Chapter Twenty-Five

Besaba was tall, slender, and very sidhe in her body build. But her hair was only a thick, wavy brown, bound on her head in a complicated hairdo that left her thin face too bare for my taste. She had her mother's hair, and brown eyes, very human eyes. It had only been in the last few months that I'd realized one of the reasons she had always hated me. I might be short, and too curvy, but I couldn't have passed for human with my hair, eyes, and skin. She could have.

She was wearing a dress of deep orange, decorated with gold embroidery. It was a dress to please Taranis, who was very fond of fire colors.

She was in a tent that they had set up on the ground outside. She looked to be alone, but I knew better. Taranis's allies would never have trusted her to make the call without watchers to "guide" her.

I was sitting in Sholto's official calling room, which meant it was richly appointed, and had a throne for a chair. It wasn't "the" throne of the sluagh court. That was made of bone and ancient wood. This one was a gold and purple throne, probably found in some human court long, long ago. But it served its purpose. It looked impressive, though not as impressive as the men around me, or the writhing mass of nightflyers who clung to the wall behind us like a living tapestry from some nightmare you'd rather forget.

Sholto sat on the throne, as befitted the king. I sat on his lap, which lacked a certain dignity, but we thought it might get the point across that I was having a good time. Of course, when someone doesn't want to understand, nothing you can do will make them see the truth. My mother had always been excellent at seeing only what she wished to see.

Doyle was on one side of the throne, Mistral on the other. If we hadn't had the nightflyers behind us, we'd have looked very sidhe. But we wanted whoever was with my mother, just out of sight of the mirror, to understand that they would not be fighting only the four of us, if they pressed. They needed to understand that above all else.

I had settled myself comfortably on Sholto's lap. His arm curved around my waist, putting his hand on my thigh in a very familiar way. He hadn't actually earned such a familiar gesture. Of the three men with me, he had been with me the least, but we were putting on a show, and one point of that show was to prove that I was their lover. When trying to prove something like that, a little hand on the thigh can say volumes.

"I do not need rescuing, Mother, as you well know."

"How can you say that? You are Seelie sidhe, and they have taken you from us."

"They have taken nothing that the Seelie valued. If you speak of the chalice, then all who can hear my voice know that chalice goes where the Goddess wills it, and she has willed it to me."

"It is a sign of great favor among the Seelie, Meredith. You must come home and bring the chalice, and you will be queen."

"Taranis's queen, you mean?" I asked.

She smiled happily. "Of course."

"He raped me, Mother." Doyle moved a little closer to me, though he was quite close to begin with. I reached out to him without thinking so that he held my hand, even while I sat in Sholto's lap.

"How can you say such things? You bear his twins."

"They are not his children. I am with the fathers of my twins."

Mistral moved nearer the chair. He did not reach out for me, because I was out of hands, one in Doyle's hand, and one on Sholto's arm. He simply moved closer, to help me emphasize my point, I think.

"Lies. Unseelie lies."

"I am not queen of the Unseelie yet, Mother. I am queen of the sluagh."

She settled the stiff, rich sleeves of her gown, and harrumphed at me. "Again, falsehoods," she said.

I had a moment when I wished I could conjure the crowns of faerie to me, but such magic came and went when it would. Though, frankly, seeing Sholto and me in the crowns might just make her more convinced that we were Seelie. It was all flowers and herbs, after all.

"Call it what you will, but I am content in the company I keep. Can you say as much?"

"I love my court and my king," she said, and I knew she meant it.

"Even after some of that court conspired to kill your mother, my grandmother, just days ago?"

Her face clouded for a moment, then she stood straight again and faced me. "It was not Cair who slew my mother. I am told that it was one of your guards who struck the blow."

"To save my life, yes."

She looked shocked then, and I think it was real. "Our mother would never have harmed you. She loved you."

"She did, and I her, but Cair's magic turned her against me, and my people. It was an evil spell, Mother, and the fact that she used her own grandmother to carry it was worse."

"You lie."

"I led the wild hunt to get my revenge. If it had not been the absolute truth, the hunt would either have not answered my call, or when it arrived the hounds of the hunt would have torn me limb from limb. They did not. They helped me hunt Cair down. They helped me kill her, and save the fathers of my children, who were still being attacked."

She shook her head, but looked a little less sure of herself. A bit, but I knew her. Her certainty would return. It always did. She would get a glimpse of how wrong she was, or how evil her allies were, then she'd shake off that flitting insight and embrace her ignorance like a well-worn cloak.

I leaned forward in Sholto's lap, my hand finding his hand so that I held both his and Doyle's hands. I leaned toward the mirror on the wall and spoke quickly, trying to get through this small chink in my mother's willful ignorance.

"Mother, the wild hunt does not do the bidding of liars or traitors. Taranis did rape me, but he was too late. I am to have twins, and the Goddess has shown me who the fathers are."

"You have two babies, but three men. Who is to be left out?" She was retreating from the harshest truths to concentrate on smaller things. Not a question about the rape, or the traitors whom the wild hunt had helped us destroy, but the math of fathers and babies.

"The history of the sidhe is full of goddesses who had children by more than just one man, Mother. Clothra is the one most oft named, but there have been others. Apparently, I will need many kings, not just one."

"You have been bespelled, Meredith. All know that the King of the sluagh is a great one for glamour." She was back to her certainties. Sometimes I wondered why I tried with her. Oh, she was my mother. I suppose we never quite give up on parents. Maybe they feel the same way about us.

"Faerie itself has made us a couple, Mother." I unbuttoned my tight-fitting cuff, and rolled it back as much as the coat would allow, which was not much. Sholto's sleeve was looser, so that more of his rose and thorn tattoo showed, but enough showed to prove that the tattoos were a pair.

She shook her head. "You can get a tattoo at any human shop."

I laughed then. I couldn't help it.

She looked startled. "There is nothing funny here, Meredith."

"No, Mother, there is not." But my face was alight with humor. "But it is either laugh or start screaming at you, and I don't think that would be helpful."

I pushed my sleeve back down and closed the bone button once more. Sholto followed my lead. I stood and walked out of sight of the mirror, just long enough to fetch something from the table near the far wall.

Mistral said, "Do you think that wise?"

I looked at the table that held all the ancient weapons that had come to us. Was it a good idea? I wasn't entirely certain, but I was tired. I was tired of people trying to kill us. I was tired of people assuming that if they could strip me of my men I would be a pawn to be used as they saw fit. I'd had enough.

I hesitated with my hand over the sword Aben-dul. I prayed. "Goddess, do I show them what I am? Do I make them afraid of me?" I waited for some sign, and thought at first that she would not answer me, then a faint perfume of roses came. I felt the tattoo on my arm flare to life, and the moth on my stomach flutter. The weight of the rose and mistletoe crown wove itself to life on my head.

I wrapped my hand around the hilt of the sword. I was afraid of it. Afraid of what it could do in my hands. The hand of flesh was a terrible power. With this sword I could use that power from a distance, and no one could take it from my hand without risking the very horror that they were trying to avoid.

I walked back to the mirror with the sword held in one hand like you would hold a flag. I stood in front of Sholto, and held the sword before me.

"Do you know this sword, Mother? Does anyone within sight of this mirror know this sword?"

She frowned, and I was willing to bet that she wouldn't know it. Mother never cared for Unseelie power. But someone in the tent would know it, of that I was almost certain.

It was Lord Hugh who walked into view. He actually gave a little bow before he peered more closely at the mirror. He paled. That was answer enough; he knew it.

He spoke, hoarsely. "Aben-dul. So the sluagh stole that away as well." But he didn't believe it.

I reached my free hand back to Sholto. He took my hand and came to stand beside me. The moment his tattooed arm touched mine, the magic flexed, as if the air itself took a breath. The herb crown wove itself to life while the Seelie watched. The herb ring on his finger bloomed white, and his crown bloomed into a haze of pastel flowers. We stood crowned by faerie itself before them.

"This is King Sholto of the sluagh, crowned by faerie itself to rule. I am Queen Meredith of the sluagh, and I bear his child, his heir."

I let the hand holding Aben-dul drop to my side. "Hear me, Mother Besaba, and all the Seelie listening to my voice. The old magic is returning. The Goddess moves among us once more. You can either move with her power, or be left out of it. It is your choice. But it is truth that is needed, no more lies, no more illusions. Think well upon that before you decide to try to take me back by force."

"Are you threatening me?" she asked, and it was so like her to concentrate on the smaller issue. Though I suppose for her it might have been the large issue.

"I am saying that it would be unwise to force me to use all the power I have been given by the Goddess to defend myself. And I will use every ounce of power I have to keep from being forced back to Taranis. I will not be his victim again. I will not be raped again, not even by the King of the Seelie."

Lord Hugh had stepped back a little from the mirror. "We hear your words, Princess Meredith."

"Queen Meredith," I said.

He gave a little bow of his head. "Queen Meredith."

"Then disband this ill-conceived and unneeded rescue attempt. Go back to your faerie mound and your deluded king, and leave us in peace."

"His orders were very specific, Queen Meredith. We are to come back with you and the chalice, or not return at all."

"He has exiled you, unless you succeed?" I asked.

"Not in those words, but we are left few choices."

"You must kidnap me for him, or be kicked out," I said.

Lord Hugh spread his hands wide. "Blunter than I would have put it, but not inaccurate, unfortunately, for all concerned."

There was movement in the tent wall, and Lord Hugh said, "Please, forgive me, Queen Meredith, but I have a message." He bowed again and left me looking at my mother.

She said, "You look lovely in a crown, Meredith, just as I always knew you would." She even looked pleased, as if what she said were true.

I could have said a lot of things in that moment. Like "If you thought I would ever rule, why did you let Taranis nearly beat me to death as a child?" Or, "If you thought I would ever be queen, why did you give me away, and never wish to see me?" What I said out loud was "I knew you would like the crown, Mother."

Lord Hugh came back into sight. He bowed lower. "I am told that human police and soldiers are coming. You called the humans for help."

"I did."

"Now if we attack, the Seelie Court could be banished from this new land, which would leave the Unseelie and the sluagh in place, and in control of the last remnants of faerie."

I smiled sweetly at him.

"You would win all that Queen Andais has sought to win for centuries without the Unseelie, or the sluagh, striking a blow."

"The point is to not strike the blow," I said.

He gave the lowest bow yet, a real one, causing him to partially vanish from the view of the mirror. When he stood up, he had a look of naked admiration on his face. "It seems as if the Goddess and faerie have not chosen ill in their new queen. You have won. We will retreat, and you have given us a reason that even King Taranis will understand. He would never risk our entire court being cast from these shores."

"I am very glad that your king will take you back, and understand that to do anything but retreat would be extremely unfortunate," I said.

He bowed again. "I thank you for finding a way out of our dilemma, Queen Meredith. I had not heard that you played politics well."

"I have my moments," I said.

He smiled, bowed once more, and said, "We will leave you to be rescued by the humans then."

"We aren't going to leave her with the sluagh," my mother said, as if horrified at her daughter's fate.

"Give it a rest, Mother," I said, and blanked the mirror.

She was still arguing with Lord Hugh, as if she believed what Taranis had told her. It was clear that Lord Hugh did not. But then if I went back as Taranis's queen, Besaba wouldn't be the mother of the new queen of the Seelie. She had more to gain politically, if Taranis was telling the truth.

Sholto kissed my hand, smiling. "That was very well done, My Queen."

I grinned at him. "It helps when faerie itself crowns you, and major relics keep popping up."

"No, Meredith," Doyle said, "that was well played. Your father would have been very proud."

"Indeed," Mistral said.

And in that moment, holding a weapon that only myself and my father could have safely wielded, covered in faerie's blessing, and knowing that my father would have been proud of me meant more than all the rest. I guess in the end you never outgrow wanting to please your parents. Since I'd never please my mother, my father was all I had left. He always had been. He and Gran.

My parents were dead now, both of them. The woman in the mirror was just the person whose body spit me out. It takes much more than that to be a mother. I prayed that I would be a good mother, and for help to keep all of us safe. There was a shower of white rose petals from nowhere, coming down like perfumed snow. I guess that was answer enough. The Goddess was with me. As help went, it didn't get much better than that. As the Christians said, if God is with me, who can be against me? The answer, unfortunately, was almost everyone.

Chapter Twenty-Six

We buckled on our new weapons. I was very serious about putting the lock loops on my sword. As long as it was sheathed, someone could bump it without harm. If it was unsheathed, even a little, there was a chance that it would turn some poor soldier's arm inside out.

Doyle had put the horn of madness across his body on its leather strap.

"Shouldn't you put that in a sack or something?" Sholto asked.

"As long as I wear the horn across my body, it will not react to anyone bumping against it. It is only out of my hands that it becomes a danger."

"How do I carry the spear so that the Seelie do not see what it is?" Mistral asked.

"I don't think even Taranis will attack you for the spear today, in front of the humans," I said.

"But there will be other days," Mistral said. "He came to the Western Lands to find you, Meredith. I think for one of his items of power he might travel again." He hefted the spear as he talked, as if judging the weight of it. It was a slender weapon, longer than Sholto's spear of bone that I'd used to slay Cair. I realized that Mistral's spear was almost too slender to stab or thrust with.

"Is it meant to be an actual spear, or is it like some huge lightning rod?"

Mistral gazed up at the shining spear, then smiled down at me. "You are correct. It is not meant to hack at men's bodies. It is more a great magic wand, or staff. With this in my hand, and a little practice, I could call lightning from a clear sky miles away to strike down an enemy."

"You mean you could use it as a tool of assassination?"

He seemed to think about it, then nodded.

"Let go of that thought," Sholto said.

Mistral and I looked at him. "What thought?" I asked.

He smiled and shook his head. "Don't be coy, Meredith. I see your faces. You're thinking you could use the lightning to rid us of a few enemies and no one would know. But it is too late for secrecy."

"Why?" I asked, then realized. "Oh, the entire sluagh saw."

"And some of them are as old as the oldest of the sidhe. They will have seen the spear in the hand of a king before, and they will know what it can do. My people are loyal, and would not betray us on purpose, I don't believe, but they will talk. The skeletal brides, the relics of power returning; it is all too good a story not to share it."

I sighed. "Well, that's disappointing."

Doyle came to me. "We need to go outside and welcome our human rescuers, but Merry, are you truly thinking of assassination as a cure for our problems?" There was no judgment on his face, just that patient waiting. That look that said that he simply wanted to know.

"Let us just say that I am no longer ruling out any solution to our problems," I said.

He cupped my chin in his fingers, and looked deeply into my eyes. "You mean that. What is it that has made you suddenly so much harder?" Then his fingers dropped away, and his face looked uncertain. "I am a fool. You watched your grandmother die."

I grabbed his arm, made him look at me. "I also had to watch you carried out by doctors, and thought you might die again. Taranis and the rest seemed very determined that you had to die first."

"They fear him the most," Sholto said.

"They tried to kill you too," Doyle said, looking at the other man.

Sholto nodded. "But it is not me personally they fear, it is the sluagh, and my command of them."

"Why did I get singled out then?" Mistral asked. "I have no army to command. I have never been the queen's right or left hand. Why did they go to such lengths to kill me as well?"

"There are those who are old enough to remember you in battle, my friend," Doyle said.

Mistral looked down, his hair falling around his face like gray clouds covering the sky. "That was very long ago."

"But much of the old power is returning. Perhaps the oldest among both courts feared what you would do if you were your old self again," Doyle said.

I had a thought. "Mistral is also the only storm deity we have in the Unseelie Court. The others either stayed in Europe or are Seelie."

"That is true," Doyle said, "but that is not your point."

"My point is," I said, "what if Taranis feared exactly what has happened? He knew that if his spear came back to a Seelie Storm Lord, he could command and they would give it over. But he cannot command Mistral. He cannot demand anything from the Unseelie."

"Do you truly think that he believed this would return?" Mistral asked, holding the spear ceilingward.

I shrugged. "I don't know, but it was a thought."

"I think it is simpler than that," Doyle said.

"What then?" I asked.

"Magic powers, hands of power, follow bloodlines. You are proof of that with your father's hand of flesh, and a hand of blood that is similar to your cousin Cel's."

"His is the hand of old blood, so he can open old wounds but not make fresh ones," I said.

"No, yours is a more complete power, but dealing with blood and body magic runs in your father's bloodline. The children you carry may inherit the ability to deal with storms and weather. If they do, and Mistral is alive, then it is clear who gave them that blood trait. But if Mistral were dead long before the babes were born, by the time they were old enough to exhibit such power, Taranis could make another plea that they were indeed his."

I shook my head. "But he is my uncle already. His brother is my grandfather, so I could carry the gene for storm magic in me already."

Doyle nodded. "True, but I think the king grows desperate. He has convinced half his court that the twins could be his, including your mother. Her belief in it, and her lack of belief that he... took you, will go far to convince doubters. They will think 'her mother would not believe lies.'"

"Do they not know her by now?" I asked.

"The Seelie, like most humans, do not want to believe such evil of a mother to her daughter."

"But the Unseelie know better," Mistral said.

Doyle and Sholto both nodded.

I sighed again. "My cousin actually thought that they could convince Rhys to join the Seelie Court again, and that Galen would be no threat. It's why they didn't attack the two of them."

"Then why did Taranis include Rhys and Galen in the false rape charges?"

"And Abeloec too," I said. That made me wonder. "Is Abe in danger too?"

"If Rhys comes back into his full power, he will be incredibly dangerous," Mistral said. "Why didn't they try to kill him? Why think they could persuade him to join them?"

"I don't know. I'm repeating what Cair said."

"Did she lie?" Doyle asked.

That hadn't occurred to me. "I think she was too afraid to lie, but... " I stared at them. "Have I been a fool? Have we all been? No, the Goddess did not warn me of danger to Rhys or Galen. She warned me the last time Galen was nearly assassinated."

"I think they are safe enough, for now," Doyle said.

"But Doyle, don't you see? There are too many different plots, too many factions in faerie right now. Some want you dead, but there are those Unseelie who want Galen dead. They are convinced he is the Greenman who will put me on the throne. I believe the Greenman in the prophecy is simply the God, the Consort."

"I agree," Doyle said.

"Taranis may have believed his rape allegations against Rhys and the others. He's crazy enough to be manipulated by his courtiers. Maybe someone else wanted those three out of the way for some other reason, and used the king to do it," Sholto said.

"We are at the center of a spiderweb of plots. Some threads we may touch and travel on, but others are sticky and will alert the spider," Doyle said.

"And then it will come and eat us," I said. "We get out of faerie tonight, and we go back to L.A., and we try to make a life. There is no way to guarantee our safety here."

The three men exchanged looks. Sholto said, "I would trust that I am safe inside the sluagh, but outside of it... " He shrugged. He was wearing his own white sword; the carved bone shield was leaning against his big chair. He picked up the shield, and settled it on his arm. It covered his body from neck to mid-thigh.

"Why don't these things of power come and go like the chalice and the spear of bone and the white knife?" I asked.

"Things that come from the hands of the gods themselves, that are given in vision or dream, will come to the hand like magic, but things that are given by the guardians of the earth, or water, or air, or fire are more like mortal weapons. They can be lost, and if you do not carry them, they are not with you," Doyle said.

"Good to know the difference," I said.

The phone rang in the office. Sholto picked it up, murmured something, then handed it to me. "It's for you  -  Major Walters."

I took the receiver and said, "Hello, Major Walters."

"We're outside, and the siege is breaking up. Your uncle's people are packing up and going home."

"Thank you for that, Major."

"My duty," he said. "Now, if you'll just come outside. We'd like to get home."

"We'll be right out. Oh, and Major, I have two more men I need to find who will be going back to the Western Lands, I mean Los Angeles."

"Would that be Galen Greenhair and Rhys Knight?"

I hadn't heard their names from their driver's licenses in a while. "Yes, that would be them. Are they with you?"

"They are."

"I'm impressed. Even in faerie people don't anticipate my wishes quite that well."

"They found us. Mr. Knight said that when he saw all of us he figured he'd better tag along to see what trouble you and Captain Doyle had gotten into."

"Tell him the trouble just went back to the Seelie Court."

"I'll pass it along. Now, if you could just join us, and tell us how many seats we need to find in the vehicles."

"Myself and three others."

"We'll find room."

"Thank you again, Major, and we'll see you all in moments." I put the phone back in its cradle and turned to the men.

"Rhys and Galen are already with them," I said.

"Rhys would have known that there was only one person that the National Guard would come to faerie to rescue," Doyle said.

"I'd be flattered, if my life wasn't in danger so constantly."

Doyle came to me, smiling. "I will give my life to keep you safe."

I shook my head and didn't smile back. I took his hand in mine. "Silly man. I want you alive and at my side, not dead and heroic. Bear that in mind when you're making choices, all right?"

His smile had faded, and he was studying my face, as if he could read things in the back of my mind that even I didn't know. Once that look would have made me squirm, or be afraid, but not now. Now I didn't want secrets from Doyle. He could have them all, even the ones I kept from myself.

"I will do my best never to disappoint you, Merry."

It was the best I was going to get from him. He would never promise not to lay his life down to protect me, because that was exactly what he would do, if it came to it. I'd made the choice for him, in a way. I'd decided to give up all of faerie, any throne offered, to keep us all safe. I wanted the fathers of my children alive by the time they were born.

He touched my face. "You look sad. I do not want to make you sad."

I leaned my cheek against his hand, feeling the warmth and reality of him. "It makes me nervous that all our enemies seem so determined to kill you first, my Darkness."

"He's hard to kill," Mistral said.

"I am," he said.

I patted his hand and stepped away, looking at all three of them. "You better all be hard to kill, because leaving faerie won't stop all of it. It will give us some breathing room, and charging Taranis with rape will make the media our friends, and cut down on the attacks, unless they want pictures of it on the news."

"Are you saying the paparazzi will be our safety?" Doyle sounded incredulous.

"The Seelie pride themselves on being the good guys. They won't want pictures of them being bad."

Doyle looked thoughtful. "An evil turned to a good."

"What are paparazzi?" Mistral asked.

All of us, including Sholto, looked at Mistral. Then I swear that an almost evil grin crossed Doyle and Sholto's faces. "If we have to make another bargain with the devil for posed pictures, Mistral, you can be with Merry," Sholto said.

"What are you talking about?" Mistral asked.

Sholto said, "I saw those pictures, Darkness. You, Rhys, and Meredith, nude by the pool doing the nasty."

"We were not having sex," I said.

"Some of the tabloids in Europe used pictures that left that to doubt," Sholto said.

"When were you in Europe?" I asked.

"I have a clip service that cuts out anything worldwide about the fey."

"That's an excellent idea," Doyle said. "I would suggest it to the queen, except... " He turned to me. "I no longer serve that queen."

I had a moment to wonder if I should apologize for that. Then the look on his face made an apology unnecessary. He loved me. It was there in his face, his eyes. Doyle loved me, and you should never apologize for that.

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