“And perhaps if you had raised your son, as my father raised me, to be kinder, considerate, happy, then neither of them would be dead right now.”
She startled as if I had slapped her. “How dare you …”
“Speak the truth,” I said.
“So I must be this false self, this fiction of a cheerful, smiling auntie, or you will try to keep me out of the lives of my nieces and nephew?”
“Yes, Aunt Andais, that is exactly what I mean.”
“And if I said there is always darkness through which I can step and visit as I will, what would you say?”
Doyle said, “I would say that if it is death you seek, come unasked, unbidden, unannounced, and we will grant that wish.”
“You dare threaten me, my own Darkness.”
“I am no longer your anything, my queen. You cared for me not at all except as a visible threat by your side—‘Where is my Darkness, bring me my Darkness’—and then you would send me to kill on your behalf. I have a life now, and a reason to keep living, beyond just the fact that I do not age, and I will let nothing stand between me and that life.”
“Not even your queen,” she said, voice soft.
“Not even you, my queen.”
“So either I concede to your ridiculous demands or I lose all contact with the babes.”
“Yes,” I, Doyle, Frost, and Rhys said at the same time. The others nodded.
“Once I would have threatened to send my sluagh to the Western Lands and find you, or the babies, and bring all to me, but now the King of the Sluagh stands by your side and no longer answers to me.”
“You sent me to the princess, my queen.”
“I sent you to bring her home, not to bed her. You I did not choose for her.”
“You gave her the choice of all your Raven guards, and I am that, as well as King of the Sluagh.”
She looked at me, and there was threat and anger, and everything I wanted to keep away from our babies in her face. “You have stripped me of most of my threat, Meredith. Even the goblins answer to you now, rather than to me, and that I did not intend. That was your doing, niece of mine.”
“Essus, your brother, made certain I understood all the courts of faerie, not just the Unseelie. He wanted me to rule all, if I ruled any.”
She nodded and looked thoughtful, the anger gone as if she could not stay enraged and think at the same time, and that was probably truer than was pretty to think about.
“You are right, Meredith; it was you who bargained with the goblins so wisely, and you who seduced the sluagh to your side, and you who won the loyalty of my Darkness, and my Killing Frost. I did not see you as a threat to my power, but only as a pawn to be used and discarded if it did not serve me, and now here we are with you more powerful than I ever envisioned, and that is without a crown upon your head.”
“I did not have your magic to protect me, aunt; I had to find power where it was offered for it was not within me.”
“You wield the hands of flesh and blood, niece; those are formidable powers on the battlefield.”
“But if all I depended on was my magic, then I would not have Doyle, or Frost, or Sholto, or the goblins, or any of what I have won. I have killed only to save my life and the lives of those I love. My ability to kill, no matter in what horrific way, is not where my power lies, aunt.”
“And where does your power lie, niece?”
“Love, loyalty, and when forced being utterly ruthless, but it is kindness and love that have won me more power than any death I have dealt.”
She made a face, as if she smelled something bad. “Your hands of power may be Unseelie Court magic, but you are so”—and here she rolled her eyes—“the descendant of all those bloody fertility deities in the Seelie Court. Love and kindness will win the day, oh yes, oh my, my ass.”
“The truth is in the results, aunt.”
“I have ruled for over a thousand years; kindness and love will not see you rule for that long.”
“No, because I shall not live that long, Aunt Andais, but my children will and their children.”
“I’ve never liked you, Meredith.”
“Nor I you.”
“But I am beginning to truly hate you.”
“You’re late to this party, Aunt Andais; I’ve feared and hated you most of my life.”
“Then it’s hatred between us.”
“I believe so.”
“But you want me to come and pretend otherwise in front of your children.”
“If you wish to be their aunt in truth, rather than just by bloodline, yes.”
“I do not know if I have that much pretense in me.”
“That is for you to decide, aunt.”
She patted Eamon’s hand. “I understand what you were trying to tell me now. I will never be other than your aunt by bloodline, Meredith.”
“Agreed, Aunt Andais.”
“But you would give me the chance to be more to your children.”
“If you behave yourself, yes.”
“Why?”
“Truth, you are powerful enough that I would rather not go from hating each other to trying to kill each other.”
She laughed so abruptly it was more of a snort. “Well, that is truth.”
“But there is one other reason I’m willing to do this, Aunt Andais.”
“And what would that be, niece Meredith?”
“My father told me stories of you and him playing together when you were children.”
“He did?”
“Yes, he did. He would tell me of you as a little girl with him a little boy, and his face would soften and the memories gave him joy, and in hopes that my father’s sister is still inside you somewhere, I will give you a chance to show Essus’s grandchildren the part of you that made my father smile.”
Her eyes were shining again, but it wasn’t magic; tears glittered in her tricolored eyes. She swallowed hard enough I could hear it, and then she said, “Oh, Meredith, nothing you could have said would have hurt me more than that.”
“I did not mean to cause you pain.”
“And I know that you mean that, and that is the cruelest blow of all, my niece, my brother’s daughter, because you remind me of him. He should have killed me and taken the throne when Barinthus urged him to; so much pain could have been saved.”
“You were his sister and he loved you,” I said.
The tears began to fall down her face. “I know that, Meredith, and I will miss him forever.” She blanked the mirror with a wave of her hand as she began to cry harder.
CHAPTER
TWELVE
WELL, THAT WAS unexpected,” Rhys said.
“Merry made her cry,” Cathbodua said, and came to drop to her knees in front of me, her raven-feathered cloak spilling around her like shiny black water. The cloak always moved as if it were made of different things than it appeared to be, as if it were more liquid than solid sometimes, but then once it had given her the gift of shapeshifting, so maybe that was it.
I felt Galen shift where he sat by my legs. He didn’t always like Cathbodua. I felt Kitto flex underneath my slippers; he would have flinched if he’d not still been pretending to be an object. He was afraid of Cathbodua, though she’d not done anything to him to make him afraid; it just seemed to be an on-principle sort of thing for him. It seemed to be the same reason Galen didn’t like her.
Cathbodua wasn’t that close to either of them. She’d knelt far enough away from me to keep everyone in the room in view. Battle goddesses, even fallen ones, always seem to remember that you never look away from anyone who could hurt you, and that meant everyone in the room.
“I have only seen one other person who could move the queen as you just did, and that was your father, Prince Essus. Him I would have followed forever, and today I see that you are your father’s daughter.”
“Thank you, Cathbodua; that makes me happy to hear, for I loved and respected my father.”
“As well you should have, Prince
ss, but I will offer my oath to you.”
“I have not asked an oath of service from anyone,” I said.
“No, you have not; it was the queen who forced Prince Essus to take our oath to him. He would have trusted to our loyalty and love of him.”
Bryluen fussed in her sleep and I raised her to put her against my shoulder. She liked to be upright sometimes. I said, “Andais doesn’t trust love, only fear.”
“Essus understood that those who follow out of love are more powerful than those who follow out of fear.”
“There is no loyalty in fear, only resentment,” I said.
“You have been fair and gentle with those of us who would allow it, and fierce and ruthless with those who would not. I ask that you would take my oath so that I may serve you, Princess Meredith, daughter of Essus.”
“Once you give oath you are bound to me forever, or until my death, and I may not be as much my father’s daughter as you think.”
“You are more ruthless than he was, and if you fight, you kill your enemy. I have never seen you offer mercy to anyone who tried to kill you or those dear to you.”
“Shouldn’t that give you pause, before you tie yourself to me, Cathbodua?”
“No, because if your father had held your edge of harshness he would have slain his assassin and not let love stay his hand. He would have been forced to kill his sister and become king, and so much pain, death, and useless bloodletting would have been avoided.”
“Are you saying my father was weak?”
“Never, but he was softer than you are, Princess.”
I laughed. “I think most of the nobles would not agree with you.”
“Then they have not been paying attention since your hands of power manifested, Princess Meredith.”
“I kill because I am not the warrior my father was, and I never will be. I am too small to fight as he could.”
“Does it matter why someone has the will to win?” Cathbodua asked.
“I think it does,” I said.
“I agree with Cathbodua,” Galen said.
I looked down at him holding Gwenwyfar, sitting close enough to touch Kitto, his long leg close to the edge of the raven cloak as it pooled on the floor. He had that serious look in his eyes again; it was partly tiredness maybe, but his eyes looked older than they had before, as if his near-eighty years of life were catching up with him.
“Results are what matter, Merry, not motives. I think our friend Detective Lucy would say, leave the motives to the lawyers and the psychiatrists.”
“We are not police officers, just private detectives who help them out on crime involving our people.”
“That’s not what I mean, Merry,” he said, turning more toward me with the baby nestled and sleeping in his arms.
Doyle said, “I think Galen means that you will not try to win the battle with flair, or by some chivalrous code. If forced, you simply destroy your enemy; there is no mercy in you when lives are at stake, though outside that you are very merciful.”
“My father was six feet tall and muscled, and had centuries of training as a warrior, and one of his hands of power was usable over a distance. He could afford mercy in battle; I can’t.”
Bryluen moved against my shoulder, making a small sound. I started rubbing her upper shoulders in small circles, being careful of her wings lower down, though they seemed remarkably flexible. They were definitely more skin and reptile scales over bone than butterfly scales over exoskeleton. That strengthened Sholto’s view that sluagh genetics had given her the wings. I was still reserving judgment until the genetic tests came back.
“But that’s it exactly,” Cathbodua said.
It made me turn back to her. “What do you mean?”
“Essus thought as of old, when we could afford battles and assassinations, but we are in modern-day America now, and we need a modern ruler to see us through this strange new land of technology and social issues. You are the future, Princess, and for the first time in centuries I think our race has a future.”
“You mean the babies,” I said.
“Not just yours, Princess, but Maeve’s son, and Nicca and Biddy’s little girl. We are fertile once more thanks to you.”
“And all this because the queen cried,” I said.
“No, because you made the queen cry.”
“If I were as ruthless as you say, I would have sent Doyle to assassinate the queen months ago.”
“You want him alive more than you want her dead; that’s love, Princess.”
“Doesn’t that make me soft?”
“No,” Galen said, “because I know I would do anything to keep our babies and you safe, anything. Holding Gwenwyfar in my arms, seeing you there with Bryluen, doesn’t make me feel soft. It makes me feel fierce, as if for the first time I have things I’m willing to fight for, to kill for, if I have to, and it’s love that’s given me this new … resolve. I will not fail you again through hesitation, or lack of will; I will be the man you and our children need me to be.”
I could see that resolve in his face, so sure, so firm, so … resolute. I was happy to see it, because I’d feared for my gentle Galen in this sea of brutal politics, but at the same time it made me a little afraid, because I wasn’t sure that deciding to be harsher would automatically give you the skills to be that. I just didn’t know.
“Take my oath, Princess; let me give you my vow,” Cathbodua said.
“You wish to serve me until either your death or mine?”
“Yes, and if Goddess wills it, the babes in your arms will be as worthy of my oath as you and your father.”
“I pray that it is so,” Doyle said.
“So do I,” Frost and Mistral said together.
Everyone agreed, and I said a silent prayer. “Please, Goddess, let our children be worthy of the loyalty and love of their people.”
Rose petals began to fall from the air above my head like a sweet-scented yes. Guards moved from behind us to join Cathbodua where she knelt. The rose petals began to spread through the room as if the entire ceiling were raining roses.
I took their oaths, and I prayed to be worthy of them, because in the beginning most leaders mean well; it is later when the best of intentions twist into something darker. I knew that Andais, Taranis, and my grandfather, Uar the Cruel, were as much a part of my genetics as my father, Essus. There was more insanity than sanity in my family tree; I hoped that everyone kneeling in front of me remembered that.
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
MOST OF THE guards went about their business, because otherwise the hallway outside the dining room wouldn’t have been big enough for us to walk from there to the nursery. There were enough people in the house now that sometimes it felt claustrophobic, so I’d made it clear that outside of special circumstances, like impressing the queen or guarding me from her, less was more when it came to my retinue. So it was just me, the triplets, and their fathers, except for Mistral, who had gone off with the other guards to tend to something. He didn’t really enjoy the nursery duties and often tried to be somewhere else when diapers, bottles, and the like came up. I’d been debating whether I should make him do more of it or let it go. The other men were more than enough, so he wasn’t absolutely needed, but still, he was their father; shouldn’t he help?
The door at the far end of the white marble hallway opened, and Liam Reed, all of thirteen months old, saw us and grinned. Suddenly the hallway didn’t look stately, or cold, or like people in ball gowns should be gliding down it; it just looked like home.
If you’ve ever wondered why toddlers are called toddlers, all you had to do was watch one who was new at walking. Liam toddled toward us with one of the human nannies chasing behind. He was still unsteady after a month of walking, but he was getting quicker at it. He came staggering toward us as fast as he could, saying, “Babies, babies, babies!” He had a huge grin on his face and was just so excited. He’d been that way since we brought the triplets home. Kadyi, Nicca and Biddy�
��s daughter, who had just started sitting up last week, was apparently not “baby” enough for Liam anymore, because he was fascinated with the newborns.
Liam was as blond and blue-eyed as his mother, Maeve Reed, pretended to be for the human media, and so far he was just a really pretty baby with straight golden blond hair and big, pretty, very human-looking blue eyes. His skin was the pale constant gold of Maeve’s, like a pale but perfect suntan, easily passing for human.
Rhys scooped him up and said, “You want to see the babies?”
“Babies!” Liam said, at the top of his voice.
Gwenwyfar and Bryluen both protested with tiny cries. Galen and I started patting and rocking them automatically. It had been only a few days, but for a chance to sleep I’d learned to do what I could to soothe them. Only Alastair stayed quiet and deeply asleep in Sholto’s arms as we walked toward the nursery.
Rhys held Liam up so he could see Gwenwyfar first. “Baby!” Liam said, again at the top of his voice.
Gwenwyfar started to cry.
“Shhh,” Rhys said, “remember use your quiet voice.”
Liam turned a solemn face to Rhys, then leaned over Bryluen and said much more softly, “Baby.”
I smiled and moved her so that Bryluen could look back at Liam. He reached out very gently and touched her curls, tracing the tiny horn buds, which he seemed fascinated with, and almost-whispered, “Pitty.” Which meant pretty.
“Yes, Bryluen is very pretty.”
“Bree-lu,” he said, trying to wrap his toddler words around her name. He’d been trying for three days and that was the closest he’d managed.
I smiled at him. “That’s right, Liam. This is Bryluen.”
“Bree-lu-non.”
“Bryluen,” I said.
He screwed his face up into a picture of concentration and then blurted out, “Bree!”
We all laughed, and I said, “Bree will do.”
Liam smiled up at all of us, and then gazed back down at Bryluen, and said, happily and still a little too loud, “Bree!”
She stared up at him with those big, solemn eyes. He reached down and tried to pat her cheek but missed and poked her in the eye. Bryluen started to cry.
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