Swallowing Darkness_A Novel

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  I gripped his arm until he looked at me. The blood that had left a mark so bright and fresh on Cair’s face left no mark on his arm. I stared into his eyes until I saw him look back, not in anger, but with that wisdom that had let the sluagh keep their independence when most of the other lesser kingdoms had been swallowed up.

  He smiled at me, that gentler version that I had only seen since he found out that he was to be a father. “Shall I show them that they did not unman me?”

  I knew what he meant. I smiled back, and nodded. The smiles saved us, I think. We shared a moment that had nothing to do with the hunt’s purpose. A moment of hope, of shared intimacy, of friendship as well as love.

  He’d meant to show Aunt Eluned what nightmares could truly be. To show his extra bits in anger to horrify. Now he would reveal himself to prove that the nobles who had hurt him had failed to mutilate him. He was whole. More than whole, he was perfect.

  One moment it was a tattoo that decorated his stomach and upper chest, the next it was the reality. Light and color played on the pale skin, gold and pale pink. Shades of pastel light shone and moved under the skin of the many moving parts. They waved like some graceful sea creature, moved by some warm tropical current. When last he’d come to this court, he’d been ashamed of this part of himself. Now he was not, and it showed.

  There were screams from some of the ladies, and my aunt, though a little pale, said, “You are a nightmare yourself, Shadowspawn.”

  Yolland of the black hair and vine-covered horse said, “She seeks to distract you from her daughter’s guilt.”

  My aunt looked at him and said, in a shocked voice, “Yolland, how can you help them?”

  “I did my duty to king and land, but the hunt has me now, Eluned, and I see things differently. I know that Cair used her own grandmother as a stalking horse and a trap. Why would anyone do that? Have we become so heartless that the murder of your own mother means nothing to you, Eluned?”

  “She is my only child,” she said, in a voice that was not so sure of itself.

  “And she has killed your only mother,” he said.

  She turned and looked at her daughter, who was still pressed against the wall in a circle of the white mastiffs, with our horses at the front of the circle.

  “Why, Cair?” Not “how could you?” but simply “why?”

  Cair’s face showed a different kind of fear now. It wasn’t fear of the dogs pressing so closely. She looked at her mother’s face, almost desperately. “Mother.”

  “Why?” her mother said.

  “I have heard you deny her in this court day after day. You called her a useless brownie who had deserted her own court.”

  “That was talk for the other nobles, Cair.”

  “You never said differently in private with me, Mother. Aunt Besaba says the same. She is a traitor to this court for leaving, first to live with the Unseelie, then to live among the humans. I have heard you agree with such words all my life. You said you took me to visit her because it was duty. Once I was old enough to have a choice, we stopped going.”

  “I visited her in private, Cair.”

  “Why did you not tell me?”

  “Because your heart is as cold as my sister’s, and your ambition as hot. You would have seen my care for our mother as a weakness.”

  “It was a weakness,” she said.

  Eluned shook her head, a look of deep sorrow on her face. She stepped back from the line of dogs, back from her daughter. She looked up at us. “Did she die knowing that Cair had betrayed her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Knowing that her own granddaughter betrayed her would have broken her heart.”

  “She did not have the knowledge long,” I said. It was cold comfort, but it was all I had to give her. I rode with the wild hunt, and truth, harsh or kind, was the only thing I could speak this night.

  “I will not stand in your way, niece.”

  “Mother!” Cair reached out. The dogs closed in around her, giving that low bass growl that seemed to tiptoe up the spine and hit something low in the brain. If you heard that sound, you knew that it was bad.

  Cair yelled again. “Mother, please!”

  Eluned yelled back, “She was my mother!”

  “I’m your daughter.”

  Eluned moved backward in her long golden dress. “I have no daughter.” She walked away, and she did not look back. The nobles who had clustered by the door moved apart to let her pass. She did not stop until the far jeweled doors closed behind her. She would not fight us for her daughter’s life, but she would not watch us take it either. I could not blame her.

  Cair looked around frantically. “Lord Finbar, help me!” she cried.

  Most of the eyes in the room went to the far table, where the king was completely hidden behind a wall of guards and sparkling courtiers. One of those was Lord Finbar, tall and handsome with his yellow, almost human-colored hair. Only the feeling of power from him and the otherworldly handsome face marked him as more. Uar was still standing to one side watching the show, but not shielding his brother. Lord Finbar was planted in front of his monarch. He was an intimate of the king’s, but no friend to my aunt or my cousin, last I knew. Why would she appeal to him now?

  The king was completely hidden behind the glittering, bejeweled throng that included Finbar. Maybe he was no longer even in the room, and the nobles were only using themselves as a stalking horse. But tonight, that did not matter. What did matter was why Cair would appeal to the tall blond noble who had never been her friend.

  His high, sculpted-cheekboned face was set in arrogant lines, as cold as any I’d seen. It made me think of my lost Frost, when he was either at his most afraid, or most embarrassed. It was a face to hide behind, that arrogance.

  Cair called out to him again, more frantically. “Lord Finbar, you promised.”

  He spoke then. “The girl is clearly deranged. The killing of her own matriarch is proof of that.” His voice was as cold and clear as the pale line of his cheek. The words dripped surety and an arrogance bred from centuries, not of his ancestors’ ruling, but of he himself ruling. Immortal and noble; it was a recipe for arrogance, and stupidity.

  Cair cried out, “Finbar, what are you saying? You promised you would protect me. You swore.”

  “She is deranged,” he repeated.

  Sholto looked at me, and I understood. I spoke, and my voice carried, echoing. Tonight I held more than my own magic. “Lord Finbar, give us your oath that you did not promise my cousin your protection, and we will believe you. She is deranged.”

  “I do not answer to you, Meredith, not yet.”

  “It is not I, Meredith, who asks for your oath. Tonight I ride at the head of a different court. It is with that power that I ask a second time, Finbar. Give your oath that she lies about your protection, and no more need be said.”

  “I do not owe the perverse creature at your side my oath.”

  He had used Queen Andais’s nickname for Sholto. She had called him her Perverse Creature, sometimes simply Creature. Bring me my Creature. Sholto had hated the nickname, but you did not correct a queen.

  Sholto urged his many-legged horse forward, with his own extras echoing the theme. I thought he’d lose his temper, but his voice was as calm and arrogant as Finbar’s had been. “How does a lord of the Seelie know the Dark Queen’s nicknames for her guards?”

  “We have spies, as you do.”

  Sholto nodded, his hair catching the yellow light, except that there was no light in the room quite the color that was sparkling in his hair. “But tonight I am not her creature. I am the King of the sluagh, and the Huntsman, this night. Would you refuse your oath to the Huntsman?”

  “You are not the Huntsman,” Finbar said.

  It was the blond-haired noble who rode with us who said, “We attacked the hunt, now we ride with it. They are the huntsmen for this night.”

  “You are bespelled, Dacey,” Finbar said.

  “If the Great Hunt is a spell, t
hen I am under it.”

  One of the other nobles said, “Finbar, simply give your oath that the madwoman lies, and this will be done.”

  Finbar said nothing to that. He just looked handsome and arrogant. In the end, it was the last defense of the sidhe, beauty and pride. I’d never had enough of either to learn the trick of it.

  “He cannot give oath,” Cair said, “for he would be forsworn with the wild hunt standing in front of him. It would be his doom.” She sounded angry now. She, like me, had never been beautiful enough to earn the arrogance that the true sidhe had. We could have been friends, she and I, if she hadn’t resented me so.

  “Tell us what he promised you, Cair,” I said.

  “He knew I could get close enough to her to place the spell upon her.”

  “She lies.” This came not from Finbar, but from his son, Barris.

  Finbar said, “Barris, no!”

  Some of the hounds had turned toward Barris where he stood at the end of the far side of the room. He had not joined his father in protecting the king. The huge dogs began to creep toward him, growling that low, threatening sound. “Liars were once the prey of the hunt,” Sholto said, and he was smiling, a very satisfied smile.

  I touched his arm again, to remind him not to enjoy the power too much. The hunt was a trap, and the longer we rode in it, the harder it would become to remember that.

  He reached back, and took my hand in his. He nodded and said, “Think carefully, Barris. Is Cair a liar, or does she tell the truth?”

  Cair spoke. “I am telling the truth. Finbar told me what to do, and promised that if I did it, he would let Barris and me be a couple. And that if I became with child, we would marry.”

  “Is that true, Barris?” I asked.

  Barris was staring in horror at the huge white hounds as they crept forward. There was something in the way they moved that reminded me of images of lions stalking on a savannah. Barris didn’t look as if he enjoyed playing the part of the gazelle.

  “Father,” he said, and looked at Finbar.

  Finbar’s face was no longer arrogant. If he’d been human, I’d have said that he looked tired, but there weren’t enough lines and circles under those pretty eyes for that.

  The hounds began to herd Barris with snaps of teeth and presses of huge bodies. He made a small frightened noise.

  “You always were an idiot,” Finbar said. I was pretty sure he wasn’t talking to us.

  “I know what you hoped to gain, Cair, but what did Finbar hope to gain by the deaths of my men?”

  “He wanted to strip you of your most dangerous consorts.”

  “Why?” I asked, and I felt strangely calm.

  “So that the Seelie nobles could control you once you were queen.”

  “You thought that if Doyle and I were dead you could control Meredith?” Sholto asked.

  “Of course,” she said.

  Sholto laughed, and it was both a good laugh and a bad one, the kind of laugh that you might describe as evil. “They do not know you, Meredith.”

  “They never did,” I said.

  “Did you really think that Rhys, Galen, and Mistral would let you control Meredith?”

  “Rhys and Galen, yes, but not the Storm Lord,” she said.

  “Quiet, girl,” Finbar said at last. It wasn’t a lie or an oath. He could order her about or insult her in safety.

  “You have betrayed me, Finbar, and proved your word as worthless. I owe you nothing.” She turned to me, those long, graceful hands reaching out to me, past the crowding dogs. “I will tell you all, please, Meredith, please. Faerie itself has taken care of the Killing Frost, but the Darkness and the Lord of Shadows needed to go.”

  “Why did you spare Rhys, Galen, and Mistral?” I asked.

  “Rhys was once a lord of this court. He was reasonable, and we thought he would be reasonable again if he could come back to the Golden Court.”

  It wasn’t just me that they didn’t understand. “How long has it been since Rhys was a member of this court?”

  Cair looked at Rhys. “Eight hundred years, maybe a little more.”

  “Did it occur to you that he might have changed in that many years?” I asked.

  The look on her face was enough; it hadn’t. “Everyone wants to be a noble in the Golden Court,” she said, and she believed it. The proof was in her eyes, her face, so earnest.

  “And Galen?” I asked.

  “He is not a threat, and we cannot deprive you of all your mates.”

  “Glad to hear it,” I said. I don’t think she picked up on the sarcasm. I’d found that many of the nobles missed it.

  “What of Mistral?” Sholto asked.

  There was a flicker of eyes, as Cair and Barris looked at each other, then at Finbar. He did not look at anyone. He kept his face and every inch of himself to himself.

  “Have you set a trap for him too?” Sholto asked.

  The younger ones did the nervous look. Finbar remained impassive. I didn’t like either reaction. I urged the mare forward until she nudged my cousin and Barris with the width of her chest. The dogs had herded him to stand beside his would-be bride.

  “Have you sent someone to kill Mistral?”

  “You are going to kill me either way,” Cair said.

  “You are right, but we are not here for Barris tonight. I called kin slayer, and he is not our kin.” I looked at the young lord. “Do you want to survive this night, Barris?”

  He looked up at me, and I saw in his blue eyes the weakness that must have made a political animal like Finbar despair. He wasn’t just weak, he also wasn’t bright. I’d offered him a chance to survive tonight, but there would be other nights. That I vowed.

  Finbar said, “Do not speak.”

  “The king will save you, Father, but he has no use for me.”

  “The Darkness is injured badly enough that he is not at her side. It must be grave. We have missed the Shadow Lord, but if the Storm Lord dies this night, then we will be rewarded.”

  “If Mistral dies this night, Barris, you will follow him, and soon. This I promise you.” The mare shifted underneath me, uneasy.

  “Even you, Barris, must know what a promise like that means when the princess sits a horse of the wild hunt,” Sholto said.

  Barris swallowed hard, then said, “If she breaks the promise, the hunt will destroy her.”

  “Yes,” Sholto said, “so you had better talk while there is still time to save the Storm Lord.”

  His eyes with their circles of blue showed too much white like a frightened horse. One of the hounds nudged his leg, and he made a small sound that in anyone else would have been a scream. But the nobles of the Seelie Court did not scream just because a dog nudged them.

  Finbar said, “Remember who you are, Barris.”

  He looked back at his father. “I remember who I am, Father, but you taught me that all are equal before the hunt. Did you not call it the great leveler?” Barris’s voice held sorrow, or perhaps disappointment. The fear was beginning to fade under the weight of years. Years of never quite being what his father wanted in a son. Years of knowing that though he looked every inch a Seelie noble, he was pretending as hard as he could.

  I looked at Barris, who had always seemed as perfectly arrogant as all the rest. I had never seen beyond that perfect, handsome mask. Was it the magic of the hunt that was giving me clear vision, or had I simply assumed that if you looked perfectly sidhe—tall, thin, and so perfect—you would be happy and secure? Had I truly still believed that beauty was security? That if I had only been taller, thinner, less human-looking and more sidhe my life would have been…perfect?

  I looked into Barris’s face, saw all that disappointment, all that failure, because his beauty hadn’t been enough to win him his father’s heart.

  I felt something I hadn’t expected: pity.

  “Help us save Mistral and you may yet keep your life. Keep silent, let him die, and I cannot help you, Barris.”

  Sholto looked at me
, his face careful not to show surprise, but I think he’d heard that note of pity in my voice, and found it unexpected. I couldn’t blame him. Barris had helped kill my grandmother, and tried to kill my lovers, my future kings, but it hadn’t been him. He had been trying to please his father, and had bargained with the only asset he had, his pure sidhe blood and all that tall, unnaturally slender beauty.

  Finbar had had nothing to bargain with with Cair except his son’s pale beauty. To be accepted in the court, to have a pure-blooded sidhe lover and perhaps husband, that had been the price for Gran’s life. It was the same price for which Gran had agreed to marry Uar the Cruel all those centuries ago. A chance to marry into the Golden Court—for a half human, half brownie, a once-in-a-millennium chance.

  “Tell us, Barris, or you will die another night.”

  “Tell them,” Cair said, her voice thin with fear. Which said that she didn’t know what their plan was for Mistral, only that there was one.

  “We found a traitor to lure him out into the open. Our archers will use cold iron arrowheads.”

  “Where is it to take place?” Sholto asked.

  Barris told us. He confessed everything while some of the king’s guards held Finbar. The King was indeed gone. He’d vanished to safety. The guards didn’t hold Finbar for what he’d tried to do to me, but because his actions could be seen as acts of war against the Unseelie Court. That was a killing offense at both courts, to act without the express orders of your king or queen in such a way that it could cause war. Though part of me was certain that Taranis had agreed to the plan, although not outright. He was of a flavor of kingship to ask, “Who will rid me of this inconvenient man?” Deniability that he could take oath on. But Taranis was prey for another court, and another day.

  I tried to turn my mare toward the doors and the saving of Mistral, but it shook its head. It pranced nervously, but would not move.