Ill Met by Moonlight

by Mercedes Lackey

  Now, at a gesture of Oberon’s index finger, Vidal rose out of the hole Denoriel had dug for him. The levin bolt hissed in his fingers. He twisted and tried to throw it at Denoriel. It popped in his hand, and he howled. Oberon sighed and set him down a little apart from the others.

  Aleneil, who happened to be nearest to him, hurried away to stand near her brother. Her hands followed Denoriel’s to his pain, and her lips began to move. Denoriel gritted his teeth. Oberon’s index finger twitched, and Denoriel sighed with relief. Oberon wanted neither spells nor a perception of pain to annoy him.

  “Hear my words and heed them, for they are final! To kill Lady Elizabeth is forbidden,” Oberon said flatly. “Find some other way to gain your ends, Prince Vidal. And do not say that I am unfair. It is equally forbidden to the Bright Court to harm in any way the new little king or the Lady Mary. Two are protected from them while only one is forbidden to you. That, I think is fair enough. I will also overlook the broken oath—”

  But Vidal pounced upon that statement with the glee of a lawyer finding a gap in the law. “My followers took no oath. It is Denoriel’s friends who did not abide by our agreement. And they came onto my ground. I have every right to defend my territory.”

  “Unformed land is no one’s ground,” Oberon said, with a glare that should have warned Vidal that he was venturing into treacherous territory. “Until it is formed it is free to all.” He looked away from them, into the depths of the mist, hesitated for a moment, and then nodded. “Still, this place is nearer domains held by Unseleighe than by Seleighe. I cede you the right not to welcome Bright Court Sidhe here, but you called assistance when you had agreed to a duel.”

  “They were five to my one! Why should I trust them?”

  Oberon’s eye swept the Bright Court Sidhe. Harry stepped forward. “Sire, we defended ourselves but none of us interfered with the duel.”

  Oberon lifted an eyebrow. “Well, Prince Vidal? Who beside Denoriel contested with you?”

  “No one,” Vidal snarled; Oberon would know the truth, it was useless to lie. “But that was only because they were all engaged with my people.”

  Oberon’s eyes rested briefly on Elizabeth, but she was looking at Denoriel; the Sidhe smiled back at her to give comfort, although he was pallid and drained. Insensibly they drew closer together. Oberon was reasonably sure that he had arrived just in time to prevent Elizabeth from killing Vidal, as she had killed the mage whose body was floating in the void when she loosed the magic that drew him to this place. Now that would have been an unpardonable breech of the law. But it had not happened, and he was inclined to let things lie as they were.

  “There is no proof either way,” Oberon said to Vidal. “Thus, you may go about your business, Vidal Dhu, but do not transgress against the Lady Elizabeth again.”

  If hate could have killed, Oberon would have dissolved under Vidal’s glare, but the King did not even deign to notice, although Vidal did not leave. Oberon looked at Denoriel and crooked a finger. Denoriel came forward and bowed.

  “You know the rules about bringing a mortal Underhill.” Denoriel winced as Oberon extracted from his already bruised mind the whole tale of how and why Elizabeth was first brought Underhill, and then that of her grief for her father and his desire to let her heal more quickly.

  “This is no playground for sad mortals,” Oberon snapped. “I think you are far too much engaged with Lady Elizabeth. I think it is time for a new guardian—”

  “No.” Elizabeth’s voice as she interrupted him was firm and hard. “I do not desire any other guardian. I do not need any other guardian. My Denno—”

  “He is not your Denno,” Oberon growled. “He is mine!”

  Elizabeth swallowed hard, but she did not lower her head. Her eyes were yellow flames that still met Oberon’s challengingly. “Mine,” she said, “or no Sidhe at all in the mortal world ever again!”

  Oberon was so outraged that he stood up. Denoriel leapt in front of Elizabeth to take whatever blow might be launched. Oberon’s lips parted …

  And a bolt of white lightning struck between the king and those he was about to punish.

  Out of it came Queen Titania, a creature of white flame and white-hot anger, fully a match for Oberon’s black fury. So much power burned in and around her that she did not need any weapon. She was not an avenger—she was something more powerful than that.

  She was a protector. And woe betide whatever threatened what she protected.

  “And she is mine!” Titania said, her voice like the trumpets on a battlefield. “She will not be bent or broken. She will have what will feed her spirit and let her nurture an entire nation into life and light and joy, whether you will or no!”

  Oberon’s face turned livid with fury. “I will—”

  But Titania was quicker. “Begone!” she commanded, making a sweeping gesture so that the trailing sleeves of her gown flared like the wings of an angel, and again her voice rang out with power and glory that could not be withstood. “All here begone to their home places.”

  Utter blackness, and falling, and this time pain as contending forces seemed to be trying to tear Elizabeth apart. But before she could even try to scream, she was lying on the hearthrug in her own bedchamber.

  “Denno,” she breathed, as Blanche cried out with surprise and rushed to lift Elizabeth up. She hugged herself with pain and terror, and tears started up in her eyes. “I am going to lose my Denno,” she wailed. “What will I do? What will I do? My father is dead and my protector is reft from me.”

  “My lady, my lady, how did you come to be lying on the rug?” Blanche cried, clutching her shivering mistress in her arms, as she wept and would not be comforted. “I thought … I thought Lord Denno and Lady Alana—”

  Then she breathed a sigh of relief as Denoriel rushed out of the dressing room. The relief did not last long when she saw the bruises and burns on his face and hands and that his clothing was very nearly in rags. Blanche had no chance to say anything, however, because Elizabeth wrenched herself out of Blanche’s arms and flung herself into Denno’s, and now she wept as if all the comfort she had lost had suddenly been restored to her, unlooked for.

  Whatever had just happened—well, it was beyond the understanding of a simple mortal witch. But one thing a simple mortal witch did understand, and that was that food was generally, if not the answer to all needs, certainly a great comfort in itself.

  Blanche shook herself and went to get wine and cakes; both looked as if they could use refreshment.

  “Are you all right?” Elizabeth gasped, dashing the tears out of her eyes. “Oh, Denno, I am so sorry. I shouldn’t have gone on saying you were mine. But you aren’t his. You belong to yourself.”

  “Yes, but no more than any king’s subject. I owe him service and loyalty.” He smiled broadly. “But the look on his face … There aren’t many who dare claim what is my lord’s.”

  “It was so foolish,” she said, burying her face in his breast. “If I had had the sense to plead with him, we would not all be in such trouble. If …” the Queen was what Elizabeth wanted to say but could not, so she compromised with “If she had not arrived …” And then her eyes grew rounder. “Oh, Grace of God, when his face turned that color … What will happen? Will they destroy each other?”

  Denoriel held her tight; she could feel him chuckling. “Wanting to be with you was not the only reason I arrived here so quickly I did not even wash or change my clothes. There may be some titanic explosions in my home place and I wanted to be well out of the way.”

  “Will he hurt her?” Elizabeth breathed, not inclined to laugh.

  “No, love, he will not. He will rant and rage and doubtless blast some innocent landscape, but he will never harm her.”

  “Or she him?” Elizabeth asked anxiously. It was very rare in these times for a man not to dominate his wife, but when it happened, sometimes the wife took gross advantage. And she could not bear the thought of two beings so beautiful, and so matchless, eve
r harming one another. She could not bear the thought of them even being angry with one another—

  “No, nor she him,” Denoriel said, still smiling. “They love one another, you see, so there will be a great deal of shouting and screaming, but in the end they will come to agreement.”

  “To take you away from me?” Elizabeth barely whispered.

  “Oh, no. I do not think he was ever in earnest about that.” He chuckled again. “At least not until you stood there looking him in the eye and saying ‘he is mine.’”

  “But I thought I would lose you,” she whispered, feeling sick at how nearly she had.

  “You cannot lose me,” Denoriel murmured bending his head so that he spoke into her bright hair. “You cannot ever lose me.”

  “Even though you are … Other? I have always been afraid that you would grow tired of me.”

  “Whatever I am—” He pulled away enough to look deep into her golden eyes. “I am yours, utterly and completely yours, for now and for every day of your living. It is my duty and my joy. You are the light in my life. And you will be that, now and forever, no matter who would say us nay.”

  THE END

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