"What has happened in the rest of faerie while we had days inside the sluagh?" Doyle asked.
Rhys kept my hand in his, running his thumb over my knuckles repeatedly. He could grin all he wanted, but touching like that was a nervous gesture.
"Do you remember the task you gave Galen and me in the hospital?" he began.
I nodded. "I gave you Gran's body to take home."
"Yes, and you conjured sidhe horses for us to ride on that journey."
"Sholto and I called them into being, not just me," I said.
Rhys nodded, his eyes flicking past me to Doyle. "We heard rumors that you'd been crowned queen of the sluagh."
"It is true," Doyle said, "and married by faerie itself."
Rhys's face fell; such sorrow came over him that he suddenly looked old. Not old the way a human will, for he would always be boyishly handsome, but as if every day he had lived, every hard ounce of experience was suddenly etched into his face, spilling into his one blue eye.
He nodded again, biting his lower lip, and took his hand back from mine. "Then it is true."
I took his hand back into both of mine, cradling his in my lap. "I have already had this talk with Sholto. I am not monogamous, Rhys. All the fathers of my children are dear to me, and that is not going to change, no matter how many crowns I wear."
Rhys looked not at me but at Doyle. The big man nodded. "I was there for her talk with the king of the sluagh. He did make noises about her being his queen alone, but our Merry was very... firm with him." There was the faintest hint of humor to that last.
I glanced at Doyle, but his dark face was impassive, and gave nothing away.
"But once faerie has chosen a spouse, then... " Rhys began.
"I think we are going back to very old rules," Doyle said, "not the human ones we adopted some centuries ago."
"The Seelie adopted human rules, but the Unseelie, it wasn't about human rules," Rhys said.
"No," Doyle said, "it was about our queen seeking an heir for her throne whom she did not think would destroy her kingdom. At some level I think she has always known that her son was flawed. I think that is one of the reasons she sought a second babe for herself so desperately."
Rhys held my hands back, squeezing. "There are those in our kingdom right now who want Merry on the throne."
"How did Prince Cel take that bit of news?" I asked.
"Calmly," Rhys said.
Doyle and I both stared at him. "He was mad as a hatter when we last saw him," Doyle said.
"He was ranting about killing me, or forcing me to have a child with him so we could rule together," I said.
"He was as calm as I've seen him in years," Rhys said.
"That is bad," Doyle said.
"Why is that bad?" I asked, trying to read his face in the dimness of the Humvee.
Rhys answered, "Cel may be crazy, Merry, but he's powerful, and he still has a lot of allies among the Unseelie. His serene demeanor pleased the queen, which is probably what he wanted. He doesn't want to be blamed if something happens to you."
"Onilwyn would not have tried to kill me or Mistral without orders from Cel," I said.
"The prince is blaming the Seelie traitors that you all killed. He says that they must have offered Onilwyn a return to the Golden Court."
"The prince lies," I said.
"Maybe, but it is plausible," Rhys said.
"It might even be true," Doyle said.
I looked at him. "Not you too?"
"Listen to me, Merry. Onilwyn knew that Cel was not going to live to see the throne. He also knew that you detested him personally. What would his life have been like in the Unseelie Court with you as queen?"
I thought about what he'd said. "I don't know what the Unseelie will be like after I'm on the throne. There are nights when I think I'll never live to see the throne."
Doyle hugged me one-armed; Rhys squeezed my hands. "We'll keep you safe, Merry," Rhys said.
"It is our job," Doyle said, with his mouth against my hair.
"Yes, but now my bodyguards are precious to me, and injury to you is like a wound to my heart."
"It is the downside to dating your bodyguards," Rhys said.
I nodded, settling against the solid, muscled warmth of Doyle, and drew Rhys in closer. I wrapped them around me like a second cloak. "Cel has been requesting that you be sent to the Unseelie Court for your own safety," Rhys said, his breath warm on my cheek.
"What does the queen want me to do?" I asked.
"I haven't been inside the court, Merry. Galen and I took Hettie back to her inn. But as we rode toward it, other sidhe and lesser fey joined us. They followed behind us, singing and dancing, and the white light of the horses flowed across all of them."
"It was a faerie radhe," Doyle said, and his voice held wonderment. "Yes," Rhys said.
I pushed them both away enough so I could study their faces. "I know what a faerie radhe is – when the sidhe used to go riding across the land. Other sidhe would join with their horses and hounds, and lesser fey would be drawn to it, to march with us. Even humans could be drawn into it sometimes."
"Yes," Doyle said.
"But there has never been a faerie radhe on American soil," Rhys said. "We lost our horses and our ability to call the folk to us."
He laid his lips against my temple, almost a kiss, but not quite. "We rode along the highway, and cars passed us. People took pictures with their cell phones, and they're already up on the Internet. We made the news."
"Is that good or bad?" I asked, leaning in against him. Doyle moved with me so that I was still held securely by both. Touching was a way of feeling better, and the metal we rode in could not have felt good to them.
"The Seelie who joined us are eager for you to bring them into their power."
"We had Seelie who were forced to join the wild hunt, too," I said. "The old powers return," Doyle said.
"Every brownie on American soil came out to receive Hettie. They took her from us, and keened for her."
"I should have been there," I said.
Rhys hugged me close. "Your aunt Meg asked where you were. Galen told her that you were hunting down the people responsible for your Gran's death. Meg was content with that, and so were the other brownies. She asked only if the murderer was sidhe."
Rhys did kiss the side of my face then. "We said yes."
Doyle reached out and touched the other man, squeezing his arm, as if he too heard the pain in Rhys's voice. Rhys continued. "Another brownie who I don't know by name asked, 'The princess will kill a sidhe for the murder of a brownie?' Galen said yes. That really pleased them, Merry."
"She was my grandmother. She raised me. Brownie or sidhe or goblin, I would have sought vengeance for her."
He kissed my cheek ever so gently. "I know that, but the lesser folk are not used to being thought of as equal to the sidhe, not in any way."
"I think that is about to change," I said.
They held me more tightly, so tight that it was getting too warm in my fur cloak. I was about to ask them to give me some breathing room when the radio crackled to life, and Dawson's voice came. "We've got a group of sidhe standing in the middle of the road. We can't go forward without running them over."
Rhys whispered, "If we said run them over, would that be bad?" "Until we know who it is, probably," Doyle said.
"Who is it?" I asked.
Specialist Gregorio relayed my question.
"Galen Greenhair says one is Prince Cel and the other is the captain of his guard, Siobhan."
"Not good," Rhys said.
"I don't know," Doyle said. "I've wanted to kill Siobhan for years."
I said. "I am the queen's assassin, and a warrior of many battles, Meredith. I did not become one of the greatest killers of our court because I didn't enjoy my job."
I studied his face, and found a hint of a smile. "You're pleased,"
I thought about that as he held me in the curve of his body. I thought about him enjoying th
e killing. I didn't like the thought much, but if he was a sociopathic killer, then he was my sociopathic killer. And I'd let him slaughter them both if it would save us. No, more than that, I knew that eventually Cel and Siobhan had to die for me and mine to live. Tonight was as good a time as any, if he gave us enough excuse to justify it later to the queen.
I sat there, with my Darkness and my white knight, and thought, utterly calmly, that if we could kill Cel tonight, we should probably do it. Maybe I shouldn't be pointing fingers at Doyle's inner moral compass when mine seemed just fine with his.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Specialist Gregorio spoke into her radio, and relayed the response to us. "The prince says he wants Princess Meredith to return with him to the Unseelie Court so they can protect her," she said. "Say again Sierra four."
She turned in her seat to look at me. "He says he wants to take you back to the court so they can crown you queen. Isn't he the competitor for that crown?"
"Yes," I said.
She raised an eyebrow at me. "Rumor says he tried to kill you."
"He did."
She gave me a look to go with the eyebrow. "And now he's just going to give up?"
"We don't believe it either," Rhys said.
Her eyes flicked to him, but came back to settle on me. The radio crackled, and she hit the switch again. Dawson's voice came tinny, but a few words were clear, "with child... conceding."
Specialist Gregorio turned back to me. "The prince says that now that you're with child, he'll concede the throne, because it's best for the kingdom." She didn't even try to keep her disbelief out of her voice.
"Tell him that I appreciate the offer, but I am returning to Los Angeles."
She relayed the information. Dawson's answer was quick. "Prince Cel says he can't allow you to leave faerie carrying the heirs to the Unseelie throne."
"I'll just bet he can't," Rhys said.
"He and his people are blocking the road. We can't run them down," Gregorio said.
"Can we drive past them?" Doyle asked.
She got back on the radio. The answer: "We can try."
"Let us try," Doyle said.
Gregorio said, "Princess, permission to speak freely?"
I smiled. "I didn't think you needed my permission, but if you do, you have it."
"How stupid does this Cel think you are? No one would believe this shit."
"I don't think he believes the princess is stupid," Doyle said. "I believe that the prince is deluding himself."
"You mean he honestly expects her to go with him quietly, and us not to fight him?"
"I believe that is his plan," Doyle said.
"You'd have to be crazy to believe that," Gregorio said.
"You would," Doyle said.
The woman looked at all three of us. "Your faces have all gone blank. You're trying not to let me see what you're thinking, but your blank faces say it all. You think he's crazy, as in certifiable."
"I do not know what certifiable means," Doyle said.
"It means crazy enough to be committed to a hospital," Rhys said. "He is a prince of faerie. Such personages are not committed to insane asylums," Doyle said.
"Then what do you do with them?" she asked.
"They tend to die," he said, and even in the darkened car I could see that hint of a smile again.
Gregorio didn't smile back. "We can't kill a prince of anything for you guys."
"I didn't call you in to do our killing for us," I said.
"Why did you call us in, Princess?"
"To get me the hell out of here, Gregorio. You saw the Seelie simply leave rather than try to fight you. I thought that no one would be willing to confront the American military."
"You thought wrong," she said.
"And for that, I am sorry."
The line of cars began to move to the far side of the road, scraping against tree limbs, but since the Humvee was supposed to be able to stand up to artillery fire, a few branches wouldn't faze it. The trick was, would Cel and Siobhan simply let us drive away? How crazy was he, and where was Queen Andais, and why wasn't she keeping a better leash on her son?
Chapter Thirty-Three
The humvee crawled along the edge of the road, the trees scraping the windows, sides, and roof. "The prince and his people must still be in the road," Rhys said, "or they'd be moving faster."
"Have Mistral tell us who else is with Cel besides the captain of the guard," Doyle said.
I conveyed the request to Gregorio. She looked like she would argue, but he gave her the full force of his gaze. His face must have been almost lost in the dimness of the night and the car, but something about what she saw made her pick up the radio and do what he asked.
The answer came back as a list of the people who had backed Cel for centuries. But the crowd wasn't as large as I'd thought. Important names were missing, which didn't mean that the missing Unseelie were on my side. It simply meant that they'd abandoned Cel. One important oversight was that Siobhan was almost the only guard he had left. We'd discovered that the guards, most of whom had begun their careers as my father's personal guard, had not been asked if they wished to serve Cel. They had been forced, and no oath of allegiance had been given by most of them. Which meant that their service, and their torment by Cel, were illegal by our laws.
To join the guard of our royalty, you had to choose, and bind yourself with oaths. That Cel had stolen their freedom without that was a grave abuse of authority.
Gregorio watched our faces as she relayed the names. If she'd thought she'd learn something from Doyle or Rhys, she'd been mistaken. I think I just looked tired.
"The Queen must have given his guard a choice," Doyle said.
"The choice they should have had from the beginning," Rhys said. "Yes," he said.
"What do you mean 'a choice'?" Gregorio asked.
"Prince Cel took over the personal guard of Prince Essus, Princess Meredith's father, after his death. By our laws, the guard should have had a choice to either follow the new prince or leave the royal service, but Prince Cel gave them no choice. The princess found this out recently, and petitioned the queen to give the prince's guard that choice."
"So they all bailed on him?" Gregorio asked.
"So it would seem."
"Or maybe they're out in the woods waiting to ambush us," Rhys said.
"That too is very possible."
"Couldn't you sense if there were that many sidhe hiding in the woods?" I asked.
"Not inside this much metal and human-made technology."
"We're almost head-blind, Merry. It doesn't kill us to be inside this much metal, like some of the lesser fey, but it curtails our magic, a lot," Rhys said.
"If there are other guards hiding in the woods, would it explain why Cel isn't attacking?" I asked. I huddled in more tightly against Doyle. Rhys was gazing out the windows, trying to see what lay ahead.
"It might," Doyle said.
Gregorio took it upon herself to hit the radio again. "The prince has a lot more personal guards than those in the road. We might want to check the woods and see what's there."
A man's voice said, "Roger that."
"So it's either a trap," Rhys said, "or he's waiting for the truck with us in it. We're his targets, after all."
"He is most likely saving his attack for us," Doyle said, "but as we cannot work magic inside the trucks, neither can he work magic upon us while we are surrounded by this much metal."
Gregorio asked, "Are you saying that we should let them throw magic at us, and the trucks will take care of it?"
Doyle and Rhys exchanged a look, then Rhys nodded and shrugged. Doyle answered. "The magic should fall apart around the trucks, and as long as your people stay inside them, they should be untouchable."
I turned in Doyle's arms so I could see his face, though dark on dark, I could see little of his expression. Of course, when he didn't wish me to, bright light wouldn't have clued me in to his thoughts.
"Are you s
aying that we are completely safe inside here from their magic?" Gregoria asked.
Doyle stirred beside me, pulling me even more tightly against him. Rhys took my hand in his, playing with my knuckles again in that worry-stone way, over and over.
"Either they can work magic inside here or they cannot," I said. "It is not that simple," Doyle said at last.
"Well, since the Humvee with Galen and the others in it is going to be close to them very soon, I suggest you make it simple."
He smiled. "Spoken in the tone of a queen."
"I'm with her," Gregorio said. "I've got people depending on Dawson and me to keep them safe."
I shook my head. "Take the tone any way you like, Doyle, but you're both hiding something from me. Tell me."
"As my lady asks," he said, "no magic from his hand or the others can touch us in here. He may not know that, but we are safe inside the trucks."
"I hear a 'but' in your voice."
He smiled a little more. "But there are things that can pierce the metal."
"Remember, Merry, our people didn't use armor once, for obvious reasons, but we ran into enemies who did. Our metalsmiths came up with a few things that would go through metal."
"Such as?" I asked.
"There were spears forged long ago," Doyle said. "They are locked away with the few other magical weapons left us."
"The queen would have to give him permission to open the vault of weapons," I said.
"She would, which makes it unlikely that he would have such a thing, but I do not like the fact that he and his followers are in the middle of the road, demanding things from us."
Rhys said, "The queen would never permit him to appear weak or evil in front of the humans. She's worked too long and hard to make the Unseelie Court's reputation better to let Cel ruin it now. It's the one thing she's never allowed him to do, to abuse the humans, or be seen abusing anyone else in front of them."
"And now he's in the middle of the road, behaving badly," I said. "Exactly," he said.
"Where is Queen Andais?" I asked.
"Where indeed," Doyle said, and he moved again, as if the seat wasn't quite comfortable. It wasn't, but it wasn't the seat that was bothering him. Doyle could sleep on a marble floor and not flinch.
Laurell K Hamilton - Meredith Gentry 07 - Swallowing Darkness Page 25