Swallowing Darkness_A Novel

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  The bone gate collapsed at Mistral’s touch so that it was only a pile of debris. “Whatever held this place together is failing,” he called back to them. “We need to get the princess to safety before it collapses completely.”

  Mistral picked me up, and carried me through the wreck of bones. Beyond the gate we could glimpse Sholto’s bedroom, and Henry’s worried face peering at us. The wall that had been as large as a cavern mouth was much smaller. I could actually see the stones knitting together like something alive, remaking themselves. They were strangely fluid; it was like watching flowers bloom, if you could catch them at it.

  Mistral carried me through the opening, and we were back in Sholto’s wine and purple bedroom. Henry bowed to us, then went back to peering behind us for his king. The opening continued to grow smaller, and neither of them was hurrying. Was it some kind of ego contest? All I knew was that with all that had happened my nerves couldn’t stand watching them stroll toward the rapidly diminishing opening.

  I called after them, “I will be really cross if you both get trapped behind the wall. We leave for Los Angeles tonight.”

  The two men exchanged a glance, then they began to jog toward us. Under other circumstances I might have enjoyed the view of both of them running toward me, nude, but the wall was closing. If it closed completely, I wasn’t certain that we could reopen it. There were hands of power among the sidhe that could blast through stone, but neither Sholto nor Doyle possessed such a hand.

  I called, “Hurry!”

  Doyle broke into a run, spilling forward like some black, sleek animal, as if running were the purpose all that muscle and flesh had been designed for. I didn’t get to see him from a distance much. He was always at my side. Now, I was reminded that without my human movement to hold him back, he could simply move. Like wind, rain, something elemental and more than flesh. I had a moment such as I had not had in months. A moment to watch him and marvel that all that potential would love me. I was, in the end, so terribly human.

  Sholto followed behind him like a pale shadow. For a moment I could only see my Frost. He was the one who was supposed to be at Doyle’s side. My light and dark; my men. Sholto was handsome and moved well at Doyle’s side, but he couldn’t keep up. He was a little behind, a little…more human.

  Mistral said, “Ask the wall to stay open.”

  “What?” I asked, and was almost startled to find myself still in his arms, still in Sholto’s bedroom.

  He sat me down on the floor. “Stop staring at Doyle like a lovesick girl and tell the wall to stop closing.”

  I wasn’t certain that the sluagh’s sithen would obey me, but I had nothing to lose. “Wall, please stop closing.”

  The wall seemed to hesitate, as if thinking about obeying, then it went back to closing the opening. It was slower, but it had not stopped.

  Doyle dived through the opening, doing a wonderful roll across the carpet, ending on his feet in a whirl of black hair and dark muscle.

  Sholto dived through too, but ended up flat on the carpet in a spill of pale hair and breathlessness. Doyle was breathing heavily too, but he seemed ready to find a weapon and defend. Sholto seemed content to lie on the carpet for a time.

  He gasped out, “Did the path get longer as we ran?”

  Doyle nodded. “Yes.”

  “Why would it get longer?” I asked.

  Sholto got to his feet, and looked up at the ceiling of his bedroom. I gazed upward, but saw nothing but the stone.

  “Someone, or something, is here.” He went to a wardrobe on the far side of the room, and got out a robe. It was gold and white, and didn’t match the room at all, but it did match his eyes and hair to perfection. He suddenly looked all Seelie Court, and if not for one bit of genetics that had given him those extra bits he’d have been terribly welcome at the Unseelie Court. In the far past, even the Seelie Court would have been happy to have him. But Sholto, like me, could not hide his mixed blood. There was no illusion deep enough to make us one of them.

  Doyle gazed up and around. Did he see something too? What was I not sensing? “What is it?”

  “Magic, sluagh magic, but not…mine,” Sholto said. He started for the door.

  “My King,” Henry said, and we all looked at him. It wasn’t that I had forgotten he was there, but I guess in a way I had. “You were locked in the magical sleep for several days. There are those among the sluagh who feared you might be enchanted for centuries.”

  “Like Sleeping Beauty, you mean,” I said.

  Henry nodded. His handsome face was very worried, and I didn’t know him long enough to read him that well. “They came and saw the garden, and it was very Seelie, my lord. More than that, none of us could pass its gate or walls. It held us back, and protected you from all who would come close.”

  “What has happened while we slept, Henry?” Sholto asked. He went to the man, gripping his shoulder.

  “My King, the Seelie are encamped outside our sithen. They asked for parlay, and we had no king to speak for us. You know the rules—without a ruler, we cease to be sluagh, cease to be free people. We would be absorbed into the Unseelie Court, but before that happens, we would have to deal with the Seelie on our own without a king.”

  “They’ve chosen another king,” Sholto said.

  “A proxy ruler only.”

  “But it has divided the power of kingship, and whoever has part of the power did not want us—me—to escape the wall.”

  “Why are the Seelie outside?” Doyle asked.

  Henry looked to Sholto, who nodded. “They say that the sluagh have stolen Princess Meredith away, and are holding her against her will.”

  “I am not their princess. Why should they be at the gates to rescue me?”

  “They want both you and the chalice. They say both have been stolen,” Henry said.

  Ah, I thought. “They want my magic, not me. But under what right do they make siege upon the sluagh?”

  “By right of kinship, your mother came to demand the return of her sweet daughter, and the grandchildren that she carries.” Henry looked even more uncomfortable.

  “One of the children I carry is Sholto’s own. The right of the father supersedes that of a grandmother.”

  “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.

  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.”