“You told me you and your wife wanted me to help give you a baby; was that a lie?”
I had a moment to see him surprised by the question, before he schooled his face to polite blankness. It didn’t work as well with the bruises and blood, but he did his best. He was a noble of the Seelie Court; he knew how to hide his feelings.
“Answer her,” Doyle said in a growling deep voice.
“I don’t have to answer her,” Trancer said.
Detective Ivan stepped away from the wall, running a hand through his short, dark hair. He looked exotic, almost Asian, but not quite. “You don’t have to talk to us, local cops, or even Detective Tate here, because your diplomatic immunity means we have no authority over you.”
“See, I don’t have to answer any of your questions.” He sounded far too satisfied when he said it.
“You don’t have to answer our questions,” Lucy said, “but you do have to answer to your own people.”
“The princess is not one of my people.”
“Technically, I am a princess of both courts, but I’m not here as a princess.”
He actually sneered at me. “What then, as a private detective?”
I smiled, not pleasantly. I clenched my hands together in front of me, because if I lost control of my temper I didn’t want to hurt him by accident. No, if I hurt him, I wanted it to be on purpose.
“No, as Queen Meredith.”
“Queen of what?” And again he made it disdainful.
“Queen of the Sluagh, married and crowned by faerie itself to King Sholto.”
A flicker of uncertainty crossed through the one eye I could read well, but his arrogance climbed back into place almost instantly. “The sluagh are already electing a new king, and then you will be nothing to them. They are not a hereditary monarchy, so even if your babies are Sholto’s they gain no hold on the crown of the dark host.”
“The sluagh have voted to elect no new ruler until King Sholto’s murderer is punished. Until then, I am Queen Meredith the First, of the Sluagh.”
I saw the first hint of fear, but he conquered it quickly and was back to arrogance. “I don’t believe you.”
“It is unprecedented in all their long history, so I can understand you not believing it, but you don’t have to take my word for it.” I looked back over my shoulder and said, “Doyle, could you ask Barra to come inside, please?”
He went to the door without a word, spoke low, and held the door open. Barra didn’t walk in; he crawled sideways around the wall of the door frame and flowed up to hang on the ceiling above me, which put him above the table, and our prisoner—who stared up at the nightflyer with undisguised fear on his face. Good.
But Trancer was made of stern stuff, and though he couldn’t quite control his face, his voice was unconcerned. “Almost every type of fey has been exiled at one time or another. One nightflyer in the Western Lands proves nothing.”
“Oh, is that all,” I said. “Doyle, if you please.”
He opened the door again and the nightflyers flowed inside like writhing, fleshy water, until they covered the ceiling and most of the walls.
I spared a glance for Lucy and Detective Ivan; they had both been introduced to the nightflyers and knew the plan. One of the reasons Detective Ivan was the local policeman in the room was that he was the one who had had the least amount of discomfort interacting with them. Lucy had visited with us at the main house, so she knew that fey came in many shapes and sizes.
Trancer wasn’t pale, he was gray from fear. He had to lick his lips twice before he said in a strained voice, “They could not have traveled here this quickly.”
“You thought that once Sholto was dead no one else could open the way for his sluagh, didn’t you, Trancer?”
He just stared at them; the skin near his one good eye had started to twitch. “This is not possible.”
“Who is the Queen of the Sluagh?” I asked.
They answered in a hissing chorus, “You are, Queen Meredith.” The last syllable of my name hissed nicely in echoes around the room.
“Are you expecting Taranis to rescue you, Lord Trancer?” I asked.
There was the barest flicker of confirmation in his face, quickly hidden between a mixture of ongoing fear and the last bit of arrogance he could muster. “He is the only king I acknowledge.”
“But there, you see, Trancer, we have a problem.”
“I have no problem, for I am a noble of the Seelie Court and neither the humans nor you have authority over me.”
“Actually, we contacted the Seelie Court and they don’t give a damn what we do with you. In fact, the various factions seem to be very busy disavowing all knowledge of your actions.”
He frowned. “What are you babbling about? The factions all bow to our one true king.”
“If you mean Taranis, he is no longer King of the Seelie, or of anyone anywhere for that matter,” I said.
“Your lies will not trick me,” he said.
“It is true that Taranis was the absolute ruler of his court, and once given the throne it’s for life, which means in his case forever.”
“Your own words prove that you are lying,” Trancer said.
“There are only two things that could dethrone a King of the Seelie,” I said.
He blinked at me, and I could see him thinking. “The king is father of at least one of your brats, proving that he is not infertile.”
“Ironic, isn’t it,” I said.
He was recovering himself, burying his fear under centuries of court manners. “King Taranis knows who is loyal to him.”
I smiled a little wider. “Perhaps, but since he is no longer king, his loyalty is of absolutely no help to you.”
“What are you babbling about, girl?”
The nightflyers moved restlessly and it was as if the ceiling and walls breathed and flexed. It was unsettling even to me, and they were on my side.
“Neither my subjects nor I like you very much, Trancer. I’d try to play nicer with us, if I were you.”
He swallowed hard enough that I could hear it, and then said in a much milder tone, “What do you mean that Taranis is no longer king?”
“I told you, there are two reasons that a Seelie ruler will lose their right to rule. One is infertility, but there is one other. It hasn’t been invoked in a very long time, but it’s still irrevocably tied to rulership of the Seelie Court. Do you remember what it is? Because I do. I remembered it when Taranis invaded my dreams at the hospital.”
“He is still physically perfect; his arm was not deformed in reality, only in the dream. He said that he saw it twisted from the corner of his eye, but none of the rest of the court could see it, because it was not real.”
“Not the first time, no,” I said.
“You are lying now; no one can cause true harm in dream. That power was lost to us long ago.”
“Taranis was able to make this dream much more real. I couldn’t break free of it. Maybe it was the drugs the hospital gave me to help with the shock I went into after my king died in my arms, or maybe Taranis recovered more of his own power over dreams. I suppose we’ll never know, but as he made the dream much more real, and much more frightening, I was able to make my magic much more real, too.”
“You didn’t … you couldn’t have.”
“I could, and I did. Whatever power, or favor, Taranis offered you to assassinate Sholto, he can’t pay it now, because as an ex-king he has no access to the treasury, and no ability to make political appointments or give out noble titles. All he can offer now is his friendship. Is that enough, Lord Trancer? Is the friendship of a fallen king payment enough for you to have assassinated a king?”
“You are just trying to manipulate me into a confession of some sort.”
“I do want to know who else is involved in the plot to assassinate King Sholto, Prince Doyle, and Prince Mistral, that is true.”
His arrogance slipped away and what color he’d regained went with it, so that he wasn�
�t just gray, but pasty gray, as if he were suddenly ill.
“You’re wondering who told me exactly which of my men was being targeted? I could pretend that someone else involved has talked, but the truth is so much better. Taranis himself told me. He confessed everything like a villain in a superhero movie, because he thought he would use a love spell and I would forget everything he told me, or be so besotted with him that I wouldn’t care.”
My anger rose, and with it my magic, so that my skin began to shine, just a little. It was hard to see in the fluorescent light, but Trancer saw it, because the fear made his one good eye flash white, like a horse about to bolt. I took long, even breaths to control my anger and the power. I glanced at the two police in the corner. Lucy gave the smallest shake of her head, telling me to calm down. Detective Ivan was wide-eyed, his hand going to a gun that wasn’t at his hip, because you weren’t allowed to bring guns into an interrogation room. Their reaction let me know that my eyes had started to glow, and maybe even my hair was starting to do that ruby luminescence. I worked until I could swallow most of that magic down, and then did my best to speak calmly.
“Taranis would have had me like some drug addict with him as my addiction. He meant to control me and gain control of my children, and for that evil plan he has paid with two of the things he values most in the world: his beauty, and his kingship.”
I stood up and leaned a little across the table. “Be careful, Lord Trancer, that you do not pay with the things you hold most dear.”
“What do you … mean?”
“If you will not name a conspirator, then I have to assume that your wife, Lady Fenella, was an active participant in the murder of my husband.”
“She knows nothing, I swear it.”
“Make me believe that, Lord Trancer.”
He made me believe it, because he really did love his wife. He bargained for her safety, and never tried to bargain for his own, because he knew there was no point. I’d looked into his eyes and seen that he loved his wife, and he’d looked into mine and seen his own death. We were both right.
CHAPTER
FORTY-THREE
WE HAD ENOUGH from Trancer’s confession to get the human authorities to limit Taranis to the Seelie Court’s sithen, not just faerie, but inside the Seelie Court’s mound only. They actually made it part of the National Guard unit that was still assigned to keep watch in Cahokia in case another battle broke out, to report if Taranis stepped outside the sithen. He had been the King of Light and Illusion, but his hand of power was twisted in upon itself so he could no longer use light as a weapon. He could still make illusions with his other hand, so that you’d believe almost anything he conjured on himself, or that’s what our friends among the Seelie report, but they also report that he can’t change the arm I damaged. No matter how perfect the rest of his illusion is, the arm remains deformed, foreshortened, with the hand half swallowed up somewhere close to his elbow. He had been able to stop my hand of flesh from turning him completely inside out, but from the elbow down he was a walking example of what my magic could do to even the most powerful among the sidhe. Everyone’s been much more respectful. Andais said it: People will follow you for love, respect, or fear. I preferred love, but fear would do.
Andais has continued to be the perfect aunt, until we finally allowed her and Eamon to visit in person. We made it a media event for the Queen of the Unseelie Court to visit her nieces and nephew. It was some of the best press that our court has had in, well, ever. Perhaps she behaved herself better because the cameras were watching everything she did, but the tears she shed when she held Alastair were real enough. He looks more like my father every day, so she says. His full name is Alastair Essus Dolson Winter after my father and his two genetic fathers, Doyle and Frost. Wynne, Gwenwyfar Joy Tempest Garland, actually seems to look like Rhys and Galen had a love child, but her magic is all Mistral’s. Her first name was the oldest Welsh spelling of Guinevere, Rhys’s choice. Then Joy to reflect my nickname, so that we’re Merry and Joy, and yes that was Galen’s idea, but he and Rhys also chose Garland, both because it’s a wreath of flowers and you wear it to celebrate victories and special occasions, but also for Judy Garland, because of Rhys’s love of old movies. For Mistral it was either Windy, Storm, or Tempest, and he chose his favorite of the three. We’ve all been doing our best to teach our budding storm princess how to control her temper and her powers. They seem to be more intense if she’s outside where she can see the sky; so far she’s only been able to call some clouds and a few raindrops if she throws a tantrum outside, but since Mistral’s rage can call tornadoes we’re working with a child psychologist to help teach the girls how to control their magic. Alastair seems to be the most normal baby of the three, so far. Our last baby is Tegan Bryluen Mary Katherine. Tegan was Sholto’s grandmother’s name on his father’s side, and Royal is happy with Bryluen because it means “rose” in Cornish and plant names are traditional among the demi-fey. Then Mary for me, and Kitto chose Katherine for his daughter because it could be shortened to Kitty, which looked like his own name. We’ve actually started calling her Tegan Rose, as if it’s one name. She’s learning to control her powers, too. Maeve’s son, Liam, is still insisting that Rose is his, the way you’d claim a puppy, but I have to wonder if her ability to fascinate might have had a lasting impression on the little boy. We shall see.
I’ve made it clear that I have no desire to sit on Taranis’s vacated throne. The many factions inside the Seelie Court scrambled to try to put their candidates on the throne, but through our friends among their nobles we suggested they let the sithen choose, as of old. Their faerie mound sang with joy when Aisling was finally allowed back through its doors, because now that Taranis was no longer king, all those that he exiled have a chance to return home.
Maeve Reed has no plans to visit, just yet. She’s still afraid of Taranis, and rumor has it that he’s convinced that he may find a cure for his arm, as the long-ago Lugh of the Silverhand did when he lost his hand in battle and had to give up the throne because of his lack of perfection, until a magical hand of silver was formed and he was made whole again. I think Taranis is lying to himself, but as long as he stays inside faerie and away from us we will let it lie. Do I want him dead for what he did to Sholto? Yes, but I want peace in faerie more. We’ll see how Taranis reacts as Aisling’s coronation gets closer; it’s going to be the first-ever faerie coronation to be televised live.
Andais would still step down and let Doyle and me have her throne, but we still don’t trust our safety inside either court, light or dark. I am content ruling the growing Western Lands of faerie, because it is spreading, and more enchanted land keeps appearing, here and there around L. A. They say that Hollywood is magic; they’ve never been more right.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
LAURELL K. HAMILTON is the New York Times Number One bestselling author of twenty-two Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter novels – the latest of which is Affliction – and the Meredith Gentry books. A Shiver of Light is the ninth novel in this exciting, sensual series.
Laurell lives with her family near St Louis, Missouri, in the USA. To find out more, visit www.laurellkhamilton.org
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First published in Great Britain
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Copyright © Laurell K. Hamilton 2014
Laurell K. Hamilton has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
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