I took a deep breath that shook around the edges. My stomach rolled with all the emotions I couldn’t afford right now. I walked toward Frost and the mirror and Sir Hugh. I prayed to the Goddess that I wouldn’t fall apart in front of the Seelie. Andais had temper tantrums that were infamous. Now Taranis had shown himself to be even more unstable. I walked to the mirror and prayed that I would be the ruler we needed right now. I prayed that I wouldn’t fall apart or throw up. Nerves, just nerves. Please, Goddess, let Doyle be all right.
Once I said the prayer I truly meant, I felt calmer. Yes, I wanted to be a good queen. Yes, I wanted to show the Seelie that I wasn’t as crazy as my aunt and uncle, but truly, none of it mattered to me as much as the man they’d just carted away on a gurney.
It wasn’t the way a queen thought. It was the way a woman thought, and to be queen means you have to be queen first and everything else second. My father had taught me that. Taught me that before an assassin had killed him. I pushed the thought away, and went to stand by my Killing Frost.
I would be the queen that my father had raised me to be. I would not embarrass Doyle by being less than he’d told me I could be.
I stood straight, drawing myself up to every inch of height that I had. The three-inch heels helped, although standing beside Frost’s tall figure, I couldn’t help but seem delicate.
But I stood there and did my duty and it tasted like ashes in my mouth.
CHAPTER 7
SIR HUGH BELENUS GAVE A LOW BOW THAT SHOWED THAT HIS fire-colored hair had started the day in a complicated braid, but singed ribbons trailed from its remnants. When he stood up, I could see that the front of his tunic, all the way through two layers of under-shirts, had been blasted apart to expose the pale golden skin underneath. The clothing was ruined, scorched, but his body seemed untouched.
“Sir Hugh stood in front of Taranis at the end,” Frost said. “He took the brunt of the blow meant for Abeloec.”“What am I to say to that?” I asked, and my voice sounded completely normal. The very normality of it was almost shocking. A little voice in my own head thought, how can I sound so calm? Training? Shock?
“If Sir Hugh were not one of the elder sidhe, you could thank him for risking himself to save our warriors,” Frost said.
I looked up at the tall man beside me. I stared all the way up to those gray eyes and found that they reflected a bare tree in a winter landscape, like a tiny snow globe caught in his eyes. Only his own magic or anxiety would fill his eyes with that image. Always before it had dizzied me to stare into Frost’s eyes when they filled with that other place. Today, it seemed cool, calming. Today, he had the icy strength of winter in his eyes. A coldness that protected you, kept your emotions from eating you alive. I understood in that moment part of what had let Frost survive the queen’s petty torments. He had embraced the coldness inside.
I touched his arm, and the world was a little steadier. There was something moving in the landscape of his eyes; something white, and horned. I had a glimpse of a white stag before Frost bent to kiss me. It was a chaste kiss, but that one gentle touch let me know that he understood what the calmness cost me. That kiss let me know that he understood what Doyle meant to me, and what he meant to me, and what he did not.
I turned back to the mirror with Frost’s hand in mine.
Sir Hugh said, “I saw a vision in the sunlight, a white stag. It walked ghostlike just behind the two of you.”
“How long has it been since you saw such a vision?” Frost asked.
Hugh blinked black eyes at me, but there were orange sparks and swirls in that blackness, like the ashes of a fire long banked. “A long time.”
“You don’t seem surprised at your vision, Sir Hugh,” I said.
“There are swans in the lake near the Seelie mound. Swans with gold chains around their necks. They flew above us for the first time ever in this country, the night of your battle with the wild hunt.”
Rhys’s voice came casually from behind us. “Have a care what you say, Hugh. We have lawyers present.” Rhys came to stand on my other side, but made no move to take my other hand.
“Yes, our king has chosen a most regrettable moment to show this side of himself.”
“Regrettable moment,” I said, and didn’t try to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. “Such mild words for what has just happened.”
“I cannot afford anything but mild words, Princess,” Hugh said.
“This insult to us cannot go unanswered,” I said, voice still calm.
“If I were speaking to the Queen of Air and Darkness, I would worry about a war, or perhaps a personal challenge between monarchs. But I have heard that Princess Meredith NicEssus is a more temperate creature than her aunt, or even her uncle.”
“A temperate creature?” I said.
“Temperate woman, then,” Hugh said, and gave another low bow. “No insult was meant in my choice of words, Princess. I beg you not to take offense.”
“I will do my best not to take offense, except where it is given,” I said.
Hugh stood, and his handsome face, with its small neat beard and mustache, fought to not look worried. Hugh had been a god of fire once, and that was not a temperate creature. Many of the elemental deities seemed to take on the aspects of their elements. I had seen that intimately with Mistral, once a god of storms.
“And I,” Hugh said, “will endeavor not to give offense.”
Nelson’s voice came from behind us. “How can you be so calm? Didn’t you see what just happened? They took your lovers out on stretchers.” Her voice held an edge of hysteria that promised to get worse.
I heard soothing male voices, but didn’t try and catch the words. As long as they kept her quiet and away from me, I no longer cared. There would be no charges brought against my men for the supposed attack on Lady Caitrin. Because if the Seelie played hard-ball, we could bury them with what Taranis had just done. And we had some of the top lawyers in the country as our witnesses. If Doyle and Abe hadn’t gotten hurt, it would have been a lovely thing.
The far doors opened, and more EMTs came through. The police were here. I had no idea what had taken them so long to arrive. But maybe my sense of time had been affected. Shock can do that. It wouldn’t even do me any good to look at a clock, because I hadn’t looked at one before. For all I knew only minutes had passed. It may have just seemed longer.
“What are we to do about this incident, Sir Hugh?” I asked.
“There is no way to keep it quiet,” he said. “Too many humans know. More will find out when your men reach the hospital. It will be the greatest scandal the Seelie Court has had in this country.”
“Your king will deny that he did this,” I said. “He will try and blame us somehow.”
“He has not tried his rather human version of the truth since you helped release the wild magic, Princess Meredith.”
“What does that mean exactly, Sir Hugh?” I asked.
“It means as much as I dare about my opinion of my king. It means that when you released the wild magic it awakened some…” he seemed to search for a word. “Certain things. Things that do not take well to oathbreakers, or other things.” He frowned as if even he wasn’t happy with what he’d just said.
“Oathbreakers and liars fear the wild hunt,” Frost said.
“I did not say that,” Hugh said.
“I haven’t heard this much verbal tap dancing from a Seelie noble in a long time,” Rhys said.
Hugh smiled at him. “You haven’t been at court in a long time.”
“Did you know what Taranis was doing?” I asked.
“We had suspicions that the king was not himself.”
“So polite,” I said. “So mild.”
“But accurate,” Hugh said.
“What else has happened for you to be so cautious, firelord?” Rhys asked.
“I think that is a conversation for a more private audience, pale lord.” “I can’t argue with that,” Rhys said.
I was beginning to get the feeling that Rhys and Hugh knew each other better than I’d realized.
“What do we do about this day, and this moment?” I asked.
“I am but a humble lord of the sidhe,” Hugh said. “I do not carry the blood of the royal line in my body.”“What does that mean?” I asked.
“It means that the humans aren’t the only ones who have laws.” Hugh stared at me with his black-and-orange eyes. He seemed to be trying to tell me something without saying it out loud.
“The Seelie would never go for it,” Rhys said.
“Go for what?” I asked, looking from one to the other.
“The king lost his temper with one of the serving wenches,” Hugh said. “A huge green dog appeared between him and the target of his anger.”
“A Cu Sith,” I said.
“Yes, a Cu Sith, after all these long years, a green dog of faerie is among us again, and protects those who need protecting. It would not allow the king to strike the serving girl. She seemed more terrified that he would blame her for the dog, but the king lost his anger in the face of the great dog.”
I remembered the dog from the night of the wild hunt. The night when wild magic had been everywhere. Huge black dogs had appeared, and when some touched them, they had changed to other dogs. Dogs out of legend, and a Cu Sith had run out into the night toward the Seelie Court.