[Merry Gentry 04] - A Stroke of Midnight (24 page)

“I could do it,” Aisling said.

“No,” I said.

“Don't you trust me?” he asked, with that ghostly smile.

“Not around Dr. Polaski and her people, no.”

“You were able to gaze upon my naked body and not be bespelled. Perhaps I have lost some of my allure for mortals.”

“Or perhaps Meredith is a sidhe princess,” Mistral said, “and not mortal.”

“Using your powers has made your tongue bold, Aisling,” Hawthorne said.

Nobody seemed to like him much. Had everyone been as shaken as I had been by his little show?

Aisling looked at Hawthorne. “You gazed upon me without anything between my face and your eyes. That is a hero's task, or was it harder to resist my beauty than you let on?” He sighed, and the teasing left his voice, replaced by sorrow. “After going so long with our needs unmet, there is no shame in being attracted to what you once would not have been. We all crave the touch of another sidhe. Sometimes I think I will go mad without the touch of another being.”

Hawthorne did a brave thing then, clasping Aisling's shoulder in a brotherly way. I wondered if he would have risked it if the man had still been shirtless. “We have a chance to break our long fast.”

“With the princess,” Aisling said.

Hawthorne nodded.

Aisling stepped away from Hawthorne's hand and moved to me. It took a great deal for me not to flinch away from him. He knelt beside Galen and me.

“There will be no princess for me,” Aisling said. “She will not risk it now.” He looked down at me. “Will you, Princess?”

I didn't know what to say because he was right. I did not want him touching me. I said the only thing I could think of: “I will not rule it out, but I fear you now, Aisling, where I didn't before.”

“I'm missing something,” Polaski said.

“Be happy you missed it,” I said.

She walked toward me. “No, you're hiding too many things from me, Princess. I need to know what is happening here, or you get nothing from me and my people.”

As she came to stand over us, she brushed against Aisling and started to fall. Galen and I reacted, knowing that Aisling must not touch her with his bare skin. I stood between them, pushing Aisling backwards. Galen came to his knees and caught Dr. Polaski before she could hit the floor.

The doctor was safe with Galen, but I was in Aisling's arms, and I wasn't safe at all.

CHAPTER 23

HE CAUGHT HIS BALANCE, AND ME, WITH HIS ARMS AND HIS BODY.
Perhaps he stumbled more than he needed to, so he would be able to hold me tighter, but it wasn't him that made my hand slip underneath his tunic to glide along bare skin. Fear choked me, ran along my skin so that it was like small electric shocks, tingling out to my fingertips. I saw Melangell's face, her empty, bloody eyes, and waited for his magic to take me. I stared up into those odd eyes, with their inner knot, bound in four empty loops. There was no sign of the blue of his eyes. Something was missing.

I traced my hand up the curve of his spine, so warm, so firm, so real. He leaned over me, as if to kiss me through the gauze of his veil. I leaned back, his hands tightened around my body, holding me against him. If I had not seen him with Melangell I would have simply let him kiss me, but some things once known can never be unknown.

I smelled roses. I was suddenly drowning in the sweet, almost cloying scent of roses.

Aisling hesitated. “Do you smell that?”

“Yes,” I whispered.

A voice whispered through my head. “With Amatheon I bid you hurry, and you turned from haste, and chose the longer road. You risked losing that which you cherished.”

I whispered, “Galen.”

Aisling's arms loosened around me, but I grabbed for him, because I was suddenly dizzy.

“Now I tell you that this must wait, or you will lose again.”

“Doyle.”

“Darkness cannot be lost for it is always with us, but there are other more fragile powers. Hurry.”

“Who?” I asked.

“Who are you talking to?” Aisling asked.

“Hurry,” the voice in my head said, and with a last whiff of roses she was gone again.

“Where?” I asked.

It wasn't words. It was more like the feeling that had come over me when I told Frost that Galen could not search alone for Doyle. But this wasn't panic, it was just a knowing. I simply knew where I needed to go. No doubts, no logic, just knowledge.

“Who are you talking to?” Aisling said again, his voice shaky, almost afraid.

“I am not afraid to touch you,” I said, “but there is no time. We must get to the throne room, now.”

“Why?” Galen stood with an arm still around Dr. Polaski, casually, the way he would have touched another sidhe. She was looking at me as if she'd never seen me before.

“Why did everything smell like flowers?” she asked.

I shook my head, and yelled for Rhys as I started down the hallway. He came to the head of the hallway, leaving behind the scientists, police, and bodies.

“Peasblossom's print is where it shouldn't be, but it may be a sidhe using magic to implicate her. Put her gently in a cage until we can figure it out.”

“But . . .”

“No arguments. Just do it, Rhys.”

His face did a rare show of arrogance, going cold. “As the princess orders.”

“I don't have time for ego-stroking, Rhys.” I started to run. I couldn't explain why, but I ran down the hallway with its patches of glittering marble like some brilliant jewel peeking out of the grey matrix of the stone.

Frost and Galen ran on either side. Mistral came behind, and the others trailed after. We were down to less than ten guards, but it wouldn't be a matter of numbers. Something bad was happening, and we could prevent it just by arriving in time. I thought about the mirror that had appeared in my room, simply because I wished to see myself in the fur cloak. As I broke into a full-out run, I whispered under my breath, “We need to get to the throne now!”

Nothing happened for a handful of heartbeats, then the stones shifted beneath my feet. I didn't hesitate. I didn't pause. I didn't stumble. I trusted that the sithen would get me where I wanted to go. I ran, as the world streamed around me, grey stone flowing into white marble, as if the walls had turned to liquid. Then we were running on dried, dead ground. I had a second to recognize the pool and fountain that stood before the great double doors that led to the entry chamber for the throne room, but the fountain was now in the center of a huge formal garden spreading on either side. The fountain had always stood in the center of a bare hallway.

Crystall and the guards I'd sent with the lords to the queen were standing in the middle of that garden. They turned frightened eyes to me. I had no idea what about the garden made Crystall look so shaken, and I didn't ask. Panic filled me, adrenaline like fine champagne screamed through me. The double doors opened without a hand to touch them. My pulse was choking off my air. I fought the pain in my side to keep upright and running.

The climbing roses of the entry chamber, filling the darkness with crimson blossoms, writhed and slithered like great thorned serpents overhead. I ran, and the vines did not try to hinder us. The last set of double doors was just ahead. The court lay just inside them.

I whispered, “Open,” and the doors swung inward. I raced from the dimness of the roses to the brightness of the court, and staggered, almost blinded by the difference in light. I could see nothing but light and shadow and half shapes. Exhaustion danced across my vision in starbursts of grey and white. Through the thundering of the blood in my ears, I heard Queen Andais yelling.

I yelled, “Stop . . . this!” It took the last of my air, and Galen caught my elbow or I would have fallen. My vision came back in pieces. The court was dressed for a party, or an expensive funeral. A lot of black, a lot of silver, a lot of jewels.

Andais was on the steps leading up to her throne, staring at me, at us. Barinthus stood at the bottom of those steps. He stood so he could keep both the queen and us in his sight. I knew in that second what was happening, though not why. Why didn't matter to me.

“By what right do you stop me from issuing challenge to anyone, niece?” Her voice held a rage that made the air itself heavier on my tongue. She was the Queen of Air and Darkness. She could make the air so thick my mortal lungs couldn't breathe it. She'd nearly killed me that way. Was it just last night, or the night before?

“I beg a private audience with you, Aunt Andais.” My voice was breathy, and if Galen hadn't had a death grip on my elbow, I'm not sure my legs would have held me. Supernatural strength and magic were fine, but I wasn't used to running like that.

She smiled. “Begging is not done on your feet, Meredith.” She walked back up to her throne, the long black skirts trailing behind her like a cloak of darkness. She settled the skirts with a practiced gesture, fanning them out around her. The color framed all that pale skin and black hair, the tri-grey eyes with the dramatic eye makeup. Diamonds and midnight-dark sapphires graced her throat and gloved wrist.

I dropped to one knee. Galen helped make it graceful, and knelt with me. Everyone with me knelt when I did. “I beg a private audience with you, Aunt Andais, Queen of Air and Darkness.”

“Why are you and Galen covered in blood?”

“I have much to share with you, my queen, but some of it might better be served to your ears alone.”

“Has there been another attempt on your life?”

“Not on mine, no.”

She shook her head, as if she had a fly buzzing around her, and she was ridding herself of it. “You speak in riddles.”

“I would speak clearly with you in private.”

“Let us handle our public business first,” she said, and pointed to Barinthus, who was still standing between the throne and our group. “The ring acknowledges him, and you have helped him break his vow to me.”

“The ring knows Lord Barinthus. You said that I was to fuck as many of the guards as often as possible. Wasn't that your order to me?”

Her face narrowed down to angry lines. “Perhaps my words were hasty, or perhaps you do not know that Barinthus made a vow to me before I allowed him to join this court. One that only he made, and now he has broken it.”

“He has done nothing that will set him as king to my queen.”

“Have a care, Meredith, I know that he had sex with you.”

“Sex that was more magical than real, nothing that would get me with child.”

“He had release in your body.”

“No, he had release, but our clothes were in place, and he has never entered my body with so much as a fingertip.”

“You swear this?” she asked.

“I do.”

“I was told that Barinthus had moved from kingmaker to would-be king.”

“I tell you that he has not broken the vow he made to this court. The ring recognizes who it will, and bestows its gifts where it will, but he has broken no vow.”

“Why did you not say this, Barinthus?” she asked.

“You would not believe me, Queen Andais.”

She seemed to think about that for a second or two, then gave a very small nod. “Perhaps not.” She looked at me. It was the kind of look that a hawk gives to grass when it's almost certain there's a tasty morsel down there.

“I have heard many stories about your activities. Now I wonder how much is true, and how much is exaggeration designed to set me against my allies and you.”

“Until I know what you have been told, I cannot say, Aunt Andais.”

“We are in the throne room, Meredith, use my title.”

“My queen.” I bowed my head, so she would not see my face. This wasn't good. This wasn't good at all.

CHAPTER 24

“DID THE RING CHOOSE A COUPLE AMONG THE GUARDS
?” her voice was very neutral when she asked.

I was glad I was staring at the floor because so much had happened that I'd almost forgotten about Nicca and Biddy. Murders, metaphysics, the Goddess, the chalice, Amatheon vanishing, the attack on Galen, Cel's prophecy about the green men, the lords who waited just outside, so much, and this was what she began with. Why?

“Yes, Queen Andais, the ring did choose a couple.”

There were murmurings from the nobles in their seats on either side of the floor. “Describe what happened.”

I did as she ordered. I talked of the phantom child, and what I had seen and felt.

Someone said, “The ring lives again.”

Andais looked at the man who had spoken. “Do you have something to add to this discussion, Lord Leri?”

“Only that this is surely good news, my queen.”

“I will decide what is good news, Leri.”

He bowed. “As my queen wills.”

She turned her attention back to me. “The ring lives again after centuries. It chooses a possibly fertile pair, and you don't think this is important enough to tell me.”

“Much has happened since the ring chose them, Queen Andais. I thought finding the murderer, or murderers, took precedence.”

“I decide what takes precedence here, not you.” She stood. “I am still queen.”

I lowered myself to both knees, and Galen moved with me. “I have never questioned that.”

“Liar,” she hissed, and the room echoed with that one word.

Okay, this was bad, really bad. “What have I done to anger you, Queen Andais? Tell me and I will do my best to remedy it.” I kept my face down so that I was staring at the well-worn stone floor. I did not trust my expression. Fear might excite her, and puzzlement might anger her. I had no expression that I could give her.

“Mistral. Come to me, captain of my guard.” He got up off his knees and answered her command.

I watched him as he mounted the steps to her. He made a sound of startlement more than pain, as she grabbed a handful of his rich, deep grey hair and used it to jerk him to his knees before her. “Did you fuck him?”

I tried to see the trap in the question but failed. I answered truthfully, “Yes, my queen.”

She let him go so abruptly that he nearly fell down the steps, catching himself with one hand. He stayed kneeling awkwardly, most of his face hidden by the glory of his hair. He lowered his eyes, but not before a rumble of thunder echoed through the throne room.

The nobles moved restlessly, looking up and around. Andais's voice purred as she knelt beside Mistral, stroking his hair. He shivered like a skittish horse when she touched him. “Was that you, Mistral?”

“Forgive me, my queen, I have not had such power in years. My control is not what it was, my apologies, my queen.”

“Two ‘my queens' in one sentence—you must feel guilty indeed.”

“I have done nothing to feel guilty over, my queen.”

She kept stroking his hair, but she looked out at me. “Have you not?”

He kept his face carefully down. Mistral had never been that good at hiding his emotions. “What have I done to anger you, my queen?” His voice was almost neutral, the distant rumble of thunder was not. His powers were newly reborn, and he was struggling.

“Did the princess bring you back into your power?” She kept petting him idly like a dog. I'd seen her do that with a guard now and then. She'd stroke and pet them all night in front of everyone, then leave them with only those caresses, and nothing more. I'd seen her reduce some of our greatest warriors to silent tears. She petted Mistral, but the anger in her face was all for me. Why was she angry that I'd had sex with Mistral? What had we done wrong?

She walked down the steps, her black dress slithering behind her. “Could you bring any of us, all of us, back to our power? Is one good fuck from you all it takes?” Anger was making her skin pale, starting that first hint of moonlight glow. Her triple-grey eyes were beginning to shine, as if darkness had light in it.

I put my hands on the floor and lowered my face on top of them. I abased myself before her, because I had no idea why she was this angry with me. I had no idea what someone had been whispering in her ear.

She stood so close that the trailing edge of her skirt brushed along my body as she moved past me. “Answer me, Meredith.”

I thought of several answers, discarded them all, and finally said, “I move as the Goddess wills it.”

She came fast, her heels clicking on the stones. She knelt, put her gloved hand under my chin, and raised me up to meet her eyes. “That is not an answer.”

My voice was breathy around my pulse. “I have no other answer.” If I even hinted that I might be able to bring others back with sex, she might order one of her sex shows, and I wasn't sure that I would survive it. And there were nobles here with whom I could barely have a casual conversation, let alone share my body. There were those who were my enemies, and I wasn't certain having them come back into their full powers was a good idea.

She slid her other hand into my hair, grabbed a handful of it, and jerked me to my feet. I fought not to let the anger show in my eyes, and knew that I failed.

“It is not just my powers that are returning,” Mistral said from the steps.

She turned to look at him, and I knew that he had deliberately distracted her from me, offering himself to her anger.

She kept her painful grip on my hair, her other hand stroking along the side of my face, much as she had touched his hair. “What are you babbling about, Mistral?”

“Most of the guards that experienced the magic of the ring have regained at least some small magic that had been lost.”

Her grip tightened in my hair until I fought not to make a sound of pain. Andais liked that, and I did not want to encourage her. “Are you saying that she has brought others of my guard back to their power?”

“Yes, my queen.”

She turned back to me, and I didn't like anything I saw in her eyes. She loosened her hold on my hair just a little as the silk of her gloved hand stroked my cheek and continued down along my neck. Under other circumstances it might have been exciting. Now it just scared me more.

“How many of my guards have you had sex with, Meredith?” She moved her face in close to me, as if she meant to kiss me. “How many of my guard have you given release?” She spoke the last word above my lips, and I knew she was going to kiss me before her lips touched mine.

I felt movement all around me, and knew that the guards were standing. Everyone with me had been in the hallway when Mistral and I had sex, so they all stood to answer her question. They stood to draw her attention from me to them. My bodyguards, my men and women. Some of them had spent centuries like well-armed mice. Quiet, hiding, trying to be invisible. Now they stood and purposefully made a spectacle of themselves.

She had moved back from me when they stood, leaving the taste of her lipstick on my mouth. “She fucked all of you?” She sounded as if she didn't believe it.

“You asked only who has had release,” Frost said. “When the power filled the hallway, it touched all who stood there.”

“You mean the power when Mistral and Meredith came together made all the guard in the hallway orgasm?”

“Yes,” Frost said.

She laughed and let me go. “How many fertility deities are in your lineage?”

“Five,” I said.

“Five,” she repeated, as she paced away from us. “Now you don't even have to touch them to bring them power, is that what you're telling me?”

“I thought you would be pleased that magic returns to the sidhe,” I said carefully.

Afagdu, one of the nobles, spoke from his chair, his eyes the only color in the white of his face and the black of his hair and beard. “Our magic returns, is that not what we have all wished for, Queen Andais?” His voice was mild, careful. Afagdu and his entire house belonged to no one. They were one of the four or five truly neutral houses.

Dylis stood in a gown of yellow that complemented her hair and brought out the tri-blue of her eyes. She was head of one of the sixteen houses, and had never been my friend. “You know that I have never liked Essus's daughter. I agreed with you, my queen, when you tried to drown her in childhood. But if the ring lives on her hand, and can bring children back to the sidhe, then I will follow her.”

A sort of mixed endorsement but I took it.

“You follow me, Dylis, until I say otherwise.”

The woman gave a curtsy. “You are our queen. I misspoke myself. I meant only that if Meredith can give us back our children, then I would rethink my objections to her.”

“Politely and politically spoken, Dylis. But if you mean Nicca and Biddy, they are both guards sworn to me and mine, and no one else. The guards serve me and my blood.” She smacked her hand against her chest to emphasize her words.

“Do you forbid a couple the ring has chosen to bed?” Afagdu asked.

“Royal guards serve royalty, this is their function,” Andais said.

“They will still serve you,” he said, and his voice was careful again.

She shook her head. “Not if there is a child.”

“But a child would be a great blessing.” This from one of Nerys's ladies.

“The head of your house tried to kill Meredith just last night, or had you forgotten that, Elen?”

She gave a curtsy so low that she almost disappeared behind the table. “If the ring truly lives on her finger, then Nerys was wrong, very wrong. If the Goddess blesses Meredith with her gifts, then we were all wrong.”

“Would you have us all childless because your bloodline is?” asked Maelgwn, the wolf lord. He was naked from the waist up except for a hood and cloak of wolf skin, complete with most of the animal's face sitting above his own. All his people had been shape-shifters until they lost the ability.

“I am queen and my blood inherits this throne.”

“You have your brother's blood standing in front of you,” Maelgwn said, his mocking smile and his happy, peaceful eyes taking me in. “There she stands, your blood. If your niece can bring blood back to all of us, then your line is indeed powerful magic.”

“I have held the guards in abstinence for more than a thousand years. They wait at my pleasure, and the pleasure of my son.”

“And at your niece's pleasure,” Afagdu said. He seemed to be helping me, but I didn't trust it. He helped no one but himself and his clan.

Andais waved that away as if it was unimportant. “Yes, yes, on Meredith's pleasure.” She looked at me then. “Though I did not intend the pleasure to be so . . . pleasurable.” She came down the steps again, gliding toward me in her heels and silk. “The guards are for our pleasure, Meredith, not us for theirs. I'm not certain you understand that, niece.” She walked past me, and I knew where she was going.

She stopped by Nicca and Biddy where they knelt. I glanced back and found that they were holding hands. They were also staring very hard at the floor, as if she wouldn't hurt them if they didn't look up. If only it were that easy.

She ran her fingers through the heaviness of Nicca's chestnut hair. He went very still under her touch. “I like him in my bed, but not for sex. He frightens so easily. He doesn't like pain, do you, Nicca?”

If I hadn't been kneeling within a yard of him I might not have heard his answer. “No, Queen Andais.”

“I taught him that in a night, did you know that, Meredith?”

“Taught him what, my queen?”

“To answer any question I asked him with yes or no, and never, ever to leave off the Queen Andais.” She ran her hand down the side of his face until she cupped his chin. She raised him to look at her. “Would you like another lesson, Nicca? It has been long since I made love to a man with wings. It might be interesting.”

“Queen Andais,” I said.

She didn't even look at me.

“My queen, you said that the guards who came to my bed were mine to keep.” I made my voice as neutral as I could, but I knew it was a bad idea to say it.

“Would you not share him with me?”

I thought about that. “Perhaps, but after he and Biddy have had their night.”

She touched Biddy, turned her face upward, so she gazed down at both of them. “But if she gets with child then they will be married and monogamous, and even the Queen of Air and Darkness will not be able to force him to forsake his marriage vows.”

“My queen, Aunt Andais, if Nicca and Biddy could make a baby, then it might mean that others of the sidhe could as well. That is a good thing.”

She let go of their faces and walked between them, forcing them to let go of each other's hands. She traced the upper edge of Nicca's wings. “But he is mine, Meredith, my pretty toy, and I do not share my toys.”

“You said that any guard who went to the bed of the princess was hers,” Afagdu said. “Nicca is her pretty toy now.”

She turned abruptly and started walking toward Afagdu and his table of lords. “What the queen gives, the queen can take away.”

“Even the queen must honor her word,” Afagdu said, “and you gave your word before the court that the guards who went to Meredith's bed were hers.” The fact that he would say such bald truth to an angry Andais showed how confident he was that he could survive an attack by her. There were few magicians among us who thought they were her equal in magic; Afagdu was one of them.

“Few would dare make me eat my own words in open court, Afagdu. Do not let your magic make you bold beyond your abilities.”

“Is it bold to speak the truth, my queen?”

But, of course, two could play at that particular game. “Very well, Nicca is Meredith's now, but Biddy is not. Meredith can do as she will with Nicca, but Biddy is not hers to give to another man. Biddy belongs to my son, to Prince Cel.” She looked at me. “Would you steal even the women from his bed?”