This is my home.
They came at last to a great space bare of trees other than an enclosure of four walls of saplings. These were clad not in their own greenery but in the shining white of starflower blooms, pale little faces turned to the sky, reflecting the stars above. As Daylily drew nearer, she saw that the saplings, though thin, were far taller than she had expected, lifting the starflowers high into the night. Water flowed amid the trees, gentle and life-giving. This was a place of magic far deeper than spells or enchantments.
This was the heart of the land; the center that can neither be found on a mortal map nor seen by mortal eyes. It was the core from which the heart beat the lifeblood of a nation, of a people.
The warriors, holding the children tight, ringed round the starflower-laden trees, and they stood silent and solemn, Daylily in their midst with her Advocate, Sun Eagle, on her right. All faced inward to those trees, to those blossoms, to the water shining in the light of stars.
A wind arose and touched the treetops with cold fingers. Wherever it moved, starflowers fell in rain of gleaming white, like snow.
“How solemn it is,” Daylily whispered, to herself rather than to the boy she held. “Surely we wait for the voice of a god or a prophet. Something good is near.”
But the wind grew harsher, and it seemed to spiral from the tops of the tree branches down, down, down to the ground, scattering more starflowers as it went. And Daylily saw that wherever it touched, the trees were bare and dark. The valley itself, bereft of their light, fell into ever-deepening gloom.
A silver voice sang behind her ear. Daylily glanced over her shoulder and thought she saw the white breast of the speckled songbird flash in swift flight across her vision. But she shook her head and gazed once more upon the valley of the starflowers.
Suddenly a great light, like a shining crown, burst from the center of the darkened trees, and the trees themselves, stripped of their glory, fell before it in ruin. The Bronze stones around the necks of the warriors gleamed in response to the building light, and Daylily found her voice crying out with theirs in a chant she did not know she knew:
“From blood springs life! From life springs blood!”
Over and over again they spoke. And as the chant rose into the night, a shudder passed through the ground beneath their feet. The soil moved and shifted, bubbling up in the center of the broken grove. Then, like a terrible boil, something burst through the earth and rose up, eclipsing the shining light. Even the stars in the sky gasped and hid their faces behind clouds at what they saw taking place below.
Up from the heart of the land rose the Mound. Like a tumor it swelled, a black mass clutching at the soil with hands like roots. All over its rising head sprouted thorns, and green branches grew up, withered, and dropped their leaves at once.
The warriors ringing it bowed.
“From blood springs life! From life springs blood!”
The wolf in Daylily’s mind whimpered. No . . .
Then Daylily, along with the other warriors, stepped over the broken saplings, their feet crushing the petals of starflowers, grinding their lingering light beneath their heels. The children not carried followed as well, and they too trampled starflowers. The company descended into the very shadow of the Mound, and there Daylily saw a gaping hole in its side from which rose a black, hungry stench.
No! screamed the wolf.
Daylily turned to her Advocate, searching his face for some explanation. But she saw only solemn reverence building to awe. And his voice chanted along with the others, “From blood springs life! From life springs blood!”
He carried a girl child in his arms, and other children followed in his footsteps. He, like the other warriors ahead of him, approached the hole in the side of the Mound. Daylily advanced behind him.
Mine!
The voice came now from the Mound itself, bringing with it a waft of stink and decay and old, old blood.
Mine!
One at a time the warriors took the children in their arms and threw them into the hole. Daylily, last of all, the boy held tightly, drew up beside her Advocate. She gazed into that darkness and knew it for her own face.
Then she looked down into the face of the boy. But his eyes were full of the Bronze light, and he could not see her.
Mine!
She threw the boy in after the others. And the door of the Mound was shut behind him.
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