Moonblood (Tales of Goldstone Wood Book #3) (16 page)

With a shudder, he stepped around the cat and began striding across the grounds. The cat trilled and kept pace at his heels. He followed Lionheart all the way to the gate that opened onto the road leading up the mountain. The forests were thick beyond Hill House’s grounds. Thick and full of secrets.

“You should find her, Leo,”
Daylily had said.

“I don’t know where to begin,” he whispered.

“This forest is as good a place as any,” said the cat.

Lionheart lifted the gate latch and stepped through to the road. The cat slipped out of the yard behind him. Tail high, he trotted ahead of him up the way, then turned around to say, “Follow me, mortal. I’ll show you the Path.”

“What path?” Lionheart asked. “Where do we go?”

The cat replied, “To the Wilderlands.”

The creature dashed up the road, then turned suddenly and plunged into the dense growth of the forest, his orange tail flicking out of sight. Adjusting his grip on Bloodbiter’s Wrath, Lionheart hastened after him.

He would find Rose Red. He would find her and apologize. Somehow, he would make amends for his betrayal. And if it was already too late, he would find her remains and bury them and raise a marker in her honor. After that . . .

But he could not think so far ahead.

The forest swallowed him up.

2

B
EHOLD THE
P
ALACE
V
AR
. It is built of mirrors and reflections. It smells of roses. It is swathed in veils.

King Vahe of Arpiar conceived and constructed this edifice in ages long past. It is a wonder of which heaven might boast. Architects of the Near World could but dream of its design, the sacred geometry of its proportions, and upon waking they built marvels of stone and wood—Barareaksmey Temple in the Far East, the Eldest’s House in Southlands, Amaury of Beauclair, and fair Oriana by the sea. But these were pale imitations of Var, and their architects must either forget their dreams or despair.

For centuries, Vahe walked the corridors of Var, breathing the perfume of roses, drinking in the varieties that he himself, by his own power and no other’s, fabricated. It was a work of great pride. It was a wonder beyond compare.

For centuries, it had been his prison.

Graceful statues of his forebears filled Vahe’s assembly hall. These statues raised their white arms to support the vaulted roof, but their faces were downturned. Stone eyes watched the king seated upon a throne of roses. Just as Var was without peer in the worlds, so was its master. Vahe of Arpiar was more beautiful than all the angels ever worked in paint or marble relief. His face was of such perfect proportion that those of lesser beauty found it difficult to look upon him, and his skin was gold-kissed and smooth. Eyes of purest silver pierced the faces of his subjects, reading their deepest thoughts. All knew there could never be a more dreadful beauty than that of the King of Arpiar.

At his right hand sat the queen, who, though not so gorgeous as her husband, was a worthy consort for any Faerie king. Her face was still, her eyes downcast, and bloodred roses crowned her black hair.

On a low stool before the king and his queen sat their daughter. She wore a veil of fine black lace, but through that lace, one could just discern features so delicate that many wondered if she might rival her father’s beauty. All her subjects adored her, though none had seen her face or heard her speak. She was their princess. That was all they need know.

The king waited with the queen and the princess, and all his court waited with him, though for what they did not know. A warm sun gleamed through tall windows, and roses unfurled their sumptuous petals both outside and within. Then the doors of Var opened, and the roses closed up, hiding their faces.

For the unicorn appeared.

At the sight of it, even the statues trembled on their pedestals and tried to draw back. Only their limbs would not move. They wished to close their eyes, but their stone lids would not drop. So they watched as the unicorn stepped through the door, passing through space and time without touching either. And all the courtiers of Var fell to their knees and covered their faces, unable to move for fear of drawing the unicorn’s eye. Slowly, they slinked into shadows, escaping the hall like silent specters.

The unicorn paid them no heed. It drove before it a mortal boy whose face was empty. Fear had so overwhelmed his senses that his mind had fled him completely. The unicorn prodded him from behind with its cruel horn until the Boy at last stood before the two thrones and the low stool.

If King Vahe himself shivered in the presence of the unicorn, he did not show it. His voice was steady when he spoke.

“Have you done what I asked?”

It had.

“And this mortal standing with his mouth agape, this is a fit instrument for the work I require?”

It was.

The king nodded. “Step forward, Boy.”

The unicorn’s gift, his jaw slack, did as he was told. Hollow eyed, he gazed up at the beautiful king, the lovely queen, and thought nothing.

Vahe stood. His robes were made of rose petals cleverly woven together, and they smelled of heaven. He plucked a bloom of delicate pink from his rose-woven throne and approached the Boy. The scent from that single rose was enough to overwhelm the senses, both pleasant and a little sickening in its potency. Vahe fingered the flower as he studied the Boy’s face. The king was very tall, and his eyes were like diamonds in his stern face. The Boy trembled.

Then suddenly, King Vahe’s face melted into a tender expression of pity. “Dragon poison!” he cried, putting out a hand and gently taking the Boy’s chin, turning it this way and that as he studied his face. “It’s worked through your veins. You poor lad! No wonder the unicorn brought you to me.”

The Boy wondered if he should be concerned. He wasn’t entirely certain how to be.

“Tell me,” said Vahe, “did no one attempt to heal you of this terrible hurt?”

The Boy’s mouth moved several times before words came. “I don’t . . . know.”

“Have you no friends? No family to whom you could turn for help?”

“I don’t know.”

The king closed his eyes a moment, and when he opened them again, the Boy saw glistening tears. “Friendless. And so young! Boy, you have my sympathies.” Vahe released the boy’s chin. “Have no fear,” he said, taking a step back. “You are come to Arpiar now. To a realm that opens its arms to the outcasts of this world. The rejected. The wounded. You may make your home here, and the power of my roses will prevent the poison in your blood from conquering you. What do you say to that?”

The Boy tried to think, but nothing happened. He glanced at the unicorn, fairly certain he remembered something frightening standing over there. But the unicorn had hidden itself from his sight, though it stood so near that the Boy could feel the heat of its body. He decided that what he could not see could not hurt him, so he twisted his gaping mouth into something like a smile.

“I’d like to stay,” he said.

“If you would,” the king said, smiling, “you must accept me as your king and be ever loyal to me. Will you agree?”

“Um. Yes?”

Vahe’s smile was something rather terrible. It was a smile that inspired devotion, and the Boy felt weak before it. “Here,” said the king, holding out the pink rose. “To seal our agreement. Take it.”

The Boy reached for the rose. When his fingers closed around the stem, he gasped as a thorn sank deep into the fleshy part of his hand. He dropped the flower, but Vahe caught it. Three pink petals fluttered to the floor, vanishing before touching.

The Boy started to put his hand to his mouth, but the king said, “Stop! Let me see.”

Obediently, the Boy held out his hand, and Vahe turned it to better inspect the wound. “The thorn is still imbedded. Here. Allow me to pluck it out.”

The king’s fingers were swift. The Boy scarcely had time to yelp before the thorn was extracted. A great drop of blood swelled and spilled from his hand, landing in Vahe’s outstretched palm.

The king’s fingers closed over it.

Vahe offered the rose once more, and the Boy accepted it more carefully this time. As he sniffed it disinterestedly, the king turned to his queen, who had sat watching the proceedings.

“You see, Anahid,” Vahe said, raising his closed fist. “My Lady will see my dreams through, no matter what you try.”

The queen said nothing. She lifted her silent gaze to meet that of her husband, and met his smile with a smile of her own. Anyone who looked at her could see in a glance that she would slit Vahe’s throat if given the chance.

Vahe offered her his arm, and the queen took it, rising from her throne and moving with him across the assembly hall. The king motioned for the unicorn to follow, and it, on feet so delicate that they would not turn a blade of grass, fell into step behind them.

At the door of the hall, Vahe paused and looked back to where his daughter continued to sit on her stool. “Watch over the Boy, will you, sweet child? See to it that he doesn’t become lost.”

Then they were gone, king, queen, and beast. The Boy stood gazing up at the stone faces of the statues looking down on him. They were lovely, almost as lovely as the king who had so kindly offered him refuge. He found his heart swelling with love for them, love for King Vahe, love for this wonderful, strange place. The taste of that love was as sweet as the rose he held.

He turned to the princess.

“Hullo,” said the Boy.

She nodded without looking up.

“What’s your name?”

“They call me Varvare,” said she.

The Boy tried the name out, thought it odd, and shrugged. Then he asked, “What is my name?”

“I don’t know,” said Princess Varvare.

3

L
IONHEART HAD LEARNED
of the Wilderlands in two ways. The first when he was a small child, scarcely old enough to speak but old enough to hear and to comprehend more than his caretakers ever guessed. His nursemaid, a quiet little woman who, in retrospect, he thought must have been quite young, would hold him gently in her lap and speak in a low voice. Some of her talk was nonsense—nursery stories and rhymes that children grow up knowing without recalling where they first heard them. Like the limerick:

There once was a cat with no eyes

Who visited town in disguise.

He sang to the king

And purred for the queen;

He fooled the whole court with his lies.

In the same soothing voice, a voice that beckoned sleep no matter how a little boy might squirm in protest, his nursemaid told of great histories, of heroes, of ancient days. Upon her knee, Lionheart first heard of Maid Starflower and the Wolf Lord; he listened wide-eyed to the tale of the Dragonwitch and the burning of Bald Mountain; he learned how King Shadow Hand bargained with a Faerie queen to save Southlands from invasion. The histories of his kingdom blended as naturally into legends as cream into tea, swirling in indescribable patterns, heightening the flavor.

Within these stories, Lionheart first learned of the Wilderlands.

“We see them,” whispered his nursemaid as the sun sank behind the horizon and evening washed the sky dark, “but they are not of our world. They are the Between. They are the Halflight Realm. Just as dusk and dawn are neither day nor night, so the Wilderlands belong to neither the Near World nor the Far. But within them the two worlds meet.”

The child Lionheart had gazed into her eyes, wondering. She spoke in the voice that meant she wanted him to sleep, but simultaneously it was not the same as when she recited those foolish rhymes and nursery tales. Beneath the soothing tone there lay a trembling truth, perhaps unrecognized.

“It is said,” she crooned, “that the Wilderlands extend across the Continent, but mortal eyes cannot see them. We see only those bits of the Wood that appear in the gorges, but in reality, it covers all this land and on beyond the Circle of Faces, all the way to Goldstone Wood in the northern countries. Some have told me—though I don’t say I believe them—that Goldstone and our Wilderlands are one and the same. Were we to see as the Faeries do, we would know that the Wood never ends. That the Between covers all worlds, all the way to the Final Water. Perhaps even Faeries do not see it. Who can say?”

Thus Lionheart learned of them first. Later, his tutors told him the broader facts. The Wilderlands were the romanticized name given that countryside below the tablelands that was, for all practical purposes, useless. The soil could not be turned, the trees could not be tamed, so the people of Southlands learned long ago to remain in the high country above the gorges and make lives for themselves there. Naturally, over the course of time, fantastic legends sprang into being to explain in mythic terms why the folk of Southlands never ventured into the gorges that cut the country with deep, uncrossable ravines.

But mythic or scientific explanations aside, one thing was certain: Nobody entered the Wilderlands.

Yet as Lionheart followed the cat into the shadows of the mountain forest, he realized he had done exactly that. No sooner did he step from the mountain path into the shelter of the enclosing trees, than he stepped into another world entirely.

He did not scream. He stood a long moment in absolute silence. Part of him wanted to turn around, to look and see if he could still find the mountain path and perhaps the gleam of Hill House’s gate behind him. But he knew he would not. He could feel forest extending all around him—and it was not the forest he had known as a boy.

A memory encroached upon his mind. No matter how he tried to force it back, it returned with vehemence. This was not the forest he knew. But it was one in which he had walked once upon a time.

Lionheart clutched the beanpole in both hands, squeezing until his knuckles whitened. He recalled himself as a young boy, up in the higher, treeless parts of the mountain as night began to fall. He recalled stepping into the forest that was not part of the world he knew, following a Path that held him like a captive. There were phantoms in that forest, dangerous phantoms that preyed upon his fear. If not for Rose Red, he would never have escaped.