Mistral's Kiss (Merry Gentry #5)(23)

“She did not strike the blow, I did,” Sholto said as he came to his feet. He actually stumbled, and I caught him, helped him stand. He didn’t jerk away, which let me know he was badly hurt. I could see the bleeding wound that Segna had made, but I didn’t think it was that wound that made me him stumble. Nor was it the amputation that weakened him now. There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds.
“My apologies, Sholto, but the hag is right,” Ivar’s high voice said reluctantly, “Segna bled you both. If the princess was not a warrior, then she would be free of this, but she is a sidhe of the Unseelie Court, and all who claim that are warriors.”
“The princess has killed more than once in challenge,” Fyfe said.
“If she will not help finish Segna, then she will never be acknowledged as queen of the sluagh,” Agnes said. She stroked Segna’s face, a surprisingly gentle gesture given her dagger-like talons.
I heard Doyle sigh. He moved close enough to whisper to me, “If you do not help make this kill, Agnes will spread the rumor that you are not a warrior.”
“And that would mean what?” I whispered back.
“It could mean that when you sit on the throne of the Unseelie Court, the sluagh will not come to your call, for they are a warrior people. They will not be led by someone who is unbloodied in battle.”
“I’ve been bloodied,” I said. The numbness was sliding away, and now the pain was sharp and tearing. The wound was bleeding freely. What I needed was to get medical attention, not to wade around in slimy water. “I’ll need a dose of antibiotics after this.”
“What?” Doyle and Sholto both asked.
“I’m mortal. Unlike the rest of you, I can get an infection, blood poisoning. So after we crawl around in that water, I’ll need antibiotics.”
“You can truly catch all that?” Sholto asked.
“I’ve had the flu, and my father made sure I had all my childhood immunizations—he wasn’t sure how much I could withstand or heal.”
Sholto gazed at me, studying my face. “You are fragile.”
I nodded. “Yes, I am, by the standards of faerie.” I looked up at Doyle. “You know, there are times when I’m not sure I want to be in charge here.”
“Do you mean that?”
“If there was a better alternative than my cousin, yes, I mean it. I’m tired, Doyle, tired. As much as I wanted to come back home to faerie, I’m beginning to miss L.A. almost as much. To put some distance between me and all this killing.”
“I told you once, Meredith, that if I could bear to give the court to Cel, I would leave with you.”
“Darkness,” Mistral said, “you cannot mean that.”
“You have not been outside faerie except for small trips. You have not seen that there are wonders outside our hills.” He touched my face. “There are some wonders that will not fade when we leave here.”
He had told me that he would give up everything and follow me into exile. Frost and he, both. When they first thought that the queen’s ring, a relic of power, had chosen Mistral as my king Doyle had broken down and said he could not bear it, to watch me with another. He had pulled himself together and remembered his duty, as I’d remembered mine. Would-be queens and kings did not run away and hide, and give their countries over to insane tyrants like my cousin Cel. He was crazier than his mother, Andais.
I stared up into Doyle’s face and I wanted him. Wanted to run away with him. Frost came up beside us. I gazed at my two men. I wanted to wrap them around me like a blanket. I did not want to climb down into that stinking hole and wade through razor-sharp bones and dirty water to kill someone I hadn’t meant to even hurt.“I don’t want this kill.”
“It must be your choice,” Doyle said softly.
Rhys joined us. “If we’re talking about running away to L.A. permanently, can I come, too?”
I smiled at him, touched his face. “Yes, you come, too.”
“Good, because once Cel’s on the throne, the Unseelie Court won’t be safe for anyone.”
I closed my eyes, rested my forehead against Doyle’s bare chest for a minute. I pressed my cheek against him, held him tight, so I could listen to the slow, steady beat of his heart.
Abeloec, who had been quiet, spoke next to my face: “You have drunk deep of the cup, of both cups, Meredith. Wherever you go, faerie will follow you.”
I looked at him, trying to hear all the double meanings in what he’d said. “I don’t want this kill.”
“You must choose,” Abeloec said.
I clung to Doyle for a moment more, then tore myself away. I forced myself to stand straight, shoulders back, though the shoulder Segna had torn ached and stung. If my body didn’t heal itself, I’d need stitches. If we could ever get back to the Unseelie Court, there were healers who could fix me up. But it was as if something, or someone, didn’t want me getting back there. I didn’t think it was political enemies, either—I was beginning to feel the hand of deity pushing firmly in my back.
I’d wanted the Goddess and the God to move among us again—all of us had wanted that. But I was beginning to realize that when the gods move, you either get out of the way or get swept along for the ride. I wasn’t sure getting out of the way was an option for me.
I caught the faintest scent of apple blossoms, a small…what? Warning, reassurance? The fact that I wasn’t sure if it was a warning of danger or a spiritual embrace pretty much summed up my feelings about being the Goddess’s instrument: Be careful what you wish for.
I looked at Sholto, with his wound seeping blood onto his bandages. He and I had both wanted to belong, truly belong, to the sidhe. To be honored and accepted among them. Look where it had gotten us.
I held my hand out to him, and he took it. He took it, and squeezed it tight. Even in all this horror and death, I felt in that one touch how much it meant to him to touch me at all. Somehow, the fact that he still wanted me so much made it all the worse.
“I tried to share life with you, Meredith, but I am King of the Sluagh, and death is all I have to offer.”
I squeezed his hand. “We are both sidhe, Sholto, and that is a thing of life. We are Unseelie sidhe, and that is a thing of death, but Rhys reminded me what I’d forgotten.”
“What had you forgotten?”
“That the deities among us who brought death also once brought life. We are not meant to be split apart like this. We are not light and dark, evil and good; we are both and neither. We have all forgotten what we are.” 
“What I am in this moment,” said Sholto, “is a man who is about to slay a woman who was my lover, and my friend. I can think of nothing beyond this moment—as if when she dies at my hand, I will die with her.”
I shook my head. “You won’t die, but you may wish you could, for a moment.”
“Only for a moment?” he asked.
“Life is a selfish thing,” I said. “If you pass through the sorrow, outrun the horror, you will begin to want to live again. You will be glad you didn’t die.”
He swallowed hard enough for me to hear it. “I don’t want to pass through this.”
“I’ll help you.”
He almost smiled, and it was like a ghost flitting across his face. “I think you’ve helped enough.” With that he let go of my hand and eased himself over the edge, using his good hand to keep himself from sliding through the bones.
I didn’t look back at anyone. I just eased myself over the edge and followed. Looking back wouldn’t make me feel better. Looking back would simply make me want to ask for help. Some things you have to do yourself. Sometimes what it means to lead is simply that you can’t ask for help.
I found that the bones weren’t sharp on every point—it was mostly the spines on the tops that were vicious. I grasped softer, rounder-looking bones, using them as handholds. It took all my concentration to get down to the water without losing my grip or cutting my hand.
The water was surprisingly warm, like bathwater. The soil underneath it was soft, and mushy, silt rather than mud. The footing was uncertain, and again I let myself sink into concentration on the task at hand. I focused on finding footing, avoiding anything that felt like a bone. I did not want to think about what I was about to do.
Segna had tried to kill me twice now, but I couldn’t hate her. It would have been so much easier if I could have hated her.
CHAPTER 13
IF I HADN’T BEEN AFRAID OF GETTING STABBED ON THE BONES, I would have swum out to where Sholto and Agnes stood holding Segna. The other two guards, Ivar and Fyfe, were still in the water, still close, but not holding the fallen woman. The water reached to my shoulders, stinging in the claw marks that Segna had made on me, and plenty deep enough to swim in, if it hadn’t hidden those bones beneath its surface. My blood trailed into the black water, lost.
Sholto was cradling Segna’s head and upper body as well as he could with only one good arm. Agnes was still beside him, helping hold her sister hag above the water. I stumbled on the soft bottom and went under. I came up sputtering.
Agnes’s voice came clear to me as she said to Sholto, “How can you want that weak thing? How can that be what you want?”
I heard earth sliding, water moving. I turned to find Doyle and Frost in the water, wading toward me.