Ash shook his head. "We have survived together, Holly, and we will continue to survive together. I have heard the tales of our storytellers. I have glimpsed what once we were, and you and I will bring those glory days back to the goblins." He walked toward his brother, walking around Creeda as if she weren't there. She hissed at him as he strode past. The blade in her hand flashed silver but she put it away, in a sheath that was lost to sight among her nest of arms.
He got to Holly and laid a hand on his shoulder. "I will stand by you in all things, even your anger at our king, but do not get us killed when we are about to go on to such glory as the goblins have not seen in more than two thousand years." Somewhere in that speech was his acknowledgment that he wouldn't have let Kurag kill Holly; that he would have backstabbed the king before he'd have allowed that.
Holly made a violent motion to point toward us, his arm flailing. He shot a glance our way that was venomous in its hatred. "They left us to die. How can you go to their beds?"
Ash grabbed his brother's arms, fingers digging in deeply enough that you could see it from a distance. He shook him, just a little. "These sidhe did nothing to us. None of them is mother or father to us."
"How can you be sure?"
"Look at them, Holly, look at them with something other than your hatred." He actually turned his brother around to face us, and the look on that one's face was such a mixture of pain and rage that it was hard to meet. "There is no golden skin and hair among them. They are Unseelie sidhe, and they did nothing to us."
Holly looked almost ready to cry. Something I thought I'd never see on a goblin's face. Kitto cried, but that was Kitto. He'd ceased to be a goblin to me, and was simply himself. No matter how sidhe Holly looked, he was still a goblin to me. Genetically he was half-sidhe, but culturally and morally he was goblin. I'd treat him that way until he convinced me otherwise.
"I do not believe that this goblin can shine like a sidhe," Holly said, his voice angry and desperately stubborn.
"Make him shine, Merry," Kurag said. "He needs convincing."
"If we have your guarantee that Kitto will not be meat for every goblin who wants a taste of sidhe flesh, then I will make him shine for you. Without that guarantee, I think his fear may prevent it."
Kitto shivered against me. He'd turned his head enough to peek at the mirror again, but he clung to me limpet-like, as if afraid the tide would drag him away.
"No," Holly said, and tore away from his brother's restraining hands. "No, if he gets safe passage then all the trulls will want it." He shook his head, making his blond hair fly.
"Sadly, I agree with Holly, Merry. If one gains it, then it is a slippery slope."
I frowned at them, then said, "I am his lover. Does that make me his protector?"
Kurag looked like he wasn't sure what to say. Ash shook his head and said, "She doesn't understand what she's asking."
Kurag looked at Doyle. "Darkness, the princess is sidhe, but she is not you, or even the pale prince. She has not the strength of arm to withstand every goblin who will want to taste Kitto."
"She has spoken," Holly said. "She is his protector, let it stand."
"Yes," Creeda said, "let me be the first to fight her when she comes. I will have Kitto, and if I get to cut that pure flesh, so much the better."
I knew then I'd misspoken, but wasn't sure how to undo it.
"We will not bring the princess to your hall if she must spend all night fighting duels," Doyle said. "We would be poor bodyguards indeed to do that."
"Holly is right. If I grant Kitto safety, then the others like him will want the same. We are a more democratic people than you, and I am more ruled by my people's voice than any sidhe ruler." He shrugged his massive shoulders. "It works well for us, but Merry is not goblin. She would not survive the night."
"Are sidhe such fragile things?" Holly said, voice full of scorn.
"Don't make me cuff you again," Kurag said.
"I'm mortal," I said.
Holly's face showed his surprise, but it was Ash who spoke. "We thought that was an evil rumor bandied about by your enemies. You are truly mortal then?"
I nodded.
Ash looked perplexed. "Then you would die protecting the trulls."
Rhys moved up behind me, his arms sliding over not just me, but Kitto as well. He leaned his chin on the top of my head but let his hands wander over the smaller man's back.
"We are his protectors," Rhys said. His voice was very clear, and empty of emotion.
Kitto glanced up at him, and I was thankful that no one in the mirror could see the look of shock on his face. Rhys didn't look at him, just kept that blank face toward the mirror and Kurag.
For once the goblin king was speechless. I think we all were. Well, not all.
Creeda jumped up on the chair so she could get a better view, or be better viewed. "Did we give you a taste for goblin flesh, white knight?"
"Kitto is sidhe," Rhys said in a flat voice, "so say I."
"So mote it be," Doyle said.
There was a ringing in the air, not of actual bells or anything you could hear with your ears, but the words had weight and reverberated through the room. Kurag's face showed that he sensed it, too. Something important had happened. Something fated, some piece of prophecy had either begun or been changed so completely that the fates of all had changed in that moment. You can feel the weight of it, but you never truly know what it means, not until it's too late to do anything to change it. It could be days, or years, before we knew what had happened in those few words.
There was a sound from deeper in Kurag's room. It was a clattering noise with an edge of slithering, like a many-legged snake. I didn't know what the sound was, but Kitto went pale, bloodless in my arms, his body suddenly limp. If I hadn't been holding him, he'd have fallen to the floor. Rhys was on his knees, his hands on my shoulders, but kneeling tall behind me. I could feel the tension singing through his hands.
I wanted to ask what was wrong, but I didn't want us to appear weak in Kurag's eyes. Then Kurag answered the question for me, even unasked.
"I didn't call you yet." Kurag was angry, but there was an edge of resignation to it. As if the anger were mainly formality. Real anger, but he didn't have much hope it would help things. I'd never seen Kurag so... defeated.
A voice came just out of sight of the mirror. It was high and hissing, and first I thought snake, but it held that metallic buzzing to it that Creeda had, and there was no snake goblin in the queen. The voice said, "You wanted to show me off, didn't you Kurag? Show the princesssss that not all are asss ssidhe ass Holly and Asshh."
"Yes," Kurag said, and turned to the mirror. He looked solemn. "Know this, Merry: Not all sidhe-sides have taken after their sidhe parentage. Before you agree to this, you should see what will come to your bed." He looked at Rhys now, but that teasing edge was gone. "And not all our half-breeds are male."
"Don't do this, Kurag," Rhys said, and his voice was empty, but that emptiness was full of something, something that frightened me.
"She is part sidhe, white knight, and she wants her chance at bedding you again."
That clattering, slithering noise came closer, as if something were crawling and dragging itself along at the same time.
Kitto was making a high-pitched noise deep in his throat, a helpless keening. I held him tight, and it was as if he couldn't feel me. His body still lay limp in my arms, as if he was withdrawing into himself.
"What's happening?" I asked.
Rhys said one word, a name, with such hatred that it hurt to hear it. He said the name just as something crawled upon Kurag's great chair. Something that looked as if it had been sewn together from different nightmares.
"Siun."
Kitto screamed.
CHAPTER 5
Kitto's screams were high and piteous like the sounds a baby rabbit makes when the cat's got it. He scrambled out of my lap, across the bed, to fall over to the other side.
Frost rushed into the
room with a gun in one hand, and a sword in the other. He searched for an enemy, then just frowned at us all when there was nothing to shoot. "What's happened? What's wrong with Kitto?"
"Doesn't my little trullup want to greet his master? Have you forgotten everything I taught you, Kitto?" the thing on the chair said.
Doyle had gone to kneel by Kitto, and was trying unsuccessfully to soothe him. I heard the deep voice through the screams, but when Kitto finally found his words again, it was to say, "No, no, no, no, no." Over and over and over.
I'd tried to turn and help Kitto, but Rhys's hands had tightened on my shoulders. One glance at his face, and I knew that Kitto wasn't the only one who needed help. I didn't know what to do, but I stayed where I was, with Rhys kneeling so that his body touched the back of mine. I stayed there so he could lean against me and not fall over.
I turned back to the goblin in the chair and waited for my eyes to make sense of it. At first it looked like a huge black, hairy spider. A spider the size of a large German shepherd. But the head had a neck, and there was something vaguely human about the mouth; it had lips and fangs. There were huge black legs on either side of the bloated body that were pure spider, but the two hands that stuck out of the front of it weren't. It seemed to have eyes everywhere, and every one of them was tricolored in rings of blue. It raised up as if trying to get more comfortable on the chair, and flashed a glimpse of pale breasts. Female. I couldn't bring myself to call it a woman.
I never thought I'd see anything among the fey that I truly thought was nightmarish. I was Unseelie sidhe; we were the stuff of nightmares. But Siun was a nightmare for nightmares. If she had been a little less of one thing, and a little more of the other, it would have made her less terrible, but she was what she was, and there was no saving it.
That strangely shapely mouth, caught in the midst of all that black hair and those eyes, spoke. "Rhysss, how very, very good to ssee you. I still have your eye in a jar on my shelf. Come visit us again. I'd love a matched pair."
I felt a shiver run through Rhys, as if his entire body trembled in some unseen wind. His voice came out empty like a shell tossed on a beach, echoing with its loneliness. "If you didn't want us to agree to this treaty, you should have just said so, Kurag, and saved us all the time and energy."
I patted his hand that still gripped my shoulder, but I'm not sure he felt anything in that moment.
"Frost," Doyle said, "tend to Kitto."
Frost sheathed his sword and holstered his gun, moving to kneel beside Kitto. In day-to-day arrangements Frost and Doyle argued, but in an emergency all the guards obeyed Doyle. Centuries of habit were hard to break.
Doyle spoke as he moved to stand beside us. "What is your intention with this, Kurag?"
Siun said, "I wanted to see the pretty sidhe."
"Shut up, Siun." Kurag said it without looking at her, as if he just expected her to do it. Surprisingly, she did.
"I felt Merry deserved to see what you were offering her up to." Something close to his usual leer crossed his face. "Besides, Darkness, it won't be Merry in Siun's bed."
"It won't be anybody," Rhys said.
Doyle touched his arm. "You cannot intend that she will bed either Rhys or Kitto again."
"You volunteering?" Kurag asked.
Doyle blinked at him, unreadable. "What are you saying, Kurag?"
"If I agree to an extra month for every goblin you make sidhe, then you must agree to bring over every sidhe-side who wants to try it."
Doyle's black gaze flicked to Siun, then up to Kurag. "Why are you fighting this, Kurag? Why don't you want magic in the veins of the goblins again?"
"I'm not fighting it, Darkness, I'm agreeing to it, on certain conditions. I'm even giving Merry her month per goblin whom she brings over."
Doyle made a small gesture toward Siun. "To insist that we bed all who come our way is an insult."
"Would she be like this if one of your people hadn't raped one of ours?"
"Her mother wasn't raped," Rhys said, and his voice was still empty, still horrible to hear.
Kurag ignored the comment, but Doyle said, "What do you mean, Rhys?"
"She bragged that her mother had raped one of us during the last war." His hands dug into my shoulders until it almost hurt. "Don't blame this particular horror on the sidhe, Kurag. The goblins did this to themselves."
It was plain on Kurag's face that he had known the truth. "You have lied to us, Kurag," Doyle said.
"No, Darkness, I said, Would she be like this if one of your people hadn't raped one of ours? I made it a question, not a statement of fact."
"That is splitting the truth a wee thin," I said.
Kurag looked at me. He nodded. "Perhaps I have learned from the sidhe just how thin the truth may come."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Rhys said.
Doyle held up his hand. "Enough of this. Either we are going to agree to Kurag's terms, or we walk away and have the goblins for another two months, and only two months."
"I'll give you time to talk among yourselves," Kurag said. He raised a hand as if he'd wipe the mirror.
"No," Doyle said, "no, if we give you time you'll come up with some other reason to avoid this agreement. We do it now, today."
I looked at Doyle and could read nothing from his face, or his body. He was the untouchable Darkness, the left hand of the queen. The figure I'd feared as a child. Though admittedly I'd never seen him this unclothed. The Queen's Darkness wore clothes from his neck to his ankles to his wrists, all year, all weather. Once to see Doyle's bare arms had been tantamount to him being undressed in public, but here he stood wearing only the tiny black thong, and somehow clothes or no clothes, he was still the same untouchable, unreadable, frightening Darkness.
"Which of you will bed Siun?" Kurag asked.
"I will," Doyle said.
I was the one who said, "No."
"None of us touches her," Rhys said.
"We will make this agreement, Rhys," Doyle said.
Rhys was shaking his head. "No, I swore that I'd kill Siun when next we met. I swore blood price on it."
"You swore blood price?" Doyle asked.
Rhys only nodded.
Doyle sighed. "We agree to trying to bring over all the half-sidhes you have, Kurag, but this Siun must answer to Rhys when we come to your court."
"What if she kills him?" Kurag asked.
"Then the blood price is satisfied. We will not seek vengeance for it."
"Done," Kurag said.
"And after I have killed Rhysss," Siun said, "I will have his trull, my Kitto. I will ride him till he shines underneath me." She glared at Rhys with her dozen eyes, all ringed with blue, sky blue, cornflower, and violet. The eyes were lovely, and belonged in a different body. "Thisss one wouldn't shine for me. If you'd have glowed underneath me, I wouldn't have taken your eye."
"I told you then, and I tell you now. You can force yourself on me, but you can't make me enjoy it. You're a lousy lay."
She swarmed off the chair and was suddenly filling the mirror, as if she'd grown larger, all those legs reaching for us, those hands, and that strange half-formed mouth. She battered at the glass with her limbs and shrieked, "I will kill you, Rhysss, and the princessssss will not save Kitto. I will have him, and I'll make him sssshine for me!"
Kitto screamed from the far side of the bed. We all turned and looked at him. His face was pale, his blue eyes huge in his face. He flung out his right hand as he screamed, "Noooo!"
Rhys flung us both off the bed a second before I felt the spell shiver through the air above us. It was as if the glass had melted, and Siun began to slide through that melting. Head, one arm, her other arm flailing, searching for something to hold on to. She slid farther, fighting the fall, and not able to stop it.
Kitto put both hands in front of him as if to ward her off, and he screamed again, wordless this time, pitched high with terror.
Rhys pressed me to the carpet, covering my body with his.
There was more screaming, and not all of it was Kitto's. Doyle's voice said, "Let the princess up, Rhys." He sounded puzzled.
Rhys went to his knees, looking around the room, then staring toward the glass, and it was Doyle's hand that helped me to my feet.
Frost was holding Kitto, rocking him as you'd comfort a child. I turned to look where Rhys was staring.
Siun had stopped sliding through the mirror. Half her long black legs were on this side of the glass, and the other half were still back with Kurag. One of her hands reached into this room; the other was beating on the glass on the other side, as if trying to break it. She was cursing low and steady. She tried to struggle free, flashing her breasts in the sunlight, but she was trapped. If she'd been mortal, she'd have died, but she wasn't mortal, and she wasn't dying. She was just stuck.
Doyle went close to the glass, but stayed out of the reach of Siun's struggling legs. "It seems solid now."
Kurag spoke on his end of the glass. "Now isn't this a bitch of a predicament?"
"Yes," Doyle said.
"Can you fix it?" Kurag asked.
Doyle glanced at Kitto, who seemed nearly catatonic in Frost's arms. "It was Kitto's magic. He could reverse it, if he understood how. But no one else in this room can do this."
"What by the Consort's horns did Kitto do?" Kurag was close to the mirror on his side, looking at it, but carefully not touching the glass.
"Some sidhe can travel through mirrors, as most can speak through them. Though I've never heard of any who could travel over this many miles." Doyle was studying the mirror and the trapped goblin as if it were a purely academic problem and he was trying to figure out how it worked.
"Can Kitto undo it?"
"Frost," Doyle said, "ask Kitto if he will free her from the mirror, send her back."
Frost spoke low to the smaller man in his lap. Kitto shook his head violently, huddling in against Frost. "He's afraid that if he opens the mirror again, she'll fall through into this room."
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