“Talk to them, Meredith,” Doyle said, and there was the tiniest bit of strain in his voice. The limo was a smooth ride, but when you have second-degree burns that started the day as third-degree burns, well, I guess there’s no such thing as a truly smooth ride.
His comment had sounded too much like an order, but the strain in his voice made me answer. The strain and the fact that I loved him. Love makes you do all sorts of foolish things.
“Do you know who attacked us?” I asked.
“I know Taranis’s handiwork when I see it,” Aisling said.
“The other guards said Taranis went mad and attacked you all,” Usna said. He drew his knees up tight, arms laced around them, so that his eyes were framed with his jeans and his hair. It was a frightened child’s pose, and I wanted to ask if being among all this man-made metal was hard on him. Some of the lesser fey would eventually die locked inside metal. It made prison a potential death sentence for faerie folk. Lucky that most of us didn’t break human law.
“What prompted the attack?” Aisling asked.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “He just went crazy. I actually don’t know what happened in the room, because I was buried under a mound of bodyguards.” I looked at Abe still lying in my lap, and glanced at Frost and Doyle. “What did happen?”
“The king attacked Doyle,” Frost said.
“What neither will say,” Abe said, “is that only Doyle throwing up his gun to deflect the spell saved him from being blinded. Taranis tried for his face, and he meant it to either kill or permanently maim. I haven’t seen the old fart use his power that well in centuries.”
“Aren’t you older than he is?” I asked, peering down at him.
He smiled. “Older, yes, but in my heart I’m still a pup. Taranis let himself grow old inside. Most of us can’t age the way a human can, but inside we can grow just as old. Just as unwilling to change with the times.”
“The gun deflected Taranis’s hand of power?” Usna asked.
“Yes,” Doyle said, and he made a motion with his good hand. “Not all of it, obviously, but some.”
“Guns are made out of all sorts of things that faerie magic doesn’t like,” I said.
“I’m not certain about the new polymer-frame guns,” Doyle said. “The metal ones, yes, but since plastic doesn’t seem to bother the lesser fey, I wouldn’t swear that the new polymer guns would deflect anything.”
“Why doesn’t plastic bother the lesser fey?” Usna asked. “It’s as man-made as metal, more so.”
“Maybe it’s not the man-made part, but the metal part that counts,” Frost said.
“Until we know, I think only guns with more metal than plastic should be used by the guards,” Doyle said.
Everyone just nodded.
“When Doyle fell, the humans started screaming and running,” Frost said. “Taranis used his hand of power on the room, but he seemed confused, as if he didn’t know what to target.”
“When he stopped firing, Galen and I were ordered to get the princess, you, out of the room, and we tried,” Abe said. “That’s when Taranis decided on me.” He shivered a little, his hand tightening on my leg.
I leaned over and laid a kiss on his temple. “I’m sorry you got hurt, Abe.”
“I was doing my job.”
“Was Abeloec his target?” Aisling asked. “Or did he try for the princess and miss?”
“Frost?” Doyle said.
“I believe he hit what he was aiming at, but when Abeloec fell, Galen picked the princess up, and he moved in a way that I have not seen anyone move except the princess herself inside faerie,” Frost said.
“Galen didn’t open the door, did he?” I asked.
“No,” Frost said.
“Galen carried you through the door?” Usna asked.
“I don’t know. One minute we were in the room, the next we were in the hallway. I honestly don’t remember what happened at the door.”
“You blurred, then vanished at the door,” Frost said. “In that first moment, Meredith, I wasn’t certain whether Galen had gotten you out or another Seelie trick had stolen you away.”“Then what happened?” I asked.
“The king’s own guard jumped him,” Abe said.
“Truly?” Aisling asked.
Abe grinned. “Oh, yeah. It was a sweet moment.”
“His most trusted nobles attacked the king?” Usna asked, as if he couldn’t believe it.
Abe’s grin widened, until it crinkled the edges of his face. “Sweet, isn’t it?”
“Sweet,” Usna agreed.
“Was the king so easily subdued?” Aisling asked.
“No,” Frost said, “he used his hand of power three more times. The last time Hugh stepped in front of him, and used his own body to shield the room and the people inside it.”
“Hugh the Firelord was able to take Taranis’s power at point-blank range?” Aisling asked.
“Yes,” Frost said.
“His shirt was scorched, but his skin seemed untouched,” I said. “And how did you see Hugh?” Aisling asked, “if Galen had gotten you outside to safety.”
“She came back,” Frost said, and his voice was not happy.
“I could not leave you to the Seelie’s treachery,” I said.
“I ordered Galen to take you to safety,” Frost said.
“And I ordered him not to.”
Frost glared at me and I glared back.
“You couldn’t leave Doyle hurt, maybe dying,” Usna said softly.
“Maybe, yes, but also if I am ever to rule, truly rule a court of faerie, I must be able to lead in battle. We aren’t humans and keep our leaders in the back. The sidhe lead from the front.”
“You are mortal, Merry,” Doyle said. “That changes some rules.” “If I am too mortal to rule, then so be it, but I must rule, Doyle.”
“Speaking of ruling,” Abe said, “tell them what Hugh said about our princess being made queen of the Seelie Court.”
“That can’t be true,” Usna said. He was staring at Abe and me.
“I swear it is true,” Abe said.
“Has Hugh lost his senses?” Aisling asked. “No offense, Princess, but the Seelie will not allow an Unseelie noble who is part brownie and part human to sit on the golden throne. Not unless the court has changed a great deal in the two hundred years of my exile.”
“What say you, Usna?” Doyle asked. “Are you as shocked as Aisling?”
“Tell me first if Hugh gave reasons for his change of heart.”
“He spoke of swans with golden chains, and there is a green faerie dog in the Seelie Court once more,” Frost said.
“My mother tells me the Cu Sith had stopped the king from beating a servant,” Usna said.
“And you didn’t share this with anyone?” Abe asked.
Usna shrugged. “It didn’t seem that important.”
“Apparently, some of the nobles have taken the dog’s disfavor as a sign against Taranis,” Doyle said.
“Also, he went buggers, mad as a March fucking hare,” Abe said. “Well, there is that,” Doyle said.
Aisling looked at me. “They offered you the throne of the Seelie Court, truly?”
“Hugh said something about a vote among the nobles, and that if it went against Taranis, which he seemed confident it would, he would get them to vote me in as heir apparent.”
“What did you say?” Aisling asked.
“I said we’d have to talk to our queen before I could answer their generous offer.”
“Will she be pleased, or pissed?” Usna asked.
I think it was a rhetorical question, but I said, “I don’t know.”
Doyle said, “I do not know.”
Frost said, “I wish I knew.”
We had a chance of being caught between a ruler of faerie who was crazy and a ruler of faerie who was simply cruel. I had found years ago that the difference between madness and cruelty doesn’t matter much to a victim.
CHAPTER 11
DOYLE AND FROST PICKED USNA’S MIND FOR OTHER BITS OF unimportant news from his mother about the Seelie Court. There was a lot of it. Apparently Taranis had been acting erratically for some time. Aisling asked as we pulled into the gates of Maeve Reed’s estate, “Why did you request me for this talk? Taranis forbade anyone to speak to me of the Seelie Court on pain of torture, so I have no intelligence to report.”
“The Seelie sithen recognized you as king when we arrived in America,” Doyle said. “You were exiled because of that.”
“I am aware of what cost me my place at court,” Aisling said.
“So the princess is in effect being offered your rightful throne,” Doyle said.
Aisling’s eyes went wide. Even through the veil his astonishment showed. Obviously he had not put two and two together and come up with that.
The door to the limo opened, and Fred held the door. We all stayed sitting while we waited for Aisling to digest this. “Close the door for a moment, Fred,” I said.
The door closed.
“Just because the sithen recognized me more than two hundred years ago does not mean that I would still be its choice for king,” Aisling said. “And it is not me to whom the nobles are making this offer.”
“I wanted you to hear it first, Aisling,” Doyle said. “I did not want you to think that we had forgotten what faerie itself offered you once.”