A Stroke of Midnight (Merry Gentry #4)(69)

Galen called, “Hafwyn, Merry is hurt.”
“No,” I said, “it looks worse than it is. There are others who need her more than I.”
“You are the princess, and they are only demi-fey,” Ivi said.
I shook my head, as Galen cradled me in his arms, laying me on Ivi’s cloak. “Doyle can heal it when he gets back,” I said.
“At least let Hafwyn look at it,” Galen said.
I nodded. “If she has time.”
Of course, she came immediately. She knelt and cleaned the blood away with the cloth and bowl of water that Kitto had fetched for her. She explored the wound, which hurt, and removed some splinters, which hurt more.
Galen let me squeeze his hand while she took the splinters out with her fingers. Where were sterile tweezers when you needed them? Galen smiled down at me, and said, “I didn’t know you were this strong. What a grip.”
It made me smile, which was what he’d intended.
I caught a glimpse of Royal behind Hafwyn and Galen. The demi-fey lay utterly still, eyes closed. The hands that had caressed my body were limp on either side of him. I chased Hafwyn’s hands away. “See to Royal.”
She looked puzzled. I realized she didn’t remember his name. “Royal, the demi I was helping.”
Hafwyn went to Royal’s body as I’d ordered. She started to lay hands on him, and his spine bowed upward, as if drawn by some invisible string. His breath came into his body in a great gasping rush. It left his body in a shriek that reverberated through the room. His scream was echoed by the other wounded. It was as if they were all having a fit.
“What’s happening?” Frost asked.
Hafwyn shook her head. I don’t think she knew either. Not good.
The small knot of uninjured demi-fey started forward, as if to try to help. Then they all fell to their knees and began to scream and writhe on the ground. 
“Is it poison?” Adair raised his voice to be heard over them.
Hafwyn said, “I do not know, Goddess help me, but I do not know.”
The wounds spurted blood upward like a dozen crimson fountains. The demi-fey without wounds still writhed, and called out in pain, but they had no wounds for the blood to be called from. For that was what it looked like. It looked like some version of my own hand of blood. Except I was not doing it, and no one else had the power to do it.
Then blood burst out of all of them like some hand was punching through their wounds. The wood pieces were pushed out in a last burst of blood and screams. It was as if the flesh itself was rejecting the wood.
The piece that had nearly bisected Royal was one of the last to come out, for it was one of the largest and most deeply embedded.
“Is this healing them?” Frost asked, making his voice heard above the demi-fey’s screams.
“I am not sure,” Hafwyn said. “I think so.”
Even knowing that, it was hard to watch. Then I discovered something else. Hafwyn had not found all the splinters in my own wound. Those tiny splinters that she had missed began to push their way out of my flesh.
Galen looked down at me. I think I squeezed his hand again. He looked a question at me, but I shook my head. If Hafwyn could do anything to help ease pain, it wasn’t me who needed it.
Frost had a gun in one hand, and a sword in the other. Adair stood a little away from him, weapon out, as well. Ivi had moved to the other side of the room away from them, and he, too, stood with bared sword. He had a look so serious on him that it almost didn’t look like him. They were covering the room. They were going on the idea that this might be an attack. I didn’t think it was that kind of a problem, but they were the bodyguards and I was not. Besides, I was too busy gripping Galen’s hand and trying not to scream.
Two tiny splinters had worked their way out, blood spurting out of the wound in my side. It felt as if a fist were trying to punch its way out. I fought not to scream, to simply hold on to Galen’s hand, but I couldn’t hold my body still while the magic tried to shove its way through my body.
Frost was there, kneeling. “Merry!”
Someone yelled for Hafwyn.
My other hand reached into the air, and Nicca grabbed it. I had a moment to cling to Galen and Nicca’s hands, a moment when the pain pulled back, and it was as if the world drew a breath. The three of us knelt in a well of silence. Galen asked, “What is this?” Him, I could hear. “Magic,” Nicca said. Frost stood above us, looking for an enemy to strike down. Biddy was at his side, looking down at Nicca, but her sword was in her hand, too. They would guard me, but the kind of guarding we needed had nothing to do with swords. We needed better magicians, not better swordsmen.
The silence that held us seemed to swell out like a bubble until it burst. Then came the pain. It was as if a thousand fists were trying to shove themselves out through my body. It was as if every muscle was fighting to tear itself free of my bones. I was being ripped apart. I screamed, and fell back onto the floor. Other screams echoed mine, and the hands that I gripped convulsed tightly around mine. Through pain-narrowed eyes I saw Galen and Nicca collapsing with me, their mouths wide with screams.
Other screams joined ours; the demi-fey rolled on the ground, their tiny bodies bursting into a rain of blood as I watched. Then my own pain made me writhe so that I could only look up.
Blood gushed from the wound in my stomach. Blood sprayed out of Galen’s arm. Nicca’s shoulder turned into a fountain of blood. Then everything stopped, and it was so sudden, I thought I’d gone deaf. But then I heard small sounds of pain, and someone yelling, “Mother help us.”
Galen had collapsed on top of me, our hands still clasped. I still held Nicca’s hand, but I couldn’t see him past Galen’s body.Frost appeared above me. “Merry, can you hear me?”
It took me two tries to say yes, but the voice was someone else’s, distant and dry.
Hands lifted Galen off me, but I wouldn’t let them take his hand from mine. They didn’t argue, but simply laid him down beside me, so that the three of us were on our backs, staring up at the ceiling. It was a woman’s voice that said, “The little ones, look at the little ones.” There was something in her voice that made me turn my head, even though I was so tired.
Royal was closest to us. He had rolled over onto his side, curled around his stomach, curled around his pain. But there was something on his back. I had to blink hard to understand what I was seeing. Tiny crumpled wings were unfurling on his back. They were wet with blood, but they grew larger as I watched, expanding with every beat of Royal’s heart.
“They have wings,” Hafwyn said, “they all have wings.”
Ivi was kneeling at our feet. “Look at your stomach.”
I was almost afraid to look, afraid of what I would find. But it was just a moth, exactly where the wound had been. A beloved underwing moth just like the wings that were tearing their way out of Royal’s back. It was only when Ivi moved to touch it that I realized it wasn’t on me, but in me. The moth was embedded in my skin.
I didn’t have time to be afraid, or horrified, or anything. The world went away in a swirl of dimming vision, and finally darkness. There were no visions, no manifestations. There was nothing but blessed oblivion.
CHAPTER 36

I WOKE, BLINKING UP INTO A CANOPY AS BLACK AS THE DARKNESS that had sucked me under. Black material was held in graceful folds on dyed black wood. I thought, almost idly, that it looked like the queen’s bed. Fear speared through me in a fine, breath-stealing rush. It was never good to wake up here.
I must have moved my hand more than I thought because I brushed someone’s arm. It made me jump and look to the center of the bed.
Galen lay, eyes still closed, face peaceful. He was still nude, as were we all. For Nicca lay on the other side of Galen. That the three of us were naked in her bed did not make me feel one bit better.
I looked out at her room, and it was completely black except for a fire in a large metal brassier in the center of the room. Why were the walls without light? Where was the light of the sithen?
Something moved in that blackness, and I tensed, expecting it to be the queen, but there was no flash of her white skin. I knew who it was before he stepped into the amber glow of the firelight. Doyle in a cloak as black as the rest of him passed in the outer glow of the fire’s light to glide toward the bed.
“Doyle.” I didn’t even try to keep the relief from my voice. 
“How do you feel?” His deep voice rumbled and the very sound of it lessened the panic that still fluttered in my pulse.
“Fine. Why are we here?”
“Because the queen willed it,” he said.
I did not like that answer. It sped my pulse again. Someone laughed in the dark. I choked on the panic of my own heartbeat. I felt Galen tense beside me, and knew he was awake, but he did not move. He very carefully did not let anyone else know he had woken. I did not give him away, but I knew that feigning sleep would not help him.
The laugh came again, and I knew it wasn’t the queen. My pulse slowed enough that I could breathe around it. “Who else is here?”
There was movement in the farthest corner of the room. I caught a glimpse of pale hair, pale skin, a white cloak. The figure was so pale, the room so dark, that it was almost as if the figure materialized from that darkness like a ghost. Though I knew he was not.
The glint of firelight made me certain of who it was. “Ivi,” I said, and was not happy. He had scared me.