Moonblood (Tales of Goldstone Wood Book #3) Read Free

question:
    “Did you fight the Dragon?”
    His fingers slipped, and the point of the fibula drove into his thumb. “Iubdan’s beard!” he cursed, chewing at the wound to stop the blood. The pin fell to the stone floor at his feet. Still cursing, Lionheart knelt to pick it up. He paused a moment to inspect it, for it was of intricate work and solid gold. The seated panther was the symbol of Southland’s heir. When he became Eldest, he would replace it with a rampant panther.
    “Did you fight the Dragon?”
    He closed his hand around the brooch. “I did what I had to do,” he said. “I had no other choice. I did what I thought best.”
    Of course you did.
    This voice in his head might have been his own. But it was colder and deeper, and it was no memory.
    Of course you did, my sweet darling. And now, with the Dragon gone, you will have your dream.
    “My dream,” muttered Lionheart as he gazed into the mirror once more and fixed the fibula in its place.
    He must make his way downstairs now to the half-constructed hall where a banquet was to be held that night. The scaffolds were pulled down for the week, and the signs of construction hidden behind streamers and paper lanterns. The Dragon had destroyed the Eldest’s Hall before he left Southlands, but rebuilding was well underway. And though the winter wind blew cold through the gaps in the wall and roof, the banquet must, for tradition’s sake, be held there, for this was the prince’s wedding week.
    A shadow passed over the sun.

    Lady Daylily sat in her chambers, gazing at her face in a glass that revealed a young woman who was no longer as beautiful as she had once been. Not that her beauty was far faded. But the poison that yet lingered in her lungs pinched her features, sallowed her complexion, and left her once vibrant eyes filmed over as with dull ash. She was still lovely, to be sure. But she would never again be what she had been.
    Her attendants bustled about her, laying out her gown, smoothing the long headdress as they pinned it to her hair, selecting furs to drape over her shoulders and protect her in the drafty Eldest’s Hall. Daylily must be as elegant as human hands could make her this evening.
    After all, the prince’s wedding week was hers as well.
    “Out.”
    The woman pinning the headdress into Daylily’s curls paused. “My lady?”
    “Out. Now.” Daylily turned on her seat. Her face was a mask. “All of you. I would be alone for a moment.”
    “My lady,” said Dame Fairlight, her chief attendant, “the banquet—”
    “I believe I have made myself clear.”
    The women exchanged glances, then, one by one, set aside their tasks and slipped from the room, closing the door behind them. Daylily sat like a stone some minutes before moving softly to her window. There she gazed out across the Eldest’s grounds.
    Like a prisoner gazing on the boundaries of her imprisonment.
    Daylily’s view extended over the southern part of the Eldest’s lands, off into the parks and gardens that sprawled for acres. These, like Daylily, were no longer what they had once been, ravaged by both the winter and the Dragon. Most of the shrubs and bushes had withered into dry sticks and would never bloom again, come either spring or frost. Only the rosebushes remained alive. But these had not flowered for twenty years and more.
    From her vantage point, Daylily saw all the way to where the grounds broke suddenly and plunged into a deep gorge. She saw the white gleam of Swan Bridge, which spanned the gorge in a graceful sweep. But she could not see the darkness of the Wilderlands, the thick forest that grew in the depths of the gulf.
    For the briefest possible moment, Daylily thought how she should like to throw on a cloak, slip from the House, make that long walk across the grounds to the gorge, and vanish forever into the Wilderlands.
    It was a wild fancy, and she shook it away even as it flashed across her imagination. After all, she was Lady Daylily, daughter