The moment I thought it, I knew it could. I could stay here, held in the arms of the God, and I could move on to a place where it was perfectly peaceful, perfectly happy. I could move forward into the waiting peace, but I thought about Doyle, and Frost, and Galen, Nicca, Kitto, Rhys, oh, Goddess save us, Rhys. Had the queen taken his eye and left him blind? That perfect peace hit the shoals of my tears, and could not stand against them.
The arms that held me were just as strong, the chest with its strong heartbeat just as steady, and that pulsing joyfulness still sang through Him. He had not changed, but I had. If I died, what would become of my people? Andais wasn’t dead, she couldn’t be, and when she woke her wrath would be a terrible thing.
I hugged the feel of this peace and joy to me, I clung to it the way a child clings to a parent when she fears the dark, but I was not a child. I was Princess Meredith NicEssus, wielder of the hands of flesh and blood, and I could not rest yet. I could not leave my people to face the queen’s anger without me.
I leaned back enough to look into the face of the God. And I could still not see it. Some say that God has no face, some say He is the face of whomever you love the most, some say He is the face of whoever you need Him to be. I do not know, only that for me, in that moment, He was shadows and a smile. For He kissed me, and His lips tasted of honey and apples. A voice sounded in my head, and it held both the rumbling deep of Doyle and Galen’s laughter: “Share this with them.”
I woke, gasping, my chest on fire. I tried to sit up, and the pain threw me back to the floor, to writhe, and the writhing hurt so badly I tried to scream, and there wasn’t enough air for it.
Kitto’s face loomed over me. He whispered, “Mother of God.” He was thick with blood from the waist down, and more of it covered his upper body. I didn’t remember the queen hurting him. I tried to ask, but just breathing hurt so badly that I couldn’t. Every breath felt as if knives were stabbing into me from both sides. It hurt so badly, I wanted to writhe again, but I knew that moving hurt worse, so I fought, my hands scrambling against the floor, fighting to hold myself as still as I could.
The floor was wet, and I knew it was blood. But I didn’t remember being this close to all the blood. It was almost as if Kitto read my mind, because he leaned in close and said, “I dragged you into the sidhe blood. The hand of blood can feed on blood.” He had to lean in close because there was so much shouting. Men’s voices raised. I could only catch fragments from the noise, “Mortal Dread is here . . . She will kill us all . . . madness . . .”
Kitto leaned in close. “Merry, can you hear me?”
I managed the barest of whispers, “Yes.” I didn’t understand what the fight was about, but I thought I understood what Kitto had meant about the blood. He’d dragged me into the blood to try to heal me. Maybe it had helped, but something was very wrong inside me. It hurt to breathe; it was obscene when I tried to move. The God had given me back my life, but I wasn’t healed. Even as I thought it, though, I felt the kiss upon my lips. It tingled as if He’d only that second drawn away. I smelled fresh apples, and when I licked my lips, I could still taste honey.
Galen pulled himself into view, using his hands and arms to drag himself forward so he could look down into my face. He smiled, though his eyes held a shadow of the pain he was feeling. I remembered him writhing beside me, because he’d taken the first rush of Andais’s spell. I think she’d broken most of my ribs, and probably done the same to him. I tried to raise a hand to touch him, and found I did have breath enough to scream. My scream cut through the fighting better than any sword. When the echoes of my scream died, a silence as thick and heavy as any I’d ever heard filled the room. Kitto tried to push Galen away, but I fought the pain and reached out enough for Galen to put his hand in mine, and that one touch flowed through me like a soothing balm. Helped me settle back against the floor. Helped me relearn how to breathe, carefully around the pain.
My lips tingled, and it was as if I’d just bitten into an apple. The crisp, mellow sweetness was melting on my tongue. Apples dipped in honey; the taste of it filled my mouth. There was an echo in my head of that voice: Share it with them.
“Kiss me,” I said.A look of such pain came into Galen’s face. He thought this was a good-bye kiss. I was hoping it wasn’t.
He made small sounds as he wormed his way closer to me. I knew that the broken bones were stabbing into him every time he moved, but he never hesitated. He crawled those last few inches to put his face above mine. He laid his lips against mine, so gently, but as my breath eased out into his mouth it wasn’t apples and honey I tasted. Galen tasted like the scent of aromatic herbs. I could taste dew, and feel the soft edge of a basil leaf. He tasted of basil, rich and thick and warm. Basil still growing in the earth, leaves flung wide to the sun, and dew upon the leaves.
He drew back just enough to whisper, “You taste like apples.”
I smiled up at him. “You taste like fresh herbs.”
He laughed, and I saw his face tighten, as if it hurt, then he said, “That didn’t hurt.” He’d tightened in anticipation of the hurt. He took a deep breath, making his chest rise and fall. “It doesn’t hurt.” His smile was everything I needed it to be when he said, “I’m healed.” He managed to make it both a statement, and nearly a question.
Frost dropped to his knees beside us, one of his hands tucked in tight against his stomach. I thought at first it was his arm that was injured, then I saw something red and bulging pushing around the edge of his hand. Andais had gutted him.
I managed to whisper his name, “Frost.”
Galen moved away so that he could be closer to me. Frost touched my mouth with his fingertips. “Save your strength.”
I could taste apples again, as if I’d just bitten into one, and dipped it into something thick and sweet and golden. I didn’t need a voice this time to know what to do.
Frost moved his fingers back from my mouth, reluctantly, as if he didn’t want to stop touching me. I whispered, “Kiss me.”
A silver tear spilled from one eye, but he bent over me. The movement was slow and painful, and brought a sound low in his throat. He finally laid himself beside me, one hand still holding in what the queen’s knife had spilled, but the other hand touched my hair. The look on his face was so raw, if I’d ever doubted he loved me, the doubt was gone; in that one look, I knew.
He kissed me, delicate as a snowflake, melting on my tongue. It was as if winter had a taste. Not just the crispness of the air with snow on the ground, but as if my tongue licked along some smooth, cold icicle, and snow filled my mouth, and melted down my throat like the sweetest of snow cones. He melted down my throat, and when his mouth moved back from mine, our breaths fogged in the air between us. I realized I could breathe and the sharpest of the pain was gone.
Frost sat up and drew his hand away from his stomach. That frightening red bulge was gone. He smoothed his hand down his stomach and gave me wide surprised eyes.
Doyle was there, kneeling by him. He spread the cloth wide, touching that smooth white flesh. Only when he turned to look full at me did I see the ruin Andais had made of one side of his face. The cheek down to his beautiful lips flapped loose. It was a wound that even a sidhe would need stitches for. Without some guidance, the cheek would heal as it wished, not as you might wish it.
I reached out for him, to share the power of the God, but he moved away, and motioned to someone behind him. I tried to raise up from the ground, to touch him, and the pain lanced through me, forced me onto my back, drove the breath from my body again. I was better, but unlike Frost and Galen, I was not healed.
Two of the guards brought Rhys forward. He sagged between them, and the sight of his face made me cry out. Not in horror, but in pain. Andais hadn’t cut out the eye, as the goblins had so long ago, but she had burst it. I could see nothing of that beautiful blue, lost in the blood and the fluid that had rushed down his face. The skin around the eye socket was ringed on both sides with deep, jagged wounds that showed the bone of both skull and cheek. It looked as if she’d tried to cut away the skin from around his eye. Rhys’s scar was just a part of him, and I loved every inch of him, but this . . . This was a ruin of him. He was well and truly blind. The queen had made sure he would not heal this, not with his own body’s abilities. Not with any magic we had left to us.
I looked up into his face, and felt rage such as I had seldom known. Rage at the waste of it. So useless, so pointless. I didn’t ask why, because there was no answer. The why was simply because, which was no answer at all.
I understood now why Doyle had drawn away and motioned for Rhys to come forward. I’d never before been able to heal with my kiss. If the ability did not last, Rhys needed it more. Doyle would scar, but he would still be Doyle. Rhys’s injury was the sort to unmake a man, or remake him into someone else.
Andais’s untouched guards were on either side of him, and I had a mo-ment of anger that they had done nothing to stop this.
They helped Rhys kneel, but when he felt my hand, he recoiled. “Don’t touch me, Merry, don’t look.”
It was Kitto, still kneeling in the cooling blood, who said, “She has returned from the Summerlands with the kiss of birds inside her.”