Most altered was his face. A growth of scraggly beard outlined his jaw and chin, making him look older than he was. Lines deepened around his eyes and mouth in the firelight, lines of worry and of fear, but also lines of—what was it? She could not say and did not like to guess.
“You are,” said Daylily, pushing her hair back from her face, “possibly the last person I expected to meet in this place.”
“I followed you.”
It was like an admission of guilt. He bowed his head and could not look her in the eye. A long silence stretched between, each considering the words that hung still in the air.
Then Daylily said, “That was foolish. I did not wish to be followed.”
She sat up then, wincing at the pain, and tried to move her left arm. Her shoulder protested, but she could feel for herself that the wound was not deep. She slipped the shoulder of the old, brown-woven shirt into place, and it scratched the wound and stuck to the dressing. “Now,” she said, “I will be going.” She looked down at the Bronze, still fast in her fist. “I . . . I must . . .”
We must find him.
“What was that?” Foxbrush asked, looking around, startled. He could have sworn he’d heard a whisper of many voices shivering about the room, darting round the walls and vanishing into the fire.
“I heard nothing,” said Daylily. She started to rise, but Foxbrush reached out and caught her wrist. She frowned but did not struggle. There was no need. One glance and he would wither and back down.
But this time he didn’t. He met her gaze, and though sweat beaded his forehead, he did not break it. “Daylily,” he said, “I came to . . . to tell you something. I had to follow because you must hear this. I . . . I won’t marry you.”
She blinked slowly and said nothing.
“Yes,” Foxbrush continued, still holding her arm. She felt his thumb moving nervously up and down over her skin. “Yes, I thought perhaps . . . They found my letter to you, you see, and I thought—”
“Oh,” said Daylily, shaking her head and nearly laughing. “Is that all? Did you think it was you who drove me to the Wilderlands?”
Foxbrush opened his mouth but settled for a swift nod.
Daylily laughed again, and it was very like the cold, bright laughs he’d known back when she was the darling of the Eldest’s court. Foxbrush, flushing so hot he thought his face would melt, hurried on.
“I won’t marry you, Daylily. I’ve made up my mind, and nothing can change it.”
“Is that so?”
“Not even your father. I don’t want you for my wife. So, you see, you’re free now. You can come home and . . . and . . .” He almost could not speak the words but forced them out. “And Lionheart has returned. If you want to, you can marry him instead, and I’ll see that it’s all right. I’ll still be Eldest, I suppose, and I’ll have some power.” The look on her face frightened him, so he rushed on at full speed. “And I’ve found a way to save Southlands! They grow elder figs here, and they showed me how to pollinate them, and there’s no other market in the Continent that can offer them. Our trade will reestablish, and everything will return to the way it was. We’ve . . . we’ve only got to find our way back to our own time.”
Daylily, smiling softly, listened to this speech, saying nothing but shaking her head so that her hair fell over her pale face. Only when his words finally trailed into nothing did she pat his hand and firmly remove it from her arm. Then she drew herself up.
“I do not wish to return to Southlands. And I’ll not marry anyone.”
Foxbrush felt his stomach drop. He saw the truth in her face.
“You go home, if you can find the way,” she said. “You go home, and you save Southlands, and you do what you like with your kingdom. But I have a place here now. You see, I too intend to save Southlands.”
She rose, clutching the Bronze to her stomach with both hands, and stood over Foxbrush, looking down on him. “I have no use for the poisoned country of our time. But this Southlands, this Land is rich, and thriving, and full of life. It’s—”
Mine!
“—where I’m meant to be. I came here to escape, but I know now that it was for a much greater purpose. Powers beyond our knowledge drive us, Foxbrush. They always have. First the Wolf Lord, then the Dragon, and now, here, beyond the Wilderlands, greater powers still! We cannot always fight them. We must join them and be—”
Mine!
“—made whole.”
With that, she lifted her hand and, to Foxbrush’s unending surprise, caressed his cheek. “I wish you well, crown prince, and I hope you’ll find your way home. But this is my home now, and I’ll not return with you to poison.”
He tried to swallow, but his mouth was too dry. When he spoke, his voice came in a sad crackle. But the words themselves surprised him as much, perhaps more, than they surprised Daylily. “What do you know of the missing firstborn?” he asked. “Of the missing children?”
Her hand still resting on his cheek went suddenly cold. Behind her eyes something moved, something desperate and struggling. But her face was an unyielding prison.