rage, flew at him. As one force they tore at his face, at his clothes. But they did not topple him, and he put his hand to his throat and lifted up the bronze stone.
“By the Mound of my master, I command you to let her go.”
He did not have to speak loudly. A whisper was enough. The sylphs saw and knew. And the sylphs, again moving as one, howled their anger. They twisted around the warrior, around his limbs, his neck, his head. They shied away from touching the stone, however, withdrawing as though stung—if anyone can sting the wind.
Then they leapt back from him, crossing once more to the woman, and their long, vaporous fingers touched her face and hair with a caressing sadness.
The next moment, they were gone.
Lady Daylily sank to her knees and collapsed on her side, deep in the heart of the Wilderlands.
7
PART OF THE LIFETIME BATTLE that comprises Growing Up is learning (then relearning, then relearning again) that you can never go Home.
Home, that ephemeral world of warm, comforting, familiar love where a place is always set for you, where the conversation ever turns to topics in which you can enthusiastically participate, where the food tastes better, and where you sleep most restfully at night . . . it doesn’t exist.
In the all-too-real world, people change. Places change.
Over and over again Lionheart had swallowed this bitter pill, and yet it never entirely ceased to surprise him. He himself had altered so much in the months—which felt like mere days to him—of wandering in the Wood Between. He’d faced the Monster. He’d died. He’d been raised up again a new, whole man, albeit with a scar on his chest where a unicorn’s horn had pierced his heart.
He had altered forever. Somehow, though he knew better, he’d assumed that the place he called Home would not.
A selfish assumption. After all, could he truly resent an entire nation for moving on and changing in his absence? Home was gone. In its place was this strange world, where his cousin stood in Lionheart’s shoes, where his father was weak and tottering, where Lionheart might only walk in disguise. Even the tiles beneath his feet felt unfamiliar and unwelcoming. In light of these alterations, those few things that still looked to Lionheart as they once had took on an aura that both repelled and saddened him.
No, there could be no going Home. There could only be going on.
So that’s what he would do. Was he not Childe Lionheart now, servant of Farthestshore, knight in training? The journey to knighthood was his home now; a lonely home, perhaps, but a better one than he had yet known.
“Make peace with your father,” the Prince of Farthestshore, his new liege lord, had told him. Well, he’d done that. He’d faced the man he’d once looked to as a near-godlike figure, seen him reduced to mere shreds of manhood, and he’d made his peace.
Lionheart felt a dullness where his heart should be and knew, though he wouldn’t admit it, that he wept inside. The Eldest was dying. He wouldn’t last the year, probably not even the summer. And then who would sit in his place? Not his son. That young man, who consorted with dragons and demons, could never be trusted to rule Southlands.
“Here’s an idea. Let’s make Foxbrush Eldest instead!” Lionheart muttered under his breath.
By cover of night he crossed the Eldest’s grounds, away from the House and the many people who might recognize him there. His face was unpleasant with scowls, and he knew he should not allow himself to indulge in such bitter thinking. After all, did he consider himself a better man for the job? Recent history had done nothing but prove his lack of worth, his cowardice, his foolishness.