I’d been afraid, but now there was no time for fear. Panic would get me killed, and what would happen to my men if I died? Frost had said he would die before going back to Andais. I was all that stood between them and returning to the queen’s mercy. I could not leave them, not like that. Not helpless to protect themselves.
I needed to survive. I had to survive, and that meant that Miniver had to die.
I walked back into the rough embrace of her gold cloth, and as before when I was close enough to feel her body through the dress, I put my hands at her waist for balance.
This time she pulled me roughly against her, as if she’d make it all as quick as possible.I raised my left hand, the one with its fresh wound, as if I meant to touch her face, but she grabbed my wrist to stop me. It didn’t really hurt, her hand on the cut, but I made a small pain sound anyway.
Her eyes were just a little wider, and she pressed her hand into my wrist.
I obliged her, making another small sound.
I could see her pulse in her throat jumping under her skin. She liked the sounds. She liked them so much that she ground her hand into my wrist, and the next sound was real.
My voice came out breathy, and it wasn’t pretend. “You’re hurting me.”
She pulled me in tight against her body, twisting my arm behind my back so that she could keep digging at the wound. She jerked my arm upward, sharp and hard as if she meant to pull it out of its socket.
I cried out, and her eyes were wild. She put her other hand against the back of my head, balling her hand into my blood-soaked hair. A sound came low in her throat, and I watched her fight against herself, watched the battle rage in her eyes from inches away. If I had misjudged this, I was about to die, and it was going to be slower and a great deal more painful. The thought brought fear in a rush over my skin, thundering my pulse in my head. I didn’t fight it, and it was as if Miniver could smell it on me, could smell my fear, and liked it.
Her mouth hovered over mine, a breath from closing the space and sealing our oath. She jerked my arm again, and I screamed for her. A sound came out of her that was almost a laugh, but had nothing to do with laughter. I’d never heard anything like it. If I’d heard it in the dark, I’d have been afraid.
She whispered into my mouth, “Scream for me, scream for me as I drink your blood. Scream, and I won’t hurt you while I do it.”
I hesitated, because I could not decide in that split second what would be better: to give in and scream, or to make her work for it. Miniver made my mind up for me. She pressed her mouth to mine, and I didn’t scream for her, so she made me scream.
She jerked my arm again, and that made a small sound, but she didn’t want a small sound. There was no warning, no prickle of magic; my left hand was just suddenly pierced by knives, five blades slicing through my flesh and bones. I screamed for her then, I screamed, and screamed, and screamed, muffled against her mouth, trapped against her body. She drank my screams the way she drank my blood, and I defended myself.
The pain and fear translated directly into power. I didn’t think, Bleed, I thought, Die. Her throat exploded with our mouths still pressed together, so that we both coughed on her blood.
I thought she would let me go, but she didn’t. Her hand was still wrapped in my hair, and all she had to do was call her power, and I would die. I focused on the wound in her wrist, and she tried to scream with her ruined throat. Her hand fell away from my head, and the hand flopped almost completely torn away from the arm. There was no hunger in her eyes now, only shock and horror, and the panic that only the truly immortal can show at death. That puzzled fear as they feel it begin to take hold.
She threw me away from her body, and I couldn’t catch myself with only one good arm. The arm she had pulled behind my back was useless, numb and aching at the same time. I could not feel my shoulder, and distantly I knew that was probably a good thing.
I lay on the floor for a second trying to decide if I was too hurt to move. Then I saw her stagger toward me, trying to get her hand in line with her wrist, as if she was having trouble using her hand of power with her hand torn away. I had to do something before she figured out how to use it.
I stared at the gaping red mess that had been her throat, her spine shining wetly in the lights. I could see the bones of her clavicle just over her breasts. With all that damage, she was still struggling to kill me. She should have been dying by now. Why wasn’t she dying?
I shoved my power into her. I could feel it like a huge balled fist just under the bare bones I could see in her upper chest. I squeezed that power, squeezed it, concentrated it.
A bolt of energy raised the hair on my body, and scarred the floor just beyond me. Miniver had torn her own hand off, and was trying to shoot energy out of her bloody stump, but she was having trouble finding the range.
I felt that huge fist of power in her upper chest, in the wound I’d made, and I opened it. I spread the fingers of my magic wide, and her upper chest exploded outward in shards of bone and flesh and blood like a crimson rain.
I had to use my good hand to wipe the blood from my eyes so I could see Miniver on her back, her arms scrambling at the stones as if she was trying to breathe without a throat, without a chest, without lungs. If she’d been human she would have been dead. If she had been mortal, she would have been dead. But she wasn’t dead.
I heard the queen’s voice distant, more distant than it should have been. “I declare this duel over. Do any of you argue this?”
There was no sound.
“I declare Meredith the winner. Do any of you debate that?”
I heard a voice, though I couldn’t place it. It was a woman. “They are both on the ground. I think the princess is as hurt as Miniver.”
I understood then that I would have to get up. I managed to push myself upright with my good arm. The world swam in colors, but if I braced my arm, I could sit. I looked up, slowly, and found it was Nerys who had spoken against me.
“Are you content now, Nerys?” Andais asked.
“The law says that to be victor you must leave the circle under your own power.”
I was really beginning to dislike Nerys. I pushed to my knees, and the world swam in colors, but finally I could see again. I wasn’t entirely sure I could stand, let alone walk. But if you have no pride to defend, then there are other methods of moving. I crawled on one hand, and my knees. I crawled toward Nerys. I crossed the magic circle just in front of her table, then I used my good hand to grab the edge of that table and pull myself upright.
I stared at her from not so very far away, and said, “Doyle.”
He was beside me, and probably had been closer than I knew. “I am here, Princess.”
“Tell the queen to tell the court what Nerys did.”
He called to Andais, “The princess requests that you reveal what Nerys has done.”
The queen did, and I watched Nerys and all her people push away from the table, and stand there. They could not run because the guards held the only door, but the moment they pushed to their feet in a mass, I knew they intended to fight, and not as Miniver had fought, not within the rules. They intended to fight everyone.“Demi-fey,” I said.
Doyle leaned close. “Let me carry you, Meredith.”
I said again, “Demi-fey.”
He didn’t seem to understand, but I suddenly had a small cloud of winged people around me. “You called, Princess?” said the one with a voice like bells.
“I offer you sidhe flesh and blood.”
“Yours?” she asked.
“No,” I said, “theirs.”
There was a moment where the cloud of bloody butterflies hesitated, then almost as a single mass they fell upon Nerys and her people. It was so unexpected that the demi-fey got their bit of blood and flesh before the sidhe began to swat at them, and use magic to burn one small winged creature out of the air.
Nerys’s face was a mass of bloody scratches. All of them had been bloodied, hands, necks, faces, breasts. The demi-fey had done their work well.
It never occurred to me that I shouldn’t try. It never occurred to me that it wouldn’t work. Shock is a wonderful thing. I didn’t even hurt; I just couldn’t feel my arm. But I could feel my power. I whispered, “Bleed,” and blood began to pour out of their wounds. Such small wounds for so very much blood.
That burning bolt came our way, but an armored knight was there to take the blow, to send the heat shattering into sparks.
“Goblins,” I said, and the Red Cap Jonty was there, with Ash and Holly beside him. “Bring your brother Red Caps.”
Jonty didn’t argue, but brought back a wall of huge Red Caps, and they lined up around me. They helped keep me safe while I called blood from Nerys and all her nobles.
Some of them broke ranks and drew knives against the swords of the guard. I think they preferred to be cut down rather than go the way Miniver had gone. Then one of her nobles dropped to her knees, and called out, “Forgive us!”
Andais said, “You would have killed me, and made me slaughter my guards. What mercy do you deserve?”
The woman crawled out from under the table, and Doyle moved me back, out of her bloody reach. “Please, Princess, please, do not destroy our entire house, all that we are.”
“Nerys must die, for she has led you into betraying your queen.”
Nerys’s voice came, all arrogance gone. “I will pay the price for my actions if you will spare my people.”