Mistral's Kiss (Merry Gentry #5)(38)

I stepped forward until she could see me, but not beyond the protective circle of the men. “Queen Andais, aunt of mine, sister of my father, Essus, greetings.”
“You must go back to the Western Lands tonight, Meredith,” said Andais. 
“Yes,” I answered.
Andais looked at the hounds that still milled among the men. Rhys finally let himself touch them, and they became terriers of breeds long forgotten, some white and red, others a good solid black and tan.
The queen tried to call one of the dogs to her. The big mastiffs were what the humans called Hell Hounds, though they had nothing to do with the Christian devil. The big black dogs would have matched the queen’s costume, but they ignored her. These wish hounds, the hounds of faerie, would not go to the hand of the Queen of Air and Darkness.
Had I been her, I would have knelt in the snow and coaxed them, but Andais did not kneel to anyone, or anything. She stood straight and beautiful, and colder than the snow around her feet.
Two other hounds had come to my hands, and they now bumped against me on either side, leaning in to be petted. I did it, because in faerie, we touch someone when they ask. The moment I stroked that silken fur, I felt better: braver, more confident, a little less afraid of what was about to happen.
“Dogs, Meredith? Couldn’t you return our horses to us, or our cattle, instead?”
“There were pigs in my vision,” I said.
“Not dogs,” she said, her voice matter-of-fact, as if nothing special had happened.
“I saw dogs in a different vision, when I was still in the Western Lands.”
“True vision then,” she said, her voice still bland and faintly condescending.
“Apparently so,” I said, ruffling the ear of the taller of the hounds.
“You must leave now, Meredith, and take this wild magic with you.”
“Wild magic is not so easily tamed, Aunt Andais,” I said. “I will take back with me what will go, but some of it is flying free, even as we speak.”
“I saw the swans,” Andais said, “but no crows. You are so terribly Seelie.”
“The Seelie would say otherwise,” I said.
“Go, go back to where you came from. Take your guards and your magic, and leave me the wreck of my son.” It was tantamount to admitting that if Cel fought me tonight, he would die.
“I will go only if I can take all the guards who would come with me.” I said it as firmly and bravely as I could.
“You cannot have Mistral,” she said.
I fought not to look for him at my back, fought not to see his big hands touching the huge hounds that his caress had brought into being. “Yes, I said. I remember what you told me in the dead gardens: that I could not keep him.”
“You will not argue with me?” she asked.
“Would it do any good?” The tiniest hint of anger seeped into my voice. The hounds tucked themselves tighter against my legs, leaning in for all they were worth, as if they would remind me not to lose control.
“The only thing that will call Mistral from my side to yours in the Western Lands is if you come up pregnant. If you become with child, I will have to let go of any who could be the father.”
“If I become with child, I will send word,” I said, and fought to keep my voice even. Mistral was going to suffer for being with me, I could see it in her face, feel it in her voice.
“I do not know what to wish for anymore, Meredith. Your magic runs through my sithen, changing it into something bright and cheerful. There is a field of flowers in my torture chamber.”
“What do you want me to say, Aunt Andais?”
“I wanted the magic of faerie to be reborn, but you are not enough my brother’s daughter. You will make of us only another Seelie Court to dance and parade before the human press. You will make us beautiful, but destroy that which makes us different.”
“I would humbly disagree with that,” said a voice from the crowd of my men. Sholto stepped forward. His tattoo had become a nest of real tentacles again, glowing and pale, and strangely beautiful, like some underwater sea creature, some anemone or jellyfish. It was the first time I’d ever seen him display his extra bits with pride. He stood tall with the spear and knife of bone in his hands; at his side was a huge white hound with different red markings on each of its three heads. Sholto used the side of the hand that held the knife to rub the top of one of the huge heads.Sholto spoke again. “Merry makes us beautiful, yes, my queen. But the beauty is stranger than anything the Seelie Court would allow within their doors.”
Andais gazed at Sholto, and for a moment I thought I saw regret. Sholto’s magic rode him, and power breathed off him into the night.
“You had him,” she said to me, simply.
“Yes,” I said.
“How was it?”
“It was our coming together that raised the wild hunt.”
She shivered, and there was a hunger on her face that frightened me. “Amazing. Perhaps I will try him some night.”
Sholto spoke again. “There was a time, my queen, when the thought of a chance at your bed would have filled me with joy. But I truly know now that I am King Sholto of the Sluagh, the Lord of That Which Passes Between, Lord of Shadows. I will no longer take crumbs from the table of any sidhe.”
She made a sharp sound, almost a hiss. “You must be an amazing bit of ass, Meredith. One fuck with you and they all turn against me.”
To that, there was no safe answer, so I said nothing. I stood in the midst of my men, with the weight and press of the hounds milling around us. Would she have been more aggressive if the dogs—war dogs, most of them—had not been there? Was she afraid of the magic—or the more solid form the magic had taken?
One of the small terriers growled, and it was like a signal to the others. The night was suddenly thick with growls, a low chorus that shivered down my spine. I petted the heads of those I could touch, hushing them. The Goddess had sent me guardians, I understood that now. I thanked her for it.
“Cel’s guards who did not take oath to him—you promised they could go with me,” I said.
“I will not strip him of all signs of my favor,” she answered, and her anger seemed to crackle on the cold air.
“You gave your word,” I insisted.
The dogs gave another low chorus of growls. The terriers began to bark, as terriers will. I realized in that moment that the wild hunt was not gone, only changed. These were the hounds of the wild hunt. These were the hounds of legend that hunted oathbreakers through the winter wood.
“Do not dare to threaten!” said Andais. Eamon touched her arm. She jerked away from him, but seemed chastened. The wild hunt had been a great leveler of the mighty. Once you became their prey, the hunt did not end until the quarry was dead.
“I do not believe I am the huntsman,” I said.
“It would be a bad night, Queen Andais, to be an oathbreaker.” Doyle’s deep molasses voice seemed to hang on the night, as if his words had more weight on the still, winter air than they should have.
“Are you the huntsman, Darkness? Would you punish me for breaking faith?” 
“It is wild magic, Your Majesty; there is sometimes little choice when it fills you. You become an instrument of the magic, and it uses you for its own ends.”
“Magic is a tool to be wielded, not some force one allows oneself to be overcome by.”
“As you will, Queen Andais, but I ask that you do not test these hounds tonight.” Somehow it seemed Doyle wasn’t talking about just the dogs.
“I will honor my word,” she said in a voice that made it clear that she did so only because she had no choice. She had never been a gracious loser, not in anything, large or small. “But you must leave now, Meredith, this moment.”
“We need time to send for the other guards,” I said.
“I will bring all those who wish to come to you, Meredith,” Sholto said.
I turned, and there was an assurance in him, a strength that had not been there before. He stood there with his “deformity” plain to see. He now made it seem just another part of him, though, a part that would have been as surely missed as an arm, or a leg if it were gone. Had being stripped of his extra bits made him realize he valued them? Maybe. It was his revelation, not mine.
“You would side with her,” Andais said.
“I am King of the Sluagh; I will see that an oath given and accepted is honored. Remember, Queen Andais, that the sluagh was the only wild hunt left in faerie until tonight. And I am the huntsman of the sluagh.”
She took a step toward him, as if in threat, but Eamon pulled her back. He whispered urgently against her cheek. I could not hear what he said, but the tension left her body, until she allowed herself to lean back against him. She let him hold her; in the face of those who were not her friends, she let Eamon’s arms hold her.
“Go, Meredith, take all that is yours, and go.” Her voice was almost neutral, almost free of that rage that always seemed to bubble just underneath her skin.
“Your Majesty,” Rhys said, “we cannot go to the human airport like this.” His gesture seemed to note how many of the guards were naked, and bloody. The terriers at his feet gave happy barks, as if it looked all right to them.
Sholto spoke again. “I will take you to the edge of the Western Sea, just as I took the sluagh when we hunted Meredith in Los Angeles.”
I looked at him and shook my head. “I thought you came by plane.”