“Kelpie,” I whispered.
Gethin heard me, because, smiling, he said, “Nay, Princess, ’tis an Each Uisge. It’s the water horse of the Highlands, and nothin’ is meaner than the Highland folk, unless maybe the Border folk.” He hugged the pony again, and it nickered at him again like a long-lost pet.
Others came forward then, with eager hands. There were hairy brown creatures that were not quite horses, but not quite anything else. They looked unfinished, but the sluagh cried gladly at the sight of them. There was a huge black boar with tentacles on either side of its snout. There were black hounds, huge and fierce, with eyes that were too large for their faces, like the hounds in the old Hans Christian Andersen story about dogs with eyes as big as plates. Their huge round eyes were red and glowing, and their mouths were too wide, and seemed unable to close, so that their tongues lolled out around pointed teeth.A huge tentacle the width of a man dangled from the ceiling. I looked up to find that it covered the ceiling. I’d seen the tentacles at the hospital and in Los Angeles, but I’d never seen more than the tentacles. Now I gazed up at the entire creature. It took up the entire upper dome of the huge ceiling. It clung to the surface much as the nightflyers did, but its tentacles didn’t help it cling. They were turned outward, and dangled like fleshy stalactites. Two huge eyes gazed down at us, and the moment I saw the eyes I thought, “It’s like some kind of humongous octopus,” but no octopus ever had so many arms, so much flesh.
That long tentacle touched the last glowing shreds of the magic, and suddenly there was a man-sized version of the tentacled creature. All the other things that had formed from the magic had been animals: dogs, horses, pigs. But this was obviously a baby of what clung to the ceiling.
The tentacles on the ceiling gave a glad cry, which echoed in the hall and made some flinch, but most smile. The huge tentacle picked up the smaller version, and lifted it to the ceiling. The tentacled creature that I had no name for clung to the larger tentacle and made small happy sounds.
Sholto turned a tearstained face to me. “She has been alone so very long. The Goddess does still love us.”
I put an arm around him, a hand on Mistral. “The Goddess loves us all, Sholto.”
“The Queen has been the face of the Goddess for so long, Meredith, and she has no love of anyone.”
In my head, I thought, “She loves Cel, her son.” Out loud I said only, “I love.”
He kissed me on the forehead, ever so gently. “I’d forgotten what it was to be loved.”
I did the only thing I could. I went up on tiptoe and kissed him. “I will remind you.” I gave him all that he needed to see in my face as I gazed up at him, but part of me was wondering where the healer was. I was going to be queen, and that meant that no one person was so dear as all of them. I was having one of those moments now. I was happy that Sholto was happy, and happier for his people and the return of so much, but I wanted Mistral to live. Where was the healer while the miracles of the Goddess were happening?
The nightflyers poured back from the far tunnel. “They will have the healer with them,” Sholto said, as if he’d read my doubts in my face. There was a sadness around the edges of his happiness. He knew that he would never be my one and only. I was queen, and even more than most, my loyalties were divided among my people.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I EXPECTED TO SEE ONE OF THE SLUAGH WITH THE NIGHTFLYERS, but it was a man. He looked human, though he had a large hump on his back. He was handsome, with short brown hair, and a smiling face. He had a black doctor’s bag with him.
I looked at Sholto.
“He is human, but he has been with us too long to set foot on mortal soil.”
Humans could come to faerie and never age, but if they ever went back, all the years they’d cheated would come upon them all at once. Once you stayed in faerie any length of time, you could never go back, not and be truly human.
“He was a doctor before he came, but he has studied long in faerie. He will heal your Storm Lord if anyone here can.”
I realized that I’d touched Mistral’s body only through his clothes for a time. I moved so I could see his face, and what I saw was not a comfort. His normally shining white skin was almost as gray as his hair. Some of the sidhe, myself included, could change their skin color with glamour, but this pasty gray was not that.
Had the Goddess distracted me with magic, only to let me lose one of my kings? Surely not.
The healer said, “King Sholto and Princess Meredith, I am honored to serve.” But it was a cursory greeting. His brown eyes were already looking more at the patient than at us. That was fine with me. He felt for Mistral’s pulse with one well-groomed hand. His handsome face was very serious, and his eyes had that distant listening quality.
He touched one of the partially healed wounds. “My king, some magic has healed his wounds, but he is still very ill. What made these wounds?”
“Arrows tipped with cold iron,” Sholto said.
The healer pursed his lips, and ran his hands quickly over Mistral. “Let us find a room where I can tend him properly.”
“We will take him to my room,” Sholto said.
The healer looked startled for a moment, then simply said, “As my king wills it.” He began to walk back toward the tunnel from which he’d entered.
Sholto said, “Meredith, follow the doctor.”
I started to argue that I wanted to be able to see Mistral, but something in Sholto’s face made me simply nod. I followed the doctor and only glanced behind to see that Sholto was following with Mistral still in his arms.
Sholto was right. There was no guarantee that I did not have enemies here in the sluagh. We thought I was safer here, but I’d had people from this faerie mound try to kill me too. It had simply been for a different motive. The hags, as in night hags, who had once been Sholto’s personal guard had tried to kill me out of jealousy. They were more than just bodyguards, as were my own guards, and the hags had thought that Sholto would forget them once he had his first taste of sidhe flesh. But the hags who had meant my death were dead themselves now. Two I had killed in self-defense. One had died at Sholto’s own hand, to keep me safe. There were still some among his court who feared that me being with their king would change them forever and take away what made them sluagh. That my magic would make them into a pale version of the Seelie. It was the same fear my aunt Andais, the Queen of Air and Darkness, felt among her own court.
So I walked behind the doctor with Sholto behind me. Even with Mistral’s life in our hands my safety was to be worried about. Would it always be that way? Would there never be safety inside or out of faerie for me now?
I prayed to the Goddess for safety, for guidance, and for Mistral. The scent of roses came gently to me. Then the scent of herbs followed. Thyme, mint, and basil, as if we walked upon strewn herbs, but a glance down showed that the floor was bare. In fact, it was the most cavelike of all the courts, all bare stone that looked more water-carved than hand-hewn.
“I smell herbs and roses,” Sholto said from behind me.
“As do I,” I said.
The corridor opened wider, and there were two cloaked figures before a pair of double doors. For a moment I thought they were night hags as his guard had been once before, but then they turned and looked at us, and the figures inside the cloaks were male. They were almost as tall as Sholto himself, pale and muscular, but there was some smoothness to their faces, lipless cuts for mouths, and oval, slitted eyes that held darkness like a cave.“My cousins,” Sholto said. “Chattan and Iomhair.” The last time I’d seen his guard he’d added two uncles, but both had died defending him. I wondered if these two were the sons of those lost uncles, but I did not ask. It isn’t always good to remind someone that you (meaning I) were there when their fathers died. People tended to start blaming you if you were always around when people died. That one hadn’t been my fault, but if you can’t blame your cousin and king, I wouldn’t make a bad target for blame.
I greeted them, and they said, very formally, “Princess Meredith, you honor our sithen with your presence.” It was way too polite for sluagh society.
I answered automatically in a formal tone. Years of being at court had made it habit. “It is I who is honored to be among the sluagh, for you are the strong left hand of the Unseelie Court.”
They exchanged a look as we went through the doors. One of them, and they looked so alike I couldn’t be sure which, said, “It has been long since that title was given to the sluagh by an Unseelie royal.”
Sholto carried Mistral to the large bed on the far side of the room. I turned to answer the guard. “Then it has been too long since the sluagh were given their due by the Unseelie Court. I come here tonight seeking shelter and safety among the sluagh, not among the Unseelie or the Seelie. I come with your king’s unborn child in my body, and I seek safety here among his people.”
“Then the rumor is true? You bear Sholto’s child?”
“I do,” I said.
“Leave them, Chattan,” said the other guard, Iomhair. “They have wounded to tend.”
Chattan bowed, and closed the doors, but he watched me as he did it, as if it were important. I stood there and held his gaze, because there was weight to it. There were moments when I could feel not just magic, but also fate weave around me. I knew that Chattan was important, or that the small conversation we’d just had was. I could feel it, and it wasn’t until the doors closed that I felt free to go to the bed to see to Mistral.