I wasn’t sure how I felt about him being just a piece of furniture for my feet. It must have shown on my face, because Kitto took my hand in his; his hand was the same size as mine, the only man in my life for whom that was true.
“I will be honored to act for you in this, Merry. I remember when the high kings, even among the humans, had virgins who held their feet so they did not touch the ground when the king sat upon the throne. It was an honored position, but you were not allowed to address the women at all. You had to treat them as the footstool for the king, and thus they were a part of the throne. If the queen speaks directly to me at all, it will be breaking protocol. I think she may talk to you about me, but I do not believe she will address me; besides, I am just a small goblin and she has never thought highly of me.”
I couldn’t argue that. There was some debate about what Kitto would wear, but not about his acting as my footstool. The other men agreed that he would wear the metal and cloth thong that I’d first seen him in; it was a lovely piece of workmanship, and it showed off his scales beautifully. Among the goblins if you had an extra bit of beauty, it was natural to dress to show it off. Though the fewer clothes you wore, the less dominant you were among the goblins; it was a way of showing visually that you were opting out of the near-constant battles for supremacy in the goblin court. By dressing as he had when I first met him, Kitto had been advertising that he was not a leader and didn’t want to be. There was no need to fight him, because his scanty clothing was a white flag of sorts. It had also marked him as a potential victim, if someone wanted to claim him as a sort of mistress, or concubine; there really was no good human word for a man in his situation, and among the goblins there was no word that differentiated between male and female for the role. Goblins didn’t care what sex you were, only how big, how strong, how tough. If a female was able to beat the shit out of enough other goblins, then she could rise as high in their ranks as a male. It was just rare, because their women, like most human women, had less muscle mass, size, and strength to back up their threat. It put women at a serious disadvantage in their culture, but then that was true among a lot of cultures.
The rest of the men had gone for the elegant warrior look. Doyle was in his signature black, but he’d put in the diamond stud earrings, to go with his usual silver rings that climbed up to the tops of his delicately pointed ears. He stood at my side, behind the throne, like a piece of the night made handsome and dangerous flesh.
Frost was at my other side in white and silver to match his skin, hair, and eyes, so that he was coldly elegant like a man carved of ice and snow. If Goddess could have taken winter and formed it into flesh and beauty, it would be the Killing Frost. His face was set in arrogant lines, the expression he wore when he was hiding his emotions. We would all hide our emotions tonight.
Rhys turned from where he was standing by the mirror and said, “Frost and Doyle look like bookends, light and darkness, balanced at your side, Merry.”
I glanced up and back at the two men and could only agree. It was in moments like this that I still marveled that these two men, the ones who had seemed the most remote, untouchable by any emotion I understood, were now my greatest loves and fathers to my children.
Rhys was in white as well, but whereas most of the men had chosen medieval dress or some older fashion, he was in modern dress pants with a pale blue T-shirt loose over them, and his cream-colored trench coat; he’d even added his white fedora pulled down at a rakish angle over his long white curls. He was wearing a new eye patch in a pale blue that complemented his remaining eye and made all three of the different shades of blue brighter and deeper.
“You look good, Rhys,” Galen said as he went to take his place beside the chair, “but I can’t tell if you’re doing Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon or a sexy ice cream man.”
Rhys grinned. “Well, I always go for sexy, and who doesn’t like ice cream, but film noir is where I get most of my clothing inspirations.”
Galen grinned back. “I just wear what I’m told to put on.” That wasn’t entirely true, because he had colors he preferred, but he was probably one of the least picky beyond that. He’d had less than a hundred years of my aunt choosing clothes for her guards, and he had never been a favorite, or far enough out of favor, for her to pay special attention to his appearance. That had given him freedom that the other guards had not had to find their own personal sense of style. Rhys’s style was personal, but he’d only been able to indulge his film noir kick here in California with me; before that the queen had dressed him to show off his muscles, somewhere between a pornographic warrior and disco. I’d always thought she did it to humiliate Rhys, or that she didn’t know what to do with him.
Galen was in pale green pants, untucked dress shirt, and a darker green tailored jacket. His pale curls with the one long braid always looked green, but his skin often looked just white; in the colors he’d chosen today his skin, eyes, and hair were all green. Only his soft tan dress shoes spoiled the solidarity of his color. He looked good in the outfit, but he didn’t look spectacular. Had he not cared? Had he thought the queen would pay more attention to everyone else, as she always had? Or perhaps he had chosen green defiantly, because it made it impossible not to think “pixie,” which was what his father had been—a pixie who had seduced one of the queen’s ladies-in-waiting, back before she’d exchanged them for gentlemen-in-waiting.
The queen had executed Galen’s father for his audacious seduction. How dare a lesser creature of faerie touch the sidhe of her court—and then the lady had come up pregnant and it turned out the queen had killed half of a fertile couple. Galen had been the only child born into the Unseelie sidhe once they arrived on American soil. She would not have killed Galen’s father if she had known in time. Her temper coupled with her absolute power had cheated her court out of more babies, as her temper and power had cheated her out of being welcomed into our home to see our babies like a normal aunt.
Now Galen was the father of royal triplets, and he’d dressed to remind the queen of his father. Galen wanted her to remember what her anger and arrogance had cost her, and him, once. It was both brave and smart of him. Brave because he was rubbing the queen’s nose in her mistake, and smart because it might remind her that a mistake here and now might cost her more.
It was very unlike Galen, so much so that I had to ask, “Who chose your clothing tonight?”
He walked toward me, smiling. “I did.” But again there was a new look in his eyes, harsher, more sure of itself. I had mourned it earlier, but now I welcomed it. I needed all the help I could get negotiating with the queen.
I raised my hand and Galen took it, raising it to kiss first my hand, and then lowering his tall frame to kiss me gently on the lips. We didn’t want to muss my bright red lipstick. He drew back with lipstick on his mouth, like a scarlet shadow of my smaller mouth between his lips.
“You’ll want to rub that off,” I said.
He shook his head. “I’ll wear your lipstick proudly, my Merry. Let her see that I am in your favor, and that I am one of the Greenmen who prophecy said would bring life to the court.”
“And remind her that your father might have brought more life to the courts if she hadn’t killed him,” I said, still holding his hand.
“That, too,” he said. He squeezed my hand and stepped back because everyone else was spilling into the room at once. The prearranged time for the call was close, and we needed everyone in place so we could look impressive for our queen.
Mistral came first, looking impatient and tugging at his tunic. It was dark burnished gold with brighter gold and silver thread worked into the puff sleeves and cuffs, and in a more elaborate pattern across the chest. The pants were a color between tan and gold and bloused over the rich dark brown leather of his knee-high boots. The boots and pants he’d worn before, but the tunic had spent many long years put away, because it was a reminder of the power and magic he had lost. As he walked into the room it was as if lightning reflec
ted down his long, unbound hair. Strands of it had turned gold, yellow, silver, a white so bright it nearly glowed. Some of that was a permanent color change, just a single strand here and there among the gray, but the flashing, reflected light that moved through all his hair came and went like lightning does.
His hair had changed in the last twenty-four hours, as if something had returned more of his power to him. He’d been holding Gwenwyfar, rocking her to sleep, when we’d noticed the first flash of light in his hair.
Now he strode into the room tugging at the tunic, and the colors in it brought out the strands of color in his hair, but I didn’t really think it showed off the flash of light. I thought solid black clothing might showcase the lightning display more, but we’d think about that for another night when we wanted to be impressive, or frightening.
Kitto came in, wearing his metal thong. He was smiling and said, “Nicca and Biddy are watching the babies.” That meant we could concentrate on meeting the queen without worrying that the babies would cry and need us, which was especially good since the pink dress was not a dark color. If the babies cried, any of the babies, sometimes my milk came down and the nursing bra wasn’t enough to stop it from staining. It was a mark of the blessing of the Goddess that I could nurse my children, but it was not convenient for looking serious and in charge.
Kitto went down on the floor so that my feet in their purple and pink flats could rest on his bare back. I’d felt that acting as my footstool had been degrading to him, but now that I felt him solid under my feet it just felt right, as if he grounded me, centered me. I felt less of an impostor dressed up to play queen, and more … queenly.
Sholto was the last of the fathers to stride in through the door, and he was in black, an outfit almost identical to the one he’d worn in the hospital when he wanted to be certain to be seen as a king. His white-blond hair was unbound around all the blackness and gleaming jewelry, so he looked both beautiful and frightening, which was the effect he wanted.
Behind Sholto came the guards, who were now just guards for me. We had all discussed it and decided that though our customs didn’t force me to limit my sexual attentions to the fathers of my children, there were already too many of them and not enough of me. So not every handsome face, beautiful body, dangerously armed guard, male or female, who came through the door was my lover. Honestly, most never had been, but sometimes it’s good to finalize the rules of a relationship, even one with a group as large as ours.
They fanned out around the room in their warrior garb, some in actual armor, but most in modern clothing with body armor under or over the clothing. Though in truth if the Queen of Air and Darkness wanted you dead, armor wouldn’t save you. Her name was not an idle title but named her two main powers. She could travel through the dark to anywhere else that was dark, and hear her name spoken in the dark. She could see in the dark without any light to aid her. The air she could make heavy, thick, until you could no longer breathe it and it felt as if your chest were being crushed by the weight of her magic. Andais was truly the Queen of Air and Darkness.
What good was armor against such magic? But they wore it all the same, because sometimes it’s not about whether it will actually stop the bullet or the blade, but more about drawing a line in the sand at your enemy’s feet. We hoped it would show Andais that we meant to fight rather than submit. All of us were exiles from her court, and almost all of us had suffered at her hands, some more than others. There were a handful of guards that Doyle had decided would not stand with us tonight, because he feared that their memories of what Andais had done to them would make them unable even to stand their ground, let alone fight if the need arose.
We had found therapists for the most damaged of our refugees from faerie. They had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. I wouldn’t have been surprised if most of us had a touch of it. You don’t have to be the one being cut up to be traumatized; watching it is enough sometimes. Those who were most fragile were barred from the room and given duties elsewhere. They could help keep the amazing crush of media from climbing the wall around Maeve’s estate, or help patrol the grounds looking for each new bit of faerie that appeared. It was as if the old lands were emerging in puzzle pieces in this bit of America where they had never existed, though faerie wasn’t a place you could reliably find on a map. It was more an idea, or ideal, of wild magic that had a mind and will of its own. Faerie moved at its own whim, and that of the Goddess and Her Consort. So the grounds were patrolled, searching for each bit of wild magic as it manifested. Already the lands inside the walls were much larger than ordinary senses said the walls could contain, which was wonderful, but Taranis had stepped through on the new lands, and so might the queen. The danger of that meant guards had to be posted, to warn the rest of us if either of them was seen. I think we all felt that we would lose a pitched battle against either the king or the queen, but if the alarm was given first, then even if the guard who discovered the breach died, there would be more warriors coming to defend us. And when I said “us,” I didn’t mean just my babies and me. Maeve and one other of our female guards had given birth here in this new Western kingdom of faerie. We’d run away from faerie to save our lives, and now faerie was coming to us, building itself around us. Doyle and I had given up our crowns to the Unseelie Court to save our Killing Frost, but the Goddess and the land of faerie itself wasn’t done. If we could not rule the Unseelie, it seemed likely we’d get a chance to rule something else, something new, something here.
I hadn’t refused Detective Lucy Tate’s offer of a safe house just because I thought it would get the nice policemen killed. I had refused because wild magic was everywhere around me and the fathers of my babies. In a human safe house surrounded by human police, we wouldn’t be able to hide just how much of the old powers were returning. What would the police have done if they’d woken up with their safe house growing an extra room overnight, or a new door that led to a forest that had never existed on the West Coast of America?
So we stayed inside Maeve’s walled estate and let it grow and become magical. I thought about the tree and roses in my hospital room. It had been miraculous even to the sidhe when such things first began appearing around me. Inside faerie some had faded, but others had remained and grown. Outside faerie they had faded over time in the beginning, but lately not so much. I hoped they faded, because we weren’t certain what the humans would do if they found out just how much magic was following me around.
Doyle and Frost’s positions at my back to left and right had been easily agreed on, but where the other men would stand had been more of a debate. Sholto had won the right to choose his place, because he was a true king in his own right and the Goddess herself had handfasted us and crowned me as his queen. The only issue had been when he tried to insist on standing higher than Doyle or Frost. I had to put my foot down on that, and he’d let me win with almost no argument, which meant he’d made only a token try. He chose to stand beside Doyle on the right of my chair. Rhys had wanted to mirror him beside Frost, until the others pointed out that because of his being six inches shorter than everyone else, he’d be mostly hidden behind whoever was in front. Mistral stood beside Frost, mirroring Sholto. That left Rhys beside Sholto and Galen beside Mistral. Kitto under my feet would not seem to be one of the fathers, and I’d told Royal he couldn’t stand at my side tonight. For one thing, Sholto was convinced that Bryluen’s wings were from his father’s side of the genetics. Even more importantly, if my third baby had truly been fathered after the twins were conceived, that gave credence to Taranis’s paternity claim. I didn’t want to help Taranis and his team of lawyers stake a claim to my children. I loved Bryluen already, but there was part of me that stared at her red curls, so like my own, and thought, So like Taranis’s hair. I prayed to Goddess that it was not so, but when so much wild magic and Deity intervention is everywhere, many things are possible, both good and terrible.
“It’s time, Merry,” Doyle said, his dee
p voice soft. He laid a hand on my shoulder as if he felt my nervousness.
I put my hand up to cover his, and said, “Then let us begin. Cathbodua, please let my aunt know we are ready to speak with her.”
Cathbodua stepped forward from the guards that stretched in a semicircle behind us. She had been part of my father’s guards once, the Prince’s Cranes, but when he was assassinated the entire female guard had been given to Prince Cel, the queen’s son. It had been against the rules and customs to simply transfer them to Cel. Once his master was dead, a guard was supposed to have a choice of either transferring his loyalty to another royal or going back to “private service” and being just another noble of the Unseelie Court. We had learned only in the last year that none of the women had been allowed a choice, and Prince Cel had made them into his personal harem. Some had become his torture victims, as some of the male guards had been for the queen, but some were not so easily victimized.
Cathbodua moved toward the mirror in a rustle of feathers, her raven cloak spreading out around her like the feathers it had once become. She still couldn’t transform into full bird guise, but she could communicate with ravens and crows and a few other birds to help spy out the land and look for danger. Her hair was as black as the feathers, so that it was hard to tell where one began and the other ended. Her skin was moonlight skin like mine, like Frost’s, like Rhys’s, but somehow when you looked at her you thought bone white, not moonlight. She was beautiful as all the sidhe were beautiful, but there was a coldness to her beauty that did not appeal to me. But then I wasn’t dating her; as a guard she was excellent, and that was all I required of her.
She touched the side of the mirror, and I heard the distant cawing of crows, like hearing your own phone ringing in your ear, knowing it’s louder on the other end.
We had all bet that Andais would keep us waiting, but we were wrong. The mirror fogged as if some invisible giant breathed along the glass, and when it cleared there she sat.
A Shiver of Light Page 10