Seduced by Moonlight (Page 30)

I stood on a mountain looking out over the land. I could see the land spreading green and rich until it merged with the misty blue of the horizon, like looking out at an emerald ocean of land. I stood for a glorious moment alone on the crest of that great hill, and then I knew that I wasn't alone. Not a sound, or a movement, just the certain knowledge that when I next looked behind me, someone would be there. I expected it to be the Goddess, but it was not. A man stood in the bright sunlight. He wore a cloak that covered his face in shadows and swirled in the sweet wind, hiding his body. One moment I thought I saw broad shoulders, the next not so broad, but slender of waist. It was as if the body the cloak covered changed even as I watched.

The wind streamed my hair back from my face and billowed his cloak around him. It brought with it a scent of forest and field. He smelled of wilderness untamed and of fresh-tilled earth; but over all the rich scent of him was a perfume that was impossible to describe. It smelled, for lack of a better term, masculine. But it was more than that. It was the way a man's neck smells when you are deeply in love and lust. That sweet scent that makes your body tighten and your heart fill. If the cologne manufacturers could have bottled it, they'd have made a fortune, because he smelled like being in love.

He held out his hand to me, and like his body the hand changed even as I walked toward him. The tone of the skin, the size of the hand; it was as if his form swam through many forms, until the hand that took mine was Doyle's dark skin, but when I looked up it was not Doyle's face that I saw in the hood. It was shadows and glimpses of all my men. All who had known my body flew across the face of the God, but the arms that pulled me close were very solid, very real. He pulled me in tight to his body, the cloak streaming around both of us, almost like wings. I laid my face against his chest, wrapped my arms around his waist, and felt utterly safe, as if nothing else would ever hurt me again. It was like being home, the way home is supposed to be but never really is. Peaceful, content, exactly what you need, and everything you ever wanted. It was a moment of perfect peace. Perfect happiness, as if this feeling could go on forever.

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 goodbye 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 moment 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.”

Rhys moved that blind face, as if he'd look at Kitto. “I do not believe you.”

I actually did not know the term kiss of birds, but I'd ask questions later. “Come to me, Rhys, and let me prove it.”

Doyle pushed the others back, and it was he and Frost who guided Rhys to me. His face was covered in blood, but I did not shrink from it or try to brush it away. It was just another part of Rhys. His lips were salty with it. His lips touched mine, but he did not kiss me. I had to put my hand at the back of his neck, and the movement made me gasp.

He drew back, or tried to; only Doyle and Frost's hands kept him from moving away. “She is injured, too,” Frost said, “raising her hand to the back of your head caused her pain. It was not a gasp at your appearance.” And Frost had said exactly what needed saying. Because Rhys stopped trying to pull back.

“How badly is she hurt?”

“Kiss me, Rhys, and I'll feel better.”

This time he came to me, and didn't make me move more than necessary. This time when our lips met, he kissed me back, and it seemed to need both of us to be willing. For that one shared kiss was as if home had a single taste, as if the smell of fresh bread, clean laundry, wood smoke, laughter, and something warm and thick bubbled on that fire. Rhys didn't taste like any particular food, but his lips held the essence of all that was good and made you feel content, sated, happy.

I raised my hands up to hold him, without thinking, but the pain it caused rode away and vanished on the sensation of him. He drew back at last, and I clung to him, for I wanted more of that taste. I opened my eyes.

Rhys blinked down at me. That circle of robin egg blue, winter sky, cornflower blue, looked down at me. I was lost between laughter and tears, staring up at him in silent wonder.

“Goddess be praised.” He whispered it so low, I don't think anyone else heard.

“Consort be praised,” I said, in a whisper back to only him.

He smiled then, and something inside me loosened at the sight of it; a tightness I hadn't known was there went away. If Rhys could smile like that, everything would be all right.

Rhys moved away, and I took Doyle's wrist. I intended him to be next, for I did not know how long this blessing would last. He shook his head. I opened my mouth to insist, but Mistral appeared, carrying Onilwyn in his arms. I knew that Mistral and Onilwyn were not friends, but in this moment the guards seemed united in a way that was beyond friendship, or whom you like and whom you hate. Onilwyn's head lay backward at an odd angle, the muscles holding it in place severed. His spine was a glistening whiteness in the fearsome wound that had once been his neck. The front of his clothing was blue-violet with his own blood. His pale skin the color of wheat, green and fresh from the earth, had been bleached to a sickly greenish white. Only the wide staring of his green-and-gold eyes let me know he was indeed still alive. She'd slit his throat so completely that his breath whished and hissed, and gurgled wetly through the top of his severed windpipe. If he'd been human his throat would have collapsed under the damage, but he wasn't human, so he still breathed, still lived, but whether he could heal from such a terrible wound depended on how much personal magic he still had left. There was a time when the gods themselves blessed all of us, made of us saints able to withstand a decapitation, but that had been centuries ago. Not all of us could heal such damage now.

There was the very real possibility that Onilwyn would linger for days, but in the end, he would die. He was not a man whom I would have wasted such blessing from the God upon, but I also didn't have it in me to turn away from him. He was still one of my people. He had risked all to help save the others.

I met Doyle's gaze, and I let go of his wrist, slowly, reluctantly, but he was right. He could live and heal his wounds. Onilwyn could not.

Mistral knelt carefully, on the blood-slick floor, and started to lay Onilwyn down beside me. But too much blood had gone down his windpipe and he was choking, and trying to clear it, using nothing but the muscles of his stomach and chest. He made a horrible wet rattling sound, then blood spat out of the end of his neck, and he took the faintest of breaths, as if afraid that more blood would flow back down.

Goddess help us.

“I don't think he'll do well on his back,” Mistral said, and his voice tried for neutrality, but failed. He was angry, and I couldn't blame him.

“No.” I tried to sit up, but the pain took my breath and laid me back on the bloody floor. I waited until the pain had subsided, then said, “Kitto, help me lean up.”

He looked to Doyle before he did it, and when Doyle nodded, Kitto moved in behind me, but Galen was already there. “Let me, Kitto, she healed me, let me help her.”

Kitto nodded and moved back.

Galen lifted me, gently, into his lap, so that my head and shoulders were cradled against his body. It didn't hurt, too badly. “A little more,” I said.

He did what I asked without looking at Doyle first. I was almost sitting up, fully supported by his body, before the pain came, like a knife, but it was a duller blade than last time. I could bear it. “There, just there.” Galen went very still behind me.

“Wait.” It was a woman's voice, so it must have been the queen, but it did not sound like her. “Wait,” the voice said again, and the one word was pain-filled.

After what she had done to them, to all of us, a body would think none of us would have listened to her, but we did. We should have cursed her, but we didn't. We froze, waiting for her to make a slow progress across the room.

Mistral had moved back, just enough to let me see across the room. The floor was marked by a wide red path as if a heavily bleeding body had been dragged across it. That bloody path ended at the queen. She sat, propped against the wall. She had pulled Eamon into her lap, and I had never been so aware of what a large man he was, or perhaps she seemed smaller. His broad shoulders seemed to overwhelm her. She was a tall woman, and she always filled more space than just the physical, but now she sat with Eamon in her arms, and one arm wrapped around Tyler's naked, blood-soaked leg, and she seemed small.

But she had healed. Her neck wound had been almost as severe as Onilwyn's, but where he was still a broken thing, she had only a hand-size gash in her white throat. The wound seemed to be growing smaller, even as we watched. Not visibly, not like we could actually see the wound closing, but like trying to watch flowers bloom. You knew it was happening, but you just couldn't catch it actually happening before your eyes. She was our queen and that meant that the power of the sidhe ran stronger through her than through any of us.

I looked back at Onilwyn, who lay in Mistral's arms like some huge broken doll, then back to our queen with her nearly healed throat. Anger warmed me. If what Adair had said at the beginning of all this was accurate, then she had been abusing the guards for centuries. How could she treat such a gift so badly?

“Wait,” she said, again, and I saw something that I never thought I'd see, tears. The queen was crying.

“Heal Eamon first, and Tyler.”

We all looked at her. I'd really thought she'd ask for her own injuries first. The queen did not share magic, she hoarded it. Taranis, the king of the Seelie Court, was the same way. It was almost as if they both feared that someday the magic would run out, and they knew that to rule here, you needed magic.

I wanted to say no, but Amatheon spoke before anyone else. “Yes, my queen.” His voice was tired, and thick with something like grief. He walked, stiffly, to a point between the two groups of us, the queen with her injured lovers, and me with mine. Technically, Onilwyn and Mistral weren't mine, but somehow it felt very much as if everyone on this side of the room was not on her side.

Amatheon was still cradling the arm she'd cut open. The back of his coat was so blood-soaked it had glued itself to the back of his body like a second skin. “Bring the princess,” he said.

“She is too injured to move,” Galen said.

“As the queen bids,” Amatheon said, “so we must do. Bring the princess.” Perhaps he was too tired and in too much pain to control his face, because a fine, deep rage sparkled in those flower-petal eyes. But after the show Andais had just put on, it wasn't merely fear of losing his beautiful sidhe hair that made him willing to simply obey her.

Galen repeated, “Merry is too hurt to move.”

“We can bring Eamon to the princess.” Frost's voice was neutral, his face an arrogant mask.

“No,” the queen said.

Galen bowed his head over me. He whispered, “No, no more.”

Rhys looked at her with his renewed eye. “Merry needs a healer before she is moved.”

“I know that,” the queen said, and there were the first stirrings of anger in her voice. Old times, rearing their ugly head.

Galen leaned over me enough to hide my view. “I won't let her hurt you again.”

He was too close for me to look in his eyes; I had to be content with the smoothness of his cheek, the fall of his hair. “Don't do anything foolish, Galen, please.”

“My queen, do you need help?” This from Mistral.

Galen drew back enough so I could see. The queen who had looked small and dwarfed beside Eamon was standing with the larger man in her arms. Even hurt, she carried him easily, although he had to be almost twice her body weight. She was tall enough, long enough of arm, to cradle him. She was sidhe, and that meant she could have picked up a small car. It was that she was willing to carry him that made us all stare.

She spoke to no one and everyone. “Take Tyler down, gently, and bring him, too.” She carried Eamon toward me, and cried as she came. If it had been anyone else I would have said, She grieved.

She knelt beside me and stumbled as she did it, managing a wry smile. “You sliced me up, niece, and you did a good job of it.”

I took it as the compliment I thought it was meant to be. “Thank you.”

She knelt beside me, cradling Eamon in her arms. “Heal him for me, Meredith.”

Eamon's body was a mass of bloody stab wounds, so many that his chest looked like tenderized steak. His heart had to have been pierced multiple times, but he was sidhe and his poor heart kept beating, even cut up. There didn't seem to be an inch of his chest undamaged, as if he wore a shirt of blood and meat.

She made a small sound, almost a sob. “Nuline came, and we shared wine, and she left, and I went mad.”

I fought to keep my face blank, because Nuline was one of Cel's royal guards. To accuse the prince's guard was almost the same as accusing Cel himself of the poisoning. They did nothing without his orders, for fear of what he would do to them. If Andais was a sadist, then you needed a new word for Cel. None of them would dare risk Cel's displeasure. None of them would poison the queen without Cel's permission, or at least believing they had it. Had he given the order from his dark prison?

Doyle spoke carefully with his ruined mouth. “I smell no poison.”

“There are other ways to use your nose, Darkness,” she said.

He leaned in toward her face, slowly, painfully. When he was an inch or less from her face, he sniffed the air. “Magic,” he whispered. He very carefully licked her cheek, but the movement seemed to hurt him. He drew back. “Bloodlust.”

She nodded.

“If it was in the wine, then why isn't Nuline here, butchered or butchering?” Amatheon asked.

“She is a thing of spring and light. There is no bloodlust to call in her,” Andais said. The queen looked at me, and those tri-grey eyes were full of a sorrow that I hadn't known Andais was capable of. “They were very clever.” She said, they. Would she make that logic jump to Cel? Or would she do what she had always done, and find a way for it not to be his fault?

“I had not felt such a rush of battle madness for centuries. It felt so good. Every wound, every harm I caused made the bloodlust grow. I'd forgotten how amazingly good it felt to slaughter, not for effect, or information, or to invoke fear, but simply for the love of it. Whoever did the spell knew my powers, intimately,” Andais reached out a bloodstained hand toward me. “Heal my Ravens, and I will slay Nuline.”

“Only Nuline,” I said.

“I will slay the one who did this to me.” Her voice was firm, but there was a wariness in her eyes. She knew what I meant. “Heal my Ravens, Meredith.” Her hand touched my arm, and that one touch echoed through me. Made the magic that the God had placed inside me ring like a great bell. Andais must have felt it, for she looked wide-eyed at me.

Galen whispered, “What was that?”

Doyle spoke carefully through his ruined mouth. “The God's call.”

I heard the voice in my head: All power comes from the head. I understood then, or hoped I did. The reason that the Unseelie couldn't have children was that Andais couldn't have children. The reason our magic was fading was that Andais's magic had begun to fade. She was our queen, our head.

I looked up into her startled face, and said the words I had to say: “Come, Aunt, let us embrace.”

She leaned over me, and the look on her face was almost unwilling, as if she was as caught up in the magic as I. She was my aunt, my father's sister, and had known me since birth, but in all those years she had never kissed me.

The press of her lips was like touching the skin of some delectable fruit, where the skin lies thin and ripe against your mouth. The scent of ripe plums filled my senses as if I could drink it out of the very air, or sip it from her lips. My mouth was pressed to hers, and I opened to it as if I would take a bite from the ripeness of her mouth.

The sweet taste of her stirred the magic, woke it like heat to rise up, up inside me, to spill shimmering and burning along my skin. The heat melded into the honeyed sweetness of the fruit, and I could feel the summer sun caressing the thick, glowing skins of the plums as they hung heavy on the tree. The heavy summer heat clung to our skin, filled the world with the drowning scent of fruit, so ripe, so heavy that it was ready to burst its thick silken skin, ready to give up its meat to the sun's caress and the drowsy hum of bees. The fruit held itself in a perfect moment of readiness, the breath of absolute perfection. One second more and it would fall from the tree, ruined; one second less and it would not be the sweetest thing to ever touch mortal mouth.

I came back to myself in the blink of an eye. I opened my eyes and found Andais like some silver dream, shining so bright that she made nests of shadows around everything in the room. And I realized that it wasn't just her who made shadows quiver through the room. I'd seen my skin glow like moonlight, but never like this. It was as if my skin were filled with a white, almost silver fire of burning magnesium. A flame so clear and pure that it would blind if you gazed too long.

Andais and I were like two entwined stars, one white and one silver, both bright enough to blind. But I wasn't blinded. The glow didn't hurt my eyes. I could see her face like a floating thing, eyes closed. I had to pull back to see her lips like carved garnets lost in the cool, silver fire.

Her eyes blinked open, slowly, as if she had been asleep. The moment she opened those eyes the swirling grey in them eased out, like the breath of a dragon, soft and clinging as mist. There were things in that mist, things I didn't want to see. The hair on my body raised with the nearness of half-seen images, my skin crawling, shivering with those fleeing shadows. Fear tightened my throat, and I realized in that moment that we were both kneeling beside each other. I couldn't see anyone else through the mist of her eyes. I held her in my arms while her eyes bled mist into the twin glows of our power.

The mist smelled damp, dank, but over it all I could still smell the scent of fruit, perfect, waiting. Waiting to yield its sweetness in that one perfect moment when the world held its breath and waited for the hand that would touch this perfect woman, this perfect offering, and give her the glory she was due. Even as I thought, I knew I was God-ridden. But with the God's power filling me, she was beautiful. Hair of raven's wings, eyes of mist and shadow, skin formed of starlight and moon's brightness, lips the color of heart blood. It was a terrible beauty, something that would call to your body and make your heart cry. I knew also that if my magic had been different, there would have been different fruit upon this tree, and I was glad that I could call the Seelie Court to my blood.

The God rode over me, and I was back to the perfect moment when even a breath would spoil all, and there was only one thing to do. You honored the gift.

I kissed those crimson garnet lips, and found my own lips were like deep, red rubies, like melding two separate jewels. I felt my hands cupping the sides of her face, and found the bones of her face delicate, fragile under my hands. My hands were smaller than hers, they had to be, but for this moment they were large enough to cup her face and hold it, gently. I became for that moment the sun, all that was male, all that was the best of what it meant to be male, at his height of prowess, the Summer King, Lord of the Greenwood. I kissed her as she was meant to be kissed, gentle, firm, held in hands larger than my own, held in a strength greater than her own, and the more tender for that, the more careful for it. I kissed her as if she would break. Then she pressed into the kiss, her power spilling through my mouth, and the kiss grew into something less cautious, more sure of itself. At the invitation of her lips, her eager hands on my body, the power of the greenwood rode through her, pierced her. She tore her mouth from mine and cried out.

Our powers fell into each other, and for a few shining moments the glow of silver and white merged until there was but one glow, one fire. It wasn't her face I saw. This face was young, with thick brown hair and laughing eyes: the next face was red-haired and green-eyed; then hair like clean white cotton and skin almost as pale. Woman after woman slid before my eyes, and I felt myself change, too. Taller, shorter, broader, bearded, dark of hair, pale of skin, dark of skin. I was many men, all men, no man. I was the Lord of Summer and I had been always. And the woman before me was my bride, and always had been. It was the eternal dance.

The first thing I noticed that was of this world and not the next was that my knees hurt. I was kneeling on stones. The second was the woman who was holding me, stroking my hair. She held me so close that I could feel her smaller breasts pressed against mine.

Andais smiled down at me, and she looked younger, though I knew that wasn't exactly it. Her eyes were bright, and her dark red lips smiled down at me, because kneeling she was still taller.

“Are you healed?” she asked.

The moment she asked, I realized that I'd forgotten I was hurt, but I took a deep breath and felt… fine. No, better than fine. “Yes,” I said.

Her smiled brightened into something close to a grin. Andais did not grin. “Look at what our magic has wrought.” She gestured out at the room. Onilwyn knelt, eyes a little dazed, but his throat was white and perfect once more. Eamon was sitting up, and there were no more holes in his chest. Doyle turned a perfect face to me, and gave a nod, almost a bow.

“They're all healed.”

Tyler, the human whom she had nearly killed, was laughing and crying beside Mistral. I think he spoke for us all when he giggled and said, “That was absolutely the most amazing feeling. It was like being light.”

I looked back at Andais. There was a look in her eyes that was disquieting, calculating, and something else, something new. I realized she was still holding me very close. I tried to move back, and her arms tightened, kept our bodies pressed together. I was no longer God-ridden. I was no longer a match for her in strength, or anything else.

The smile she gave me was one I'd only had from lovers, and it prickled down my skin to see it on her face.

“If you were a man I would take you to my bed for this night's work.”

I wasn't sure what to say, but knew I had to say something. “Thank you for such a compliment, Aunt Andais.”

She cocked her head to one side like a hawk that's spied a mouse. “Reminding me that you are my niece will not keep you out of my bed, Meredith. We are like most deities, we often intermarry, or interfuck.” She laughed then, and it was a better, more purely amused sound than any I'd ever heard from her. “The look on your face.” She laughed again, and let me go.

She stood, and stretched, and even that small movement prickled power along my skin. “I feel so very much better.” She looked down at me and offered me her hand.

I took it and let her help me to my feet. She kept my hand in hers, giving me very serious eyes. “Come, Meredith, let us go kill the traitor who tried to bespell her queen. Doyle tells me we have an assassin to find as well.”

I wondered then how long I'd been insensible. All I said out loud was, “As my queen wills it.”

She pulled me suddenly and roughly against her, putting my arm behind my back with her hand still holding it. “I am grateful, Meredith, very grateful for this gift of magic, but do not misunderstand. If I think that by bringing you into my bed I can recall that magic, I will. If I think that by sending you to anyone's arms, that level of magic can be reborn, I will send you. Is that clear?”

I swallowed and took a deep breath before I answered, “Yes, Aunt Andais, it is clear.”

“Then give your auntie a kiss.”

What else could I do? I put a light kiss upon those lips, and she slipped her arm through mine, patting my hand as if we were the best of friends. “Come, Meredith, let us go slay our enemies.”

I'd have been a lot happier to accompany her to the throne room if she hadn't kept touching me. It wasn't so much a lover's touch, but almost like you'd pet a dog. Something you stroke for comfort, and because it can't say no.