And the grey horses of the kings reared high as well, and the kings lifted their own voices and cried, “The child! The child!” in a chorus like moaning winds; and the company was afraid.
It was Kimberly who spoke while in her heart she was naming herself a fool: for this, this was the thing she had been trying to think of all afternoon and through the ride to this place of power.
“Owein,” she said, “we came here to free you. We did not know what more you needed done.”
He whipped his horse, and with a cry it rose into the air above her, its teeth bared, its hooves striking toward her head. She fell to the ground. He loomed above her, wrathful and wild, and she heard him cry a second time, “Where is the child?”
And then the world shifted again. It shifted in a way none of them, not one, neither mortal nor forest power nor watching god, had foreknown.
From the fringe of trees not far from her a figure walked calmly forward.
“Do not frighten her. I am here,” said Finn.
And so he came to the Longest Road.
From first waking in the morning after the storm he had been uneasy. His heart would begin to race inexplicably, and there would be a dampness on his palms. He wondered if he was ill.
Restless, he dressed Dari in his boots and coat and the hat their mother had made in a blue that came near to the blue of Dari’s eyes. Then he took his little brother for a walk in the wood around the lake.
Snow was everywhere, soft and clear, weighing the branches of the bare trees, piling in the paths. Dari loved it. Finn lifted him high, and the little one shook down a white powder from the branches he could reach. He laughed aloud and Finn lifted him up to do it again. Usually Dari’s laughter picked up his own mood, but not today. He was too unsettled. Perhaps it was the memory of the night before: Dari seemed to have forgotten the voices calling him, but Finn could not. It was happening more often of late. He had told their mother, the first time. She had trembled and turned pale and then had wept all night. He had not told her of any of the other times Dari had come into his bed to whisper, “There are voices.”
With his long strides he carried Dari farther into the grove, farther than they usually went—close to the place where their copse of trees thickened and then merged with the dark of Mórnirwood. It began to feel colder, and he knew they were leaving the valley. He wondered if Dari’s voices would be louder and more alluring away from the lake.
They turned back. He began to play with his brother, tossing Dari into snowbanks and piling in after him. Dari was not as light or as easy to throw around as he used to be. But his whoops of delight were still those of a child and infectious, and Finn began to enjoy himself after all.
They had tumbled and rolled a good distance from the path when they came to one of the strange places. Amid the piled snow that lay deep on the forest floor, Finn spotted a flash of color; so he took Dari by the hand and clumped over through the snow.
In a tiny patch of improbably green grass there were a score of flowers growing. Looking up, Finn saw a clear space overhead where the sun could shine through the trees. And looking back at the flowers he saw they were all known to him—narcissus and corandiel—except for one. They had seen these green places before, he and Dari, and had gathered flowers to bring home to Vae, though never all of them. Now Dari went to pluck a few, knowing how much his mother liked receiving gifts.
“Not that one,” Finn said. “Leave that one.” He wasn’t sure why, but something told him it should be left, and Dari, as always, obeyed. They took a handful of corandiel, with a yellow narcissus for color, and went back home. Vae put the flowers in water on the table and then tucked Dari into bed for his nap.