The Charnel Prince - J. Gregory Keyes [104]
Maybe they didn’t know she was here.
A cloud passed across the moon, and the shadows in the trees deepened, seemed to slink toward her.
That was when she remembered that there were no shadows in this place, not under the sun, at least. Then why should they be here when it was night?
She was starting to think she wasn’t in the same place at all.
And it dawned upon her that she had been wrong about another thing. There was someone there, someone her eye kept avoiding, would not let her stare straight at. She tried harder, but each time she turned one way, she found herself looking another, so the tall shadow was always at the corner of her eye.
A soft laugh touched her ears. A man. “What is this,” a voice said. “Is this a queen, come to see me?”
Anne realized she was trembling. He moved, and she gritted her teeth as her head turned in response, so as not to see him. “I’m not a queen,” she said.
“Not a queen?” he asked. “Nonsense. I see the crown on your head and the scepter in your hand. Didn’t the Faiths tell you?”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” Anne said. “I don’t know any Faiths.” But she knew she was lying. The women she had met here before had never named themselves, but that name seemed very right, somehow.
He knew, too. “Perhaps you do not know them by name,” the voice purred, echoing her thoughts. The shadows drew closer. “They are known by many. Hagautsin, Vhateis, Suesori, Hedgewights—the Shadowless. It doesn’t matter what they’re called. They are meddlesome witches with not nearly the wisdom or power they pretend to.”
“And you? Who are you?” Anne tried to sound confident.
“Someone they fear. Someone they think you can protect them from. But you cannot.”
“I don’t understand,” Anne said. “I just want to go home.”
“So you can be crowned? So you can become what the Faiths predicted?”
“I don’t want to be queen,” Anne replied truthfully, continuing to edge away. Her fear was a bright cord around her heart, but she reached for the power she had unleashed in z’Espino. She felt it quivering there, ready, but when she reached toward the shadow, there was no flesh, no blood, no beating heart. Nothing to work upon.
And yet there was something, and that something came suddenly, racing across the green from not one direction, but from all of them, a noose of darkness yanking tight. She balled her fists, trembling, and turned her face to the moon, the only place her flesh would let her look.
Light flashed through her, then, and the thing in her turned altogether different and she felt like marble, like luminescent stone, and the darkness was a wave of chill water that passed around her and was gone.
“Ah,” the voice said, fading. “You continue to learn. But so do I. Do not hold your life too dear, Anne Dare. It will not belong to you for long.”
Then the shadows were gone, and the glade was filled with perfect moonlight.
“He’s right,” a woman’s voice said. “You do learn. There are more diverse powers in the moon than darkness.”
Anne turned, but it wasn’t one of the women she had seen before. This one had hair as silvery as the lunar light and skin as pale. She wore a black gown that flashed here and there with jewels and a mask of black ivory that left her mouth uncovered.
“How many of you are there?” Anne asked.
“There are four,” the woman replied. “You have met two of my sisters.”
“The Faiths.”
“He named to you but a few of our names.”
“I’ve never heard of you by any names until now.”
“It has been long since we moved in the world. Most have forgotten us.”
“Who was that? Who was he?”
“He is the enemy,” she said.
“The Briar King?”
She shook her head. “The Briar King is not the enemy, though many of you will die by his hand. The Briar King is a part of the way things were and the way things are. The one you just spoke to is not.”
“Then who was he?”
“A mortal, still. A thing of flesh and blood, but becoming more. Like the world, he is changing. If he finishes changing, then