Shadow Hand (Tales of Goldstone Wood Book #6) by Anne Elisabeth Stengl Read Free Book Online Page B

retreat. The more still the air grew, the more frozen the silence, the more determinedly she strode, yanking her skirts with uncaring rips every time they caught on branch or stone. She liked that sound. It was like the sundering from her old life made audible.
    And she thought, I should have done this years ago.
    She didn’t expect to survive. No one who entered the Wilderlands ever came back, and it didn’t take a great deal of imagination to guess why not. But for the moment, she didn’t care. She gloried. Had she been the type to crow in victory, she would have crowed! Instead, she merely smiled grimly and grabbed her skirt in both hands to give a particularly violent tug when it caught in a thornbush. The tear ran almost to her knee that time.
    “You ought to let it go.”
    Daylily had once boasted a rather fixed notion of the world and its workings. Recent history had made fair headway into reorienting those fixed notions; recent history and the all too real Dragon. Indeed, as far as Daylily was concerned, the world could stand on its head and sing love ditties, and she would hardly bat an eye anymore.
    Thus, when the songbird fluttered onto a branch near her head and sang a song that became words she understood, she did not startle but merely turned to give him an appraising glance. He turned his head to look at her with one bright eye and chirped innocently. Daylily was not fooled.
    “If you are going to give personal recommendations, you need to be rather more specific,” she said to that bird. “Otherwise, I shall be obliged to ask obtuse questions. Such as ‘ What ought I to let go?’ for example.”
    The bird—which was good-sized for a songbird and sported a speckled breast—ruffled his feathers at her but without malice. Then he sang, “You know of what I speak.”
    “You assume a great deal for a bird,” Daylily replied.
    “I never assume. I know.”
    “Isn’t that nice for you, then?”
    “More to the point, it is everything for you.”
    Not a muscle on Daylily’s face moved. Her eyes did not narrow; her jawdid not clench. She might have been bored for all her features revealed. When she spoke, her voice was far too calm.
    “I remember how this works. It’s been some years since I’ve read Eanrin’s Rhymes for Children , but I remember well enough. Mortals enter the Faerie Forest, and all sorts of beasts and unsavory characters intercept them along their way, plying them with misguidance, etcetera. And the moral of each story is never to be swayed from your path.” She straightened her already perfectly straight shoulders. “I’ll not be persuaded; I’ll not be turned. I’ve made my decision, and it’s best for everyone involved. And I’ll thank you not to pry.”
    With that, Daylily gathered the remnants of her skirts and continued on her way. There was no path, at least none that she could see, only tall trees and green undergrowth. Something was not quite right about this Wood; something beyond a bird singing to her in a voice she understood. She paused a moment and looked down at her feet.
    One can look a long time at a phenomenon without recognizing it for what it is, especially if one is tired after narrowly escaping a wedding. So Daylily stood for some moments, staring at her feet and wondering what it was she saw that struck her odd.
    When at last she realized, she gasped.
    Though the forest floor was thick with grasses and ferns and low-growing things, nowhere she looked was there any sign of decay. Not a withered leaf, not a dropped pinecone, not a red needle off a pine bough.
    “The Wood Between knows little of Time,” sang the songbird. He had fluttered from branch to branch and perched on a twig no more than a foot from her face. “There are places, such as this, where leaves don’t drop unless disturbed by a strong gale. Even then, they do not lie to rot upon the floor, but vanish even as they fall.”
    “I don’t care,” Daylily said, still staring at the