“I am Unseelie sidhe, Aunt Andais.”
“We shall see, Meredith, we shall see.” She gazed at me, then down at herself. She seemed to have forgotten that she was holding the intestines of a man in one hand. “We need to clean up. We have a king to see, and a new mystery to solve.”
“What mystery would that be, Aunt Andais?” I asked.
“Why would Taranis risk war between our courts over a lie? Why would his men attack my men, over the lie of some Seelie strumpet?”
“I do not know, Aunt Andais,” I said.
“Nor I, but we will know, Meredith. We will know.” She released her hold on Gwennin, and closed the space between us. She was taller than Rhys by at least six inches, and she seemed even taller covered in blood, or maybe just scarier.
“Give your aunt a kiss, Meredith.”I opened my mouth to ask why, then closed it. She was doing it to be cruel, in part, but everyone I had touched today seemed to have gained from my touch. Perhaps the fact that I did not want to touch her would make it all the sweeter for her.
“Of course, Aunt Andais,” I said, and my voice was almost neutral.
“Does the thought of putting your white flesh against me right now sicken you?”
That was a dangerous question. “You frighten me, auntie, to say anything else would be a lie.”
“Then kiss me, niece, and let me taste your fear on those red, Seelie lips.”
I tightened my grip on Rhys’s arm, like a child holding tight in the night. She bent over us, and I raised my face to her, obedient, afraid not to be.
She pressed her lips to mine, but it wasn’t enough. She grabbed the back of my hair, and forced her mouth inside mine. She kissed me so hard that I either had to open my mouth or tear my lips on my own teeth. I opened to her, and she gave me the taste of her mouth, her lips, and the salty, caked sweetness of Gwennin’s blood. I knew from that kiss that she drank his blood, for it was everywhere inside her mouth.
Blood is one of the most precious fluids. It is life itself, and can be a great gift when shared, but this had not been a sharing. This had been a taking, a rape of everything that he had been.
I dug my nails into Rhys’s body to keep from gagging. I dared not show that much displeasure. I fought to breathe, fought to swallow, fought not to throw up on the Queen of Air and Darkness.
She fell back from the kiss with her eyes sparkling, her face rapturous. “Oh, you didn’t like that at all, did you?”
I took deep, even breaths. I would not throw up. I simply would not. I had no idea what she would do if I did, and Gwennin at her feet reminded me what she was capable of. I had the very taste of him in my mouth to remind me. I fought not to dwell upon that taste. I mastered my breathing and my stomach, but knew that it had shown on my face. Nothing I could do about it.
She laughed, a sharp, fierce, happy sound like the cry of a hawk. “I think, before I give my throne away, that I will have to demand one night with you, Meredith. You are entirely too human, too Seelie. You would not like what I would do to you.”
“If I would like it, you wouldn’t see the point in doing it,” I said, more anger than fear in my voice. I could not stop it.
She shook her head, almost sadly. “There you go again, Meredith. Your words are fine, but your tone says fuck you and the horse you rode in on.”
I looked at her, and for once I did not try to hide. She liked that I hated her. She would enjoy forcing me into her bed, in part because I hated her, and she hated me.
“Say what you’re thinking, Meredith. Tell your auntie dearest the words that will match those angry Seelie eyes.” She purred at me, a voice that was anger, seduction, and the promise of pain all rolled into one.
Rhys tightened his arms around me, his body tensing. I said, “We hate each other, auntie dearest, we always have.”
“And the fact that I would force you into my bed, how does that make you feel?”
“That I would rather be queen sooner than later.”
There were gasps. Andais laughed. “Are you threatening me?”
“No. When I held Galen’s dying body in my arms, I thought it was too dear a price to be queen of any court. I still think it, but thank you, auntie dearest, for reminding me that I will be queen, or I will die.”
“Coming to my bed is not death, Meredith.”
“Some deaths, auntie dearest, are of the soul rather than the body.”
“Are you saying that if I force you it will kill your soul?” She laughed again.
“I am saying that it will kill something inside me, and you will enjoy its death.”
“Yes,” she said, “I will.”
I smelled roses then, a soft, gentle perfume.
Andais looked around her. “What is that smell?”
“Flowers,” I said.
“There are no flowers here.”
I looked into her gore-soaked face. “There will be.” Those three simple words held a promise of weight and power.
“Roses are fragile things, Meredith. They do not grow outside of walls without the skill of gardeners.”
“The wild rose needs no walls to protect it,” Doyle said.
She turned and looked at him. “What are you babbling about, Darkness?”
“Can you not smell it, Queen Andais? It is the scent of the meadow rose, the bramble rose, and it needs no walls to protect it, nor gardener to tend it. In fact, it is almost impossible to dig out or destroy once it takes root.”
“I did not know you had such an interest in gardening, Darkness.”
“This is a rose that makes its own garden wherever it happens to grow.”
She stared at him, studying his impassive face, as if she saw something there that I could not read. “Do not fall too far in love with the rose, Darkness, for it has thorns.”
“Yes,” he said, “we must all beware the thorns when we seek to pick the rose.”
“And will you prick me with your thorn, Darkness?”
“What good is a thorn to the rose, if it does not draw blood.”
“Is that a threat?” she asked.
“What if that piece of her soul that you steal away is the piece that calls to the sithen? What if the piece of her happiness that you destroy is the very piece the Goddess calls to? Would you destroy all that has been awakened for a dark whim?”
“I am queen here, Darkness.”
“And your brother Essus loved you well,” he said.
That seemed odd even to me, and the queen frowned. “Why do you speak of my brother?”
“Why was Essus not king?” he asked in that empty voice.
She frowned at him. “He refused the throne.”
“Not true,” he said.
She licked her lips. “He would not kill me to get the throne.”
“Essus loved you too well,” Doyle said.
She turned back to me. “And his daughter does not love me at all. Is that what you mean, Darkness?”
“Meredith, daughter of Essus, does not love you, Andais, Queen of Air and Darkness.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “You are threatening me.”
“I am saying that those who would have seen Essus on your throne were stopped by his love of you, and now there is no love to stand between you and harm.”I wished that I could have read her face better, but the blood masked much of it. “I thought you served me out of duty, Darkness.”
“No, my queen, not out of duty.”
“But you do not love me now, Darkness.”
“No,” he said, “you killed that part of me long ago.”
“And if I say Meredith will never have my throne, never be queen, what say you to that?”
“Then we will go, all of us who wish to, and we will take exile in the lands to the west.”
“You cannot mean that.”
“I mean everything I say, Andais, Queen of Air and Darkness. I have always meant everything I have ever said to you.” And a soft sound escaped him. It was a sob, and a tear glittered down his cheek.
“I did not . . .” She stopped and tried again. “I did not know.”
“You did not see me,” he said, and his voice was steady now.
“But you were always by my side.”
“But you did not see me.”
“Does she see you, Darkness? Does she really see you?”
He nodded. “Yes, she sees me. She sees us all.”
They stared at each other for a space of heartbeats, and it was she who turned away first. “Go, and take your rose and her new thorns with you. All of you, go.”
She did not have to ask us twice. Rhys started carrying me toward the far door. I was pretty sure I could have walked, but being carried in his arms sounded just about right. I wrapped my arms around his neck, and gazed back over his broad shoulder at my aunt.
The people who had been with her were still hesitating, waiting, unsure if they’d had their orders. She screamed at them, “Go, go! All of you, go!” They went, hurrying off. Even Gwennin tried to crawl away from her. She put a foot on the long thick strings of his intestines, and her voice came in an evil whine, “Not you, Gwennin, not you.”
We made the far doors, were through them, and had them closing behind us as the first ragged scream cut the air. If I could have taken him with us, I would have. For I would not have left anyone to the queen’s mercy.
Doyle suddenly shoved me behind him. I heard it a second later: running. A group of people running this way. Adair and Amatheon had no weapons to draw, so they gave me their bodies as living shields. I could not see around all the broad backs and drawn weapons. I had to wait, surrounded by men whom I no longer wished to put between me and danger. I needed guards that I didn’t like quite so much. I heard Galen’s voice, “Where’s Merry?” Amatheon and Adair almost slumped with relief on either side of me. I fought the urge to laugh, or cry, or just push everyone away so I could see. But we all waited for Doyle to tell us to move, or not.