"I thought my fertility was supposed to be the thing I thought about most if I am to be your heir, Aunt Andais?"
She drew her fingers together, forcing a sound from Crystall. She'd made bloody scratches in his back like some evil flower carved into his flesh. She raised her pale hand so I could watch his blood drip down her fingers.
"Are you going to be my heir, Meredith, or is there another throne that calls to you more?"
There, she'd said enough that I could address it. "It is true that when Taranis was subdued by his nobles they offered me a chance at his throne."
"You told them yes." She hissed it at me, standing and striding toward the mirror.
"I did not. I told them we would have to discuss such news with our queen, with you, Aunt Andais, before I could say yes or no."
She was at the mirror now, blocking our view of the bed and Crystall. Her anger had awakened her power. Her skin was beginning to glow. Her eyes were filling with the light, but not the way that most of the sidhe's eyes glowed with power. She seemed to have light behind her eyes, as if someone had set a candle behind all that gray and black. For the rest of us, for the most part, the individual colors glowed, but not her. She was queen, and she had to be different.
"I heard you jumped at the chance, you ungrateful little bitch."
"You have been lied to then, Aunt Andais." I fought to keep my voice neutral.
"Yes, remind me that you are my bloodline, my last chance to have someone of my line to rule after me. If you would but get with child, Meredith. Goddess knows you're fucking everything in sight. Why are you not with child?"
"I do not know, Aunt, but I do know that we came directly here from the hospital. We came into the house and to this mirror. We came to call you and tell you all that has happened. I swear to you by the Darkness that Eats all Things that I did not tell the Seelie I would sit upon their throne. I told them we would have to speak to our queen before we could answer them."
Her eyes had begun to dim. Her power was beginning to fold away. Something tight in my stomach eased a little. I had used an oath that no fey would have taken lightly. There were powers older even than faerie, and they waited in the dark to punish oathbreakers.
"You truly did not agree to sit on the golden throne and forsake our court?"
"I did not."
"I must believe you, niece of mine, but the Seelie Court is thick with knowledge that you will be the next Queen of their court."
Doyle reached across his body and touched me with his good arm at the same time that Rhys touched my shoulder. I touched Doyle's thigh lightly and laid my hand on Rhys's hand. "What they say, or think, I cannot control, but I did not agree to it."
"Why not?" she asked.
"I have friends and allies among the Unseelie Court. To my knowledge I have no such thing at the Seelie Court."
"You must have powerful allies there, Meredith. They are voting Taranis unfit to rule even as we speak. They will then vote you queen. They would not do that unless you had been approached by the nobles of that court. You must have been courted by them before now. There must have been many secret meetings that I did not know of, and that none of our guards reported to me."
I was beginning to see where her anger was coming from, and I couldn't entirely blame her. "One of the reasons I said no, and made clear that I must speak with you first, was exactly that, Aunt Andais. I have not been approached in any way by the nobles. Taranis was almost unnaturally persistent in his desire to have me at one of their Yule celebrations, but other than that I have not had dealings with the Seelie Court. I swear this to you. That is why the offer makes me suspicious as to what they truly want of me."
"I know Hugh. He is a political animal. He would not have offered it to you unless he had a reason to do so. You swear to me that he has never before approached you about this?"
"I swear," I said.
"Darkness, tell me exactly what happened?"
"I fear, my queen, that I will be useless for this. To my deep shame, I was unconscious through most of it."
"You don't seem that injured."
"Halfwen healed me at the hospital or I would still be there."
"Abeloec," she said.
Abe stirred behind us on the bed. He'd tried very hard to go unnoticed. "Yes, my queen."
"Do you know why Taranis would target you?"
He sat up slowly, careful of his back, and ended by half kneeling almost on all fours behind us. "Once my power was necessary for the choosing of a queen, as Meabh's power was to the choosing of a king. I think Taranis heard rumors that my power was returned to me, in part. I think he feared that I would help turn Meredith into a true queen of faerie. If we had known that any noble was dreaming of offering her the throne, then the accusations against me would have made some sense. He wanted me away from the princess."
"Galen," she said, "why did he target you?"
Galen looked flustered for a moment. He shook his head. "I don't know."
"Come, Galen Greenknight, green man, why?"
I had a thought. "He knows the prophesy that Cel got from the human psychic," I said.
"Yes, Meredith, because you and the green man will bring life back to the courts. Taranis has made the same mistake my son did. He thinks that Galen is the green man of the prophesy. Neither of them remember our history."
"The green man means the god, the consort," I said.
Andais nodded. She turned those eyes to Rhys. "And you, why you? Have you figured it out yet?"
"He heard the rumor that I'm Cromm Cruach again. If I were truly back to my original strength then he would fear me."
"Rumor has it that you can bring death to a goblin with a touch again. Is that rumor true?"
"I have done it once," he said, "but whether it will work again, I do not know."
"The rumor might be enough for Taranis," she said. She seemed calmer. Which was good. She looked at Doyle. "I understand why he attacked you. If I were to try and kill the princess, I would kill you first, but he was wrong in not targeting our Killing Frost." She turned those calm eyes to the big man standing so silent beside the bed. "To kill Meredith and survive would require both your deaths, wouldn't it, Killing Frost?"
Frost licked his lips. He was right to be nervous. This was not a conversation that we wanted to be having with our queen. "That is true, my queen," he said.
"Did the Seelie Court make the same condition on you that I do? Do you need to be with child before you can sit their throne?"
"No, they offered the throne with no conditions except that the nobles of the Seelie Court vote Taranis out and me in."
"What do you think of that, Meredith?"
"I am flattered, but not stupid. I am wondering if the nobles are playing some game of their own choosing, and the offer to me is simply to buy them time to consolidate their own bid for the throne. A vote to put me on the throne would slow the process of choosing a new king, or queen, for the Seelie Court to a crawl."
Andais smiled. "Did Doyle reason it out for you?"
"No, my queen," Doyle said. "The princess is well aware of the Seelie Court's potential for treachery."
"Is it true that Taranis almost beat you to death as a child?"
"Yes," I said. In my head I added, as you tried to drown me. Out loud I kept my mouth shut.
Andais smiled as if she'd hit on the same memory and it was a happy one for her. "Meredith, Meredith, you must learn to control your entire face. Your eyes betray how much you hate me."
I lowered my gaze, not sure what to say that wouldn't be a lie.
She laughed, and it was both a lovely sound and a sound that made me shiver, as if it were my own body lying on her bed unable to protect itself from what would come next. I wanted to save Crystall from her, but I couldn't figure out a way to do it. Me trying and failing would just make her hurt him worse. She'd think it meant he was special to me, and it would amuse her all the more to slice him up.
"Now that I know that you have n
ot been meeting with Hugh and the Seelie nobles in secret, I agree that they mean you treachery. Perhaps you will be their stalking horse to lure out all the would-be assassins. Or perhaps it is what you say, that they simply throw your name into the ring to slow the process while someone else consolidates their own power. I think the latter the more likely, but the offer is so completely unexpected that I have not had time to think clearly on it."
What she meant was that she'd been convinced that I'd betrayed her with the Seelie Court, so she'd been too angry to think clearly. I kept my reasoning to myself. I had my face enough under control that I could look back up at her. Or I hoped I did. How do you tell if your own face is neutral?
"The fact that Taranis knows of the prophesy that Cel got from the human prophet means that one of Cel's trusted people is spying for the king of the Seelie Court." She tapped her chin with one bloody fingernail. "But who?"
There was a sound from the mirror, almost the clanging of swords. I glanced at the clock. "We are expecting a call from Kurag, Goblin King," I said.
"You have call waiting on your mirror," she said.
I nodded.
"I've never heard of such a thing. Who did the spell?"
"I did," Rhys said. His face was still softly amused, but there was a wariness around his eyes.
"You will have to bespell my mirror as well."
"Gladly, my queen," he said, voice pleasantly neutral.
The clang of swords sounded again. "Perhaps you should come back to court and do that today."
"With apologies, Aunt Andais, Rhys is to bed me if we can get time between calls and emergencies."
"Would it upset you to see his pale flesh bleeding on my bed like Crystall's?"
There was no safe answer to that question. "I do not know what you want me to say, Aunt Andais."
"The truth would be nice."
I sighed. Doyle squeezed my hand. Rhys tensed beside me. It was then that Galen lost it. "What does it matter? Taranis attacked us today. He went so crazy that his own nobles jumped him and dragged him away. He's about to be voted out as king of the Seelie Court, and you want to spend time tormenting Merry about us!" He actually stepped close to the mirror and continued to yell at her. "Doyle almost died today. Merry could have died today, and then you'd never have a child of your blood on any throne. The Seelie nobles are up to something dangerous that involves our court, and you want to play these stupid, painful games. We need you to be our queen, not our tormentor. We need help here. Goddess save us, but we do."
We might have jumped him to keep him quiet, but I think we were all too stunned to do anything. The silence was heavy, broken only by Galen's too-fast breathing.
Andais stared at him as if he'd just appeared. It wasn't a friendly look, but it wasn't an unfriendly look either. "What help would you have of me, Greenknight?"
"Try to find out why Hugh offered the throne to Merry, really why."
"What reason did he give?" she asked in an amazingly calm voice.
"That there are swans with gold chains, and that a Cu Sith stopped the king from beating a servant. The Seelie think Merry is to blame or gets credit for the return of the magic."
"And does she?" Andais asked with that edge of cruelty beginning to creep back in.
"You know she does," Galen said, and there was no anger, just a sort of righteousness, as if it was just truth.
"Perhaps," Andais said. She turned her gaze to me. "I will try and find out if Hugh is being honest, or as treacherous as we think. You must have some magic over men that I do not see, Meredith. You have not even fucked Crystall, yet he seems strangely loyal to you. I will break him to my ways again, then I will choose another of the men who would have deserted me for you. Sidhe who would have rather followed you into exile than stay with me in faerie." She said the last almost in a thoughtful voice, as if she truly didn't understand it.
The truth was that it wasn't faerie they wanted to leave but her sadistic care, but that was a truth better kept to myself.
"If the Seelie offer is a genuine one, Meredith, you might consider taking it."
A thrill of fear ran through me. "Aunt Andais, I don't understand."
"Every man who prefers you to me makes me hate you a little more. Soon, my hatred for you may outweigh my desire for you to sit my throne. On the golden throne of the Seelie Court you would be safe from my anger."
I licked my suddenly dry lips. "I do nothing to anger you on purpose, my queen."
"And that is what is so maddening about you, Meredith. I know you do not do it on purpose. You simply are, and somehow by being yourself you part my nobles and my lovers from me. Your Seelie magic wins them away."
"I carry the hands of flesh and blood, those are not Seelie hands of power, Aunt."
"Yes, and Cel's prophet said that if someone of flesh and blood sat the Unseelie throne he would die. He thought it meant your mortality, but it didn't." She looked at me, and there was something other than cruelty, though I wasn't sure what exactly. "Cel screams your name in the night, Meredith."
"He means my death if he can manage it."
She shook her head. "He has convinced himself that if he lay with you, you and he would have a child, and he would be king to your queen."
My mouth couldn't get any drier, but my heart rate could get faster. "I do not think that would work, Aunt Andais."
"Work, work—it is fucking, Meredith. The mechanics of it would work just grand."
I tried again, while Doyle and Rhys gripped me harder. Even Abe moved in at my back to put his face against my hair. Touching to comfort me.
"I suppose what I meant was that I do not think Cel and I would make a good ruling couple."
"Do not look so frightened, Meredith. I know that Cel would not make you pregnant, but he has convinced himself of it. I suppose I am warning you. He no longer wants you assassinated, but he would kill every lover you have, if he could."
"Is he…—" I tried to think of a way to say it, "—free to…"
"He is not imprisoned, but he is under guard at all times. I do not want my own guards to kill my only son to protect my heir." She shook her head. "Go, call the goblin king back. I will try to find out if Hugh's offer of the golden throne is true or false." She was walking back to the bed as she spoke the last few sentences. "But first I will take out my anger and frustration at you on your Crystall. Know that every cut is a cut I would make on your lily-white skin if I didn't need your body whole." She crawled onto the bed and reached for Crystall. A knife had appeared in her hand, either by magic or it had been tucked into the sheets.
Frost got to the mirror first and cleared it with a touch. We were left staring at our own images. My eyes were a little too wide, my skin pale.
"Crap," Rhys said.
That about summed it up.
CHAPTER 13
THE MIRROR RANG AGAIN, A STRIDENT CLASH OF SWORDS, AS IF blades had screamed down the sides of each other. It made me jump.
Rhys looked at Doyle and me. Doyle said, "Let Abe and me get out of sight. The fewer people in faerie who have this rumor the better I think." He gave my hand a last squeeze. Then he tried to rise with his usual effortless movement, but paused in mid-motion. It wasn't a flinch so much as that he simply stopped trying to stand.
I put a hand on his back to steady him. Frost grabbed one of his arms, and it was probably more him than me that helped Doyle stand upright. Doyle tried to move away from Frost's arm but stumbled. Frost got a firmer grip on his friend. Doyle actually leaned a little on the other man, which meant he was in a lot of pain.
"You didn't take the pain medication that the hospital gave you, did you?" I asked.
The mirror clanged again, an even angrier sound than before, as if the next sound of swords would break one of the blades.
"The goblins are not known for their patience, Meredith," Doyle said in a tight voice. "You must answer the call," He started off, and didn't fight Frost from helping him, which meant he was very hurt indeed. Mo
re hurt than he'd let on. The thought of my Darkness being this injured made my stomach and chest tight, not just because I loved him, but because he was the greatest warrior I had. Frost might be as good in battle, but for strategy it was Doyle. I needed him, in so many ways.
It must have shown on my face because he said, "I have failed you."
"Taranis tried to burn your face off," Rhys said. "You failed no one."
The evil sound of swords filled the room again.
"Go," Rhys said. "I'll stay with her."
"You don't like goblins," Frost said.
Rhys shrugged. "I killed the one that took my eye. That's got to be good enough revenge. Besides, I won't let you and Merry down by being a big baby. Go, rest, take your meds."
"I'll take Doyle," Galen said.
We all looked at him. "If Merry can't have Doyle by her side for this call, then she needs Frost," he said.
Abe had managed to get off the bed on the other side. "I see that no one cares that I might need help."
"Do you need help?" Galen asked, as he moved to take Doyle from Frost. He actually held his other hand out to Abe.
Abe looked into his face for a breath, then shook his head, but stopped the movement as if it hurt. "I can walk, boy. The king's men jumped him before he could do his worst on my back." He moved toward the door slowly but surely.
Doyle let Galen help him out of sight of the mirror and toward the door. Frost came to stand with me and Rhys. Rhys reached toward the mirror, then hesitated. "I hate that you are going to be with these two tonight."
"We've had this discussion, Rhys. For every half-sidhe goblin whom we bring into his full power, our alliance with the goblins is lengthened by a month. We need their threat to keep us safe," I said.
The mirror made its ugly sound again. "The goblins do not wait with patience," Frost said.
"We need them, Rhys," I said.
"I know. I hate it, but I know," Rhys said. A look passed over his face too quickly for me to read. "One of these days I'd like you to be able to do things just because you want to do them, not because you're forced to do them."
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