Laurell K Hamilton - Meredith Gentry 07 - Swallowing Darkness

by Swallowing Darkness(lit)

  "The Seelie claim that the children belong to King Taranis."

  Sholto went for the door. "Wait here. I must talk to my people before we confront the insanity of the Seelie."

  "Might I suggest that you wear something else, Sholto?" I called.

  He hesitated, then frowned at me. "Why?"

  "You look too Seelie in the robe, and one of the things that seems to panic your people is the idea that you and I together will change them from the dark and terrible sluagh to a light and airy beauty."

  He looked as if he would argue, then he went back to the wardrobe. He drew out black pants and boots, but he didn't bother with a shirt. And with a wavering of air in front of him, the tentacles came to life again.

  "I will remind them that I am part nightflyer and not just sidhe."

  "Would me by your side hurt you or help you?" I asked.

  "Hurt, I think. I will talk to my people, then return for you all. Taranis has gone mad to besiege us."

  "Why has not the Unseelie Court aided the sluagh?" Doyle asked. "I will find out," Sholto said, and had his hand on the door when Mistral called out.

  "My congratulations to you, King Sholto, on being king to Meredith's queen." His voice was almost neutral when he said it – almost.

  "Congratulations to you, too, Storm Lord, though with so many kings around, I am not certain what kingdom you will share." With that Sholto was gone, with Henry at his side.

  "What did he mean, wishing me congratulations?" Mistral asked. "I know that the princess carries Sholto's child and yours, Doyle. I heard that from the conversation in the bed when we woke."

  "Mistral, didn't the queen tell you?" I asked.

  "I was told that you had finally gotten with child by some of the others. I have had little news of anything but pain." He would not look at me as he said the next. "She was so angry when you left, Princess. Your green knight destroyed her hall of torture, so she took me as a guest to her room to be chained against her wall. There I have been at her mercy since you left."

  I touched his arm, but he pulled away.

  "I feared she would hurt you for being with me," I said. "I am so sorry."

  "I knew it was the price I would pay." He almost looked at me, but finally let his long gray hair fall between us like a curtain to hide behind. "I was content to pay, because I had hoped... " he shook his head. "I hoped too late." He turned to Doyle and held out his hand. "I envy you, Captain."

  Doyle came to take his hand, dark to light, clasping forearms together. "I cannot believe the queen did not tell her court the truth."

  "I have only been released from the chains this night, so whatever she told her court, I do not know. I am too far out of favor to be told anything. I was released and lured to my death by one of our own. Onilwyn needs killing, my captain."

  "He betrayed you?"

  "He led me into an ambush of Seelie archers, armed with cold iron arrows."

  "This is the first I have heard of it. He will be punished."

  "He's already been punished," I said.

  They both looked at me. "What do you mean, Merry?" Doyle asked. "Onilwyn is dead."

  "By whose hand?" Mistral asked.

  "Mine."

  "What?" Mistral asked.

  Doyle touched my arm, and studied my face. "What has happened while I was in the human hospital?"

  I told them as quick a version as I could. They were full of questions about the wild hunt, and Doyle held me while I confirmed that Gran was dead.

  "The Seelie being at the gates here is partly my fault. I sent the Seelie sidhe who were forced to join the hunt back to Taranis with a message – that I had killed Onilwyn by my own hand, and that the chalice had chosen to come to my hand."

  "Why did you show them the chalice when the queen has forbidden it?" Mistral asked.

  "To save your life."

  "You used the chalice to save me?" Mistral asked.

  "Yes."

  "You should not have wasted its magic on me. Doyle you had to save, and Sholto, but I was not worth such a risk."

  Doyle looked at me.

  "He doesn't know," I said.

  "I do not think he does."

  Mistral looked from one to the other of us. "What do I not know?"

  "I did not mention Clothra's name without purpose, Mistral. Just as she had one son with three fathers, so I will have two babes with three fathers each."

  "So many kings; what will you do with all of them, Princess?"

  "Meredith, Mistral. Call me Meredith. If I am to bear your child, we should at least be on a first-name basis."

  Mistral stared at me for a moment, then shook his head. He turned back to Doyle. "She speaks in riddles. If I had been one of the fathers, the queen would have released me and let me go to the Western lands."

  "We found out only moments before the king abducted Meredith. So there was not time for you to come to us in the Western lands because we were here in faerie, and in St. Louis."

  "Did she not know that I was one of the fathers?" Mistral asked.

  "I informed her that Meredith was with child and who the fathers were personally," Doyle said.

  "She unchained me, but she told me nothing." He turned to me, his eyes full of different colors, as if tiny slices of the sky, or clouds of different colors, were blowing through them. He didn't seem to know what to think or feel, and his uncertainty was bare in his eyes.

  I went to him, touched his arm, and gazed into those uncertain eyes. "You are to be a father, Mistral."

  "But I was only with you twice."

  I smiled. "You know what they say; once is enough."

  He smiled then, a little uncertainly. He glanced at Doyle. "Is it true?" "It is. I was there when the visions spoke loudly to more than just Meredith. We are both to be fathers." Doyle flashed that white smile in his dark face.

  Mistral's face filled with light. His eyes were suddenly the blue of a clear, summer sky. He touched my face very gently, as if afraid I would break. "Pregnant, with my child?" He made it a question.

  "Yes," I said.

  I watched clouds slide across his eyes, like a reflection. His eyes were the color of a rainy sky. That sky began to rain down his strong, pale cheeks. I watched him cry, and of all the possible reactions; that was not what I'd expected from the Storm Lord. He was always so fierce in the bedroom and in battle, and now he, of all the fathers, was the only one who wept when he found out. Every time I think I understand men, I'm wrong again.

  His voice came a little broken around the edges. "Why did she not tell me? Why did she hurt me when I had done what she said she wanted most in all the world? To have an heir of her own bloodline to sit on her throne was her wish, and she tortured me for it. Why?"

  I knew who "she" was. I'd noticed that many of the guards spoke of Queen Andais as "she." She was their queen, and the absolute ruler of their fates. The only woman they had had hope of touching for so very long.

  I said the only truth I had to offer. "I don't know."

  Doyle came and gripped the other man's shoulder. "Logic has not ruled the queen for many years."

  It was a polite way of saying that Andais was mad. She was, but to say it out loud was not always wise.

  I touched Mistral's other arm. He jerked as if the touch had hurt. "If she finds out that faerie has handfasted you to Sholto, she could use it as an excuse to take the rest of us back into her guard."

  "She cannot take the fathers of my children," I said, but I sounded more sure than I felt.

  Mistral voiced my fears. "She is the queen, and she can do as she likes."

  "She swore to give you all to me if you would come to my bed. She would be forsworn. The wild hunt is real again, and oathbreakers, even royal ones, can be hunted again."

  Mistral grabbed my arm hard enough that it hurt immediately. "Do not threaten her, Meredith. For the love of the Goddess herself, do not give her reason to see you as a danger."

  "You're hurting me, Mistral," I said softly.
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  He eased his grip, but did not let me go. "Do not think that being with her brother's grandchildren will keep you safe from her."

  "I am not safe inside faerie. I know that. That is why we must leave as soon as possible for Los Angeles. We must bring charges against the king and drag him before the human media. We must get away from faerie. The very magic that allows us to do great things is also a weapon to be used against us all." I turned to Doyle, and laid my other hand on his arm. "The Goddess has warned me that the sidhe have not come round to her way of thinking. There are too many enemies here. We must go back to the city and surround ourselves with metal and technology. It will limit the other's power."

  "It will limit ours," Mistral said.

  "Yes, but without the magic of faerie, I trust my guards to keep me safe with gun and blade."

  "Faerie has come to us in Los Angeles, Merry," Doyle said.

  I nodded. "Yes, but the closer we are to the faerie mounds, the more our enemies can gather round us. I'm not even certain that the Seelie are my enemies, but they are not my friends. They seek to control me and the magic I represent."

  "Then we must go to Los Angeles," Doyle said.

  "Sholto cannot leave his people besieged by the Seelie," Mistral said.

  "Nor can we," I said.

  "What do you mean to do, Meredith?" Doyle asked.

  I shook my head. "I'm not certain, but I know that I need to convince them that the sluagh did not steal me away. I need to convince them that they cannot steal the chalice from me."

  "They are asking for you and the chalice," Mistral said. "I think they understand that it is your hand it comes to."

  "True," I said. I thought, "What do I do?" Goddess, what do I do to fix this? Then I had an idea, a very human idea. "There's a room in the sluagh mound just like in the Unseelie mound. There's a phone and computer, an office."

  "How do you know that?" Mistral asked.

  "My father had to make a phone call from here once when I was with him."

  "Why did he not use the phone at the Unseelie mound?" Mistral asked.

  I looked at Doyle. "He didn't trust the Unseelie," Doyle said.

  "Not in that moment. It was only weeks before he died."

  "What was the phone call about?" Mistral asked.

  "He made me go with Sholto to see another part of the mound."

  "I thought you were afraid of the King of the sluagh," Doyle said. "I was, but my father told me to go, and to remember that the sluagh had never harmed me. That the sluagh and goblin mounds were the only faerie mounds where I had never been beaten or abused. He was right. Now the sluagh are afraid that my being Sholto's queen will destroy them as a people, but then I was just the daughter of Essus and they liked my father."

  "We all did," Mistral said.

  "Not all," Doyle said.

  "Who did not?" Mistral asked.

  "Whoever killed him. It had to be another sidhe warrior. No other could have stood against Prince Essus." It was the first time I'd heard Doyle say out loud what I'd always known, that somewhere in the faces of those around me at court was my father's murderer.

  Doyle turned to me. "Who will you call?"

  "I'll call for help. I'll say the truth, that the Seelie are trying to take me back to the king's hands. That they do not believe his guilt, and I need help."

  "They cannot defeat the Seelie," Doyle said.

  "No, but neither can the Seelie defend themselves against human authority. If they do, they lose their right to live on American soil. They will be banished from the last country that will have them."

  The two men looked at me, then Mistral nodded. "Clever."

  "You put the Seelie in a situation that they cannot win," Doyle said. "If they fail their king, he could have them killed."

  "They have the ability to bring him down as king, Doyle. If they are too weak-willed to do it, then their fate is their own."

  "Harsh words," he said softly.

  "I thought being pregnant would make me softer, but when I stood alone in the snow and realized that Onilwyn meant to kill me, knowing that I was with child," I shook my head, trying to put it into words, "some terrible resolve took hold of me. Or perhaps it was Gran dying in my arms that finally made me realize."

  "Realize what, Meredith?"

  "That I cannot afford to be weak, or even too terribly kind anymore. The time for such things must be over, Doyle. I will save faerie if I can, but I will protect my children and the men I love above all else."

  "Even above taking the throne?" Doyle asked.

  I nodded. "You saw the noble houses when the queen presented me, Doyle. We have less than half the houses supporting me. I thought Andais was strong enough to push whatever heir she chose upon the nobles, but if the nobles of her court are conspiring with the nobles of the Seelie Court, she's lost too much power over them. There is no way to be safe on this throne, unless we can find more allies here."

  "Are you giving up the crown?" Doyle asked, words very careful. "No, but I am saying that I cannot take it unless my safety and the safety of my kings and children can be guaranteed. I will not lose another person to assassins, and I will not die at their hands as my father did." I put my hands on my stomach. Still so flat, but I had seen their tiny figures on the ultrasound. I would not lose them. "We go to the Western Lands, and we stay there until the babies are born, or until we are certain that we are safe."

  "We will never be safe, Meredith," Doyle said.

  "So be it, then," I said.

  "Be careful what you say, Princess," Mistral said.

  "I say the truth, Mistral. There are too many schemes, plots, enemies, or simply people who want to use me. My own cousin used our grandmother as a weapon, and set her up to be killed. So many of the sidhe care nothing for the lesser fey, and that's wrong too. If I am to be queen here, then I will be queen of all, not just of the sidhe."

  "Merry... ," Doyle said.

  "No, Doyle, the lesser fey haven't tried to kill me and mine yet. Why should I keep being loyal to the very people who keep trying to hurt me?"

  "Because you are part sidhe."

  "I am also part human and part brownie. We'll need a guide to the phone room. It's been too long since I was there. But we will call the police and they will come and get us out. We will be on a plane to Los Angeles, and the plane itself will be enough metal and technology to protect us."

  "It is not a happy thing for me to fly, Meredith," Doyle said.

  I smiled at him. "I know that much metal is a problem for most of you, but it is the safest way for us to travel, and it will guarantee that we have human media on the other end waiting for us. We are going to embrace the media, because this is war, Doyle. Not a war of weapons, but of public opinion. Faerie grows stronger on the belief of mortals, so we will give them ourselves to believe in."

  "Have you been planning this all along?" he asked.

  "No, no, but it's time to embrace my own strengths. I was raised human, Doyle. I realize now that my father took me out of faerie as a child for the same reason I'm going now, because it was safer."

  "You are exiling all of us, including our children, from faerie."

  I went to him, wrapping my arms around him so that we were pressed together. "Only you lost to me would be exile."

  He searched my face. "Meredith, do not give up a throne for me."

  "I admit that the fact that they keep trying to kill you hardest of all affects my decisions, but it's not just that, Doyle. The magic around me grows wilder, and I cannot control it. I no longer know how much and what is returning. There are things that were driven from faerie long ago, not at the humans' request, but at our own. What if I bring back things that could truly destroy us all, human and fey alike? I am too dangerous to be this close to the faerie mounds."

  "Faerie has come to Los Angeles, Merry, or had you forgotten?" "That new bit of faerie cost us Frost, so no, I hadn't forgotten. If I had not been in the new part of faerie Taranis could not have taken me.
We will put guards on the doors and I at least will stay in the human world, until the Goddess or God tell me otherwise."

  "What dream did the Goddess give you, to make you so resolved?" he asked.

  "It is the dream and the Seelie outside the sluagh's home. I bring danger to all who would shelter me inside faerie. It is time to go home."

  "Faerie is home," he said.

  I shook my head. "I saw Los Angeles as a punishment, but no longer. I will treat it as a refuge, and I will make it our home."

  "I have never been to the city before," Mistral said. "I am not sure I will thrive there."

  I held my hand out to the other man. "You will be by my side, Mistral. You will watch my body grow ripe, and you will hold our children in your hands. What more is home than that?"

  He came to me then, to us, and they wrapped me in the strength of their arms. I buried my face in the scent of Doyle's chest, and hid against his body. My resolve would have been firmer if the other arms holding me had been Frost's. By returning to the human world and cutting myself off from faerie, I was cutting myself off from the last piece of him. The white stag was a fey creature, and it would not come to a metal city. I pushed the thought away. I was right in this choice. I felt it, like a firm yes in my mind. It was time to embrace the other part of my culture. It was time to go to Los Angeles and make it my home.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chattan, Sholto's cousin, was on the door as guard again. His brother was not with him. A nightflyer stood on the other side of the door, flat upon the floor, its great wings pulled tight around it so that it looked like a black cloak. Standing, the nightflyer was a little shorter than I. I looked into its huge, lidless eyes, and a glance at Chattan's own eyes showed plainly where the genetics for those large liquid dark eyes had come from.

  He was Sholto's cousin on his father's side.

  Chattan came to attention, saying, "Princess Meredith, it is good to see you up and well. This is Tarlach. He is our uncle."

  I knew what he meant by the "our."

  "Greetings, Uncle Tarlach. It is good to meet another of my king's relatives."

  Tarlach bowed in that liquid way that the nightflyers had, as if their spines worked in ways that human spines never would. His voice had some of the sibilance of a snake goblin, but there was also a sound of wind and open sky in his words, as if the sound that wild geese make in the autumn could be mingled with the edge of a storm and become human speech.