Merry Gentry 03 - Seduced by Moonlight (16 page)

"I have not agreed that Frost's blood will buy my silence," Sage said. "I have not tasted him. He may be no more godling than Rhys."

"Both of us," Rhys said, "both Frost and me, and all you do is wait to tell your queen until we arrive at the courts in person." Rhys moved so that he was staring up at the small hovering man. "The blood of two sidhe nobles for less than twenty-four hours of silence. It's not a bad deal."

Sage slowed his wings enough that you could see the eyes of red on the inside of them, and the blue iridescence that matched the broader blue stripe on the outside. It was almost as if he floated rather than flew toward where Galen stood.

Galen leaned with his back to the far cabinets, arms crossed. The look on his face was as hostile as it ever got. "Don't—even — ask." His voice held a note of enraged finality that caused Sage to sink for a moment toward the floor, like a human might stumble.

He regained his height, then added more so he was close to the ceiling, out of reach. "But you were so tasty."

Galen looked at me. "Why don't we just bespell him for twenty-four hours?"

"Tempting as it is," I said, "Niceven might consider hostile magic on her proxy to be a violation of our treaty."

"It would solve the problem," Rhys said.

"Very well," Sage said. "For a taste of Frost and a taste of the white knight, I will agree to hold my tongue until I see my queen."

"In the flesh at her court," I added.

He whirled up near the ceiling like some lazy bird. He laughed and came to hover near me. "Are you afraid I will cheat?"

"Say the words, Sage," I said.

He gave me a smile that said he would do what I wanted, but he would be a pain in the ass while doing it. It was his way. In fact, it was the way of a lot of the Unseelie demi-fey. A cultural thing, perhaps.

He put his wee hand over his tiny chest and stood straight in midair, toes pointed downward. "For the blood of both men, I will wait to tell my queen about the chalice until face to face and true flesh to true flesh we are." He darted upward, so that I had to crane my neck to keep track of him near the ceiling. "Satisfied?"

"Yes," I said.

"I have not agreed to this," Frost said.

"I'll be there," Rhys said.

I slid my arm through Frost's arm, over the silk and the pull of his muscles. "I'll be there, too."

"Frost," Doyle said.

The two men looked at each, and something passed between them, some knowledge, some comfort. Whatever it was, it softened Doyle's face, made him seem more . . . human.

Frost nodded. "What if the new magic tries to harm Meredith again?"

"Rhys will be there to see that that does not happen."

Frost opened his mouth as if he would say something more; then he stopped, closed his mouth, and gave one sharp nod. "As my captain commands, so will I do."

The rest of the guards seemed to forget sometimes that Doyle was the captain of the Queen's Ravens, then suddenly they'd remember. They'd use a title long disused. The respect was always there, and the fear, but the titles came and went.

"Good," Doyle said. "Now that that is settled, we have other business to discuss. Once our respective queens know of the chalice's return, it will come to Taranis's attention. What do we do when he demands its return?"

I glanced around the room, tried to read their faces, and couldn't read most. "You aren't seriously thinking about keeping the chalice once Taranis asks for it? It would be a fight, if not an outright war."

"We cannot give it to him," Nicca said. "He no longer deserves it."

"What do you mean, Nicca?" Doyle asked.

"He is not . . ." Nicca seemed at a loss for words, then finally spread his hands wide and said, "He is not worthy to wield the chalice. If he were worthy, it would have come to him —but it hasn't. It came to Merry."

Doyle sighed loudly enough that I heard it halfway across the room. "And that is yet another problem. If Taranis fears that his hold as king is slipping because of his infertility, then to have the chalice appear to another sidhe noble, especially one half-Unseelie, will only feed his fear."

"He should be afraid." Rhys came to stand beside me, on the other side from Frost's solid presence. "Bringing Maeve and Frost to godhood, maybe that's just her being the only goddess-shaped vessel, just like Doyle said." He put his arm around my waist, hugging me a little to him, while my arm was still linked with Frost's. It made his hand bump into Frost, and I felt the bigger man tense. Rhys didn't seem to notice, but gazed out at the other men. "But the chalice coming to her, that's not just because she's the right sex for the power. The cauldron was originally given to men, not women. What if it came to her because she's the only sidhe noble fit to be its caretaker?"

"I don't think that's it," I said.

"Why isn't it?" Frost said.

I looked up the length of his own body to meet Frost's gaze. "Because I'm mortal. I'm not even full sidhe by some standards,"

"By whose standards?" Frost said. "All those would-be gods who stand around and talk about the glories of the past?"

"The Seelie Court does sound like someone's high school reunion," Rhys said. "They talk about the old days when they were younger, stronger, better. The nostalgia is deep."

I frowned up at him, then glanced back at Frost. "Fine, yes, by the standards of the people who lost the chalice in the first place, I don't count. But regardless, Frost, Taranis will never accept that we have the chalice, not without a war."

"She's right," Rhys said, "because all the Seelie will think that with the chalice back, they could regain their powers."

"And with that logic," Doyle said, "if the Unseelie have it, then we could regain ours."

"I don't think that's true," Frost said. "I have not regained my powers. I have acquired powers that belonged to sidhe I once called master. And the chalice did not give me these powers, Merry did."

Rhys hugged me close. "Our queen will be pleased, but Taranis won't."

"He would be, if he thought she could do for him what she's done for Frost," Doyle said.

Rhys's face showed a moment of absolute panic, before he covered it with a grin and a joke. "I don't know which is more dangerous, that he thinks he can use Merry to regain his lost vitality, or that her new powers would make her a strong queen."

"A rival, you mean," Doyle said.

Rhys shook his head. "No, not a rival. Even if Merry could bring all of us into our full power, it wouldn't help her in a fight. There is still right of combat among sidhe nobles, and the king is just another noble to some of our laws." He gazed down at me. "I know you have two really nifty hands of power, but I've seen Taranis in a duel." He kissed my forehead, and spoke with his lips against my skin. "You would lose."

"The last time Taranis fought a duel was before the third and final weirding," Doyle said. "Who's to say what powers he still possesses, and what was lost?"

Rhys looked at him. "She would die."

"I have no intentions of our princess fighting the King of Light and Illusions in personal combat, Rhys, but do not give him more power than he has. We all lost things with the weirdings. Some of us are just better at hiding it."

"Maybe," Rhys said, arms still holding me close as if he was afraid Doyle would whisk me away for a duel right that moment, "maybe I do overestimate Taranis and his court, but maybe you give them too little credit."

"Do not mistake me: They are very dangerous, and very powerful. Their court holds more magic than ours. They still have the great tree in their main hall, and it still holds leaves, though colored with autumn now. Their power is still there." Doyle shook his head and sat down at the table, resting his chin on his arms so his face was even with the goblet. "We are not ready to accuse Taranis of his crimes. Maeve cannot testify to them because she is exiled, and an exile may not give testimony against another member of faerie. Bucca-Dhu's testimony about helping Taranis release the Nameless could so easily be used against Bucca himself."

"What do you mean?" Nicca asked.

"You've seen what Bucca has become. He was once one of our great lords—a leader of the Cornish sidhe when there were enough of us to have many courts. Now he is like some misshapen dwarf. The Seelie will not want to believe he is who he says he is, and even if they do believe that, they could try him with his own words. If he says that Taranis is guilty then he himself is guilty as well. Taranis could simply deny, and force them to execute Bucca for the crime. Someone is punished for the crime, the mystery is solved, and the only witness to Taranis's part in it is dead. It would be very neat."

"Sounds like him," Rhys said.

"But Bucca has the queen's own protection," Nicca said. "He is being guarded at this moment by the Unseelie."

"Yes," Doyle said, "and the queen told none of Bucca's guards why he was being guarded, yet the rumors have already begun."

"What rumors?" I asked.

"Whispers about the Nameless and who would gain from its attack on Maeve Reed. The rumors are only in the faerie courts, but the attack was on all the major news sources, and some of the sidhe of both courts keep up with the human news." He stared at the cup while he spoke, as if mesmerized by it. "Most know that Taranis personally had her exiled. The rumors are already beginning. If he'd had other magicks that could have slain Maeve from a distance, I think he would have used them. The Nameless may not be able to be traced back to him directly, but it is a major power, and everyone now knows that whoever released it, it was used to hunt Maeve."

"His very fear will be his undoing," Frost said.

"Perhaps," Doyle said, "but a cornered wolf is more dangerous than one in the open. We do not want to be around Taranis when he feels himself out of options."

"Which brings me back to why he wants me to visit the Seelie Court," I said. I pushed away from the comforting weight of both men. There were too many questions, too much happening, for a mere hug to make it all right. It was very human and very un-fey-like of me, but I just didn't want to be held right that moment.

"He says, he wishes to renew your acquaintance now that you are about to be heir to the Unseelie throne," Doyle said.

"You don't believe that any more than I do."

"It has the kernel of truth, or it would be an outright lie, and we do not lie to each other."

"Maybe, but a sidhe will omit so much of a truth that it might as well be a lie," I said.

Sage laughed, and it was like the ring of golden bells. "Oh, the princess does know her people."

"We bought your silence," Doyle said. "Let it be true silence for this discussion, unless you have something of true worth to add." He stared up at the little man, who was circling lazily near the ceiling. "Remember this, Sage: If the Unseelie Court falls, you will be at the mercy of the Seelies, and they will never trust you."

Sage came to stand on the edge of the table, his handsome wings folded back from his shoulders. He gazed up at Doyle — though with Doyle's chin resting on his arm on the table, they were nearly the same height. "If the Unseelie fall, Darkness, it will not be the demi-fey who suffer the most at the hands of the Seelie. They distrust us, but they do not see us as a threat. They will destroy all of you. We will be swatted like flies on a summer day, but they will not see us as worth destroying utterly. We will survive as a people. Can the Unseelie say the same?"

"That is as may be," Doyle said, "but wouldn't it benefit your people to do more than survive? Survival is better than the alternative, Sage, but merely surviving can get tiresome."

"More half-truths and omissions to trick me, is that it?"

"Believe what you like, little man, but I tell you truth when I say that the fate of the demi-fey of one court is tied to the fate of the sidhe of that court."

They stared at each other, and it was Sage who took to the air and broke the staring contest. I'd never doubted who would break first. "The princess is right, Darkness, none of the sidhe can be trusted."

Doyle raised himself up from the table enough to shrug. "That this is true of many of us, I cannot argue with." He looked across the room at me. "I would give much to know Taranis's true purpose in inviting you to the Seelie Court. No one seems to know why he's doing it. His own court is amazed that he wants you back. That he would throw a feast for a mortal."

"He is my uncle," I said.

"Has he ever acted like an uncle to you before?" Doyle asked.

I shook my head. "He almost beat me to death as a child for asking about Maeve Reed's exile. He doesn't give a damn for me."

"Why not just refuse the invitation?" Galen said.

"We've been over this, Galen. If we refuse the invitation, then Taranis will see it as an insult, and wars, curses, all sorts of unpleasantness among the sidhe have begun over things like that."

"We know it's a trap of some kind, yet we're still walking into it. That makes no sense to me."

I looked at Doyle for help. He tried. "If we go at Taranis's invitation, then he is guest-bound to treat us well. He cannot challenge any of us to a personal duel, or cause us harm, or allow harm to come to us while we are his guests. Once we step outside his mound, his court, then he can challenge us on the spot, but not inside his own court. It is too old a law among us for even his own nobles to stomach a breach in it."

"Then why are we so worried about taking enough guards inside the court to keep Merry safe?"

"Because I could be wrong," Doyle said.

Galen literally threw his hands up. "This is crazy."

"Taranis could be crazy enough to try to do harm on the spot. His court could be more corrupt than I know. Prepare for what your enemy can do, not what they will do."

"Don't quote at me, Doyle." Galen was pacing up and down one side of the kitchen as if he needed to use up some of the nervous energy floating around the room. "We are endangering Merry by going to the Seelie Court, I know it."

"You do not know it," Doyle said.

"No, I don't know it. But I feel it. It's a bad idea."