"So, little goblin, you make yourself useful, so the princess does not send you home."
I felt Kitto's reaction up through the soles of my feet on his back. It was a startle as bad as Frost's had been, but Kitto had always been terrified of the queen. Frost had loved and hated Andais; Kitto simply feared her.
"It is against protocol to speak with the royal's footstool," Rhys said. Once he had hated all goblins because one took his eye, so the fact that he stepped up to distract her from Kitto made me love him more. He had come far to value Kitto enough to risk himself for the goblin.
She gave him a narrow look. "You have grown bold, Rhys. Where does this new bravery in the face of your queen come from?"
Rhys stepped closer to the mirror, drawing her eye and partially blocking her view, so Galen could pry Gwenwyfar's tiny hand from Kitto's hair and the goblin could go back to being an immobile piece of furniture, and hopefully beneath the queen's notice.
"I don't think I'm braver, my queen, just understanding the value of those around me more than I did before."
"What does that mean, Rhys?"
"You know my hatred for the goblins."
"I do, but this one seems to have won your favor; how?"
Eamon was utterly still beside her, as if he would have left if he thought it wouldn't attract her attention. She had played sane, but her nearest and most dear love was acting like a rabbit in the grass hoping the fox won't find it, if only it can be still enough.
"It was Kitto who shopped for an extra crib, blankets, toys, everything, when the news came that we were having triplets and not just twins. He made certain we came home to a house that was ready for all the children, and that Merry had everything she needed."
"Any good servant will do as much," Andais said.
"True, but Kitto helps tend the babies not out of duty, but out of love."
"Love." She made it sound distasteful. "Goblins don't understand love for that which is small and helpless. Newborn sidhe are a delicacy among the goblins, you know that better than anyone standing here except for my Darkness. The others were not with me during the last Great War against the Goblins, but you and he know what they are capable of."
He glanced back at Doyle and then back to the mirror. I couldn't see his face, but his voice was fierce and bitter, "Now, my queen, remember I was at your side. I remember that the atrocities weren't all goblin work."
"We didn't eat their young," she said. Her eyes had darkened and were beginning to have that first hint of shine, her power beginning to rise. It could also be a sign of anger, or even anxiety, but it usually meant magic was on the rise.
"No, most goblin flesh is too bitter to eat," he said, and there was a finality in his voice. He'd left all pretense of placating her behind. It was simply the truth, and my joking Rhys had decided to leave humor for honesty, the kind of honesty that royals do not always welcome.
I was shocked enough myself, because I hadn't known that my people, the sidhe, had tasted goblin flesh enough to know the bitter or sweet of it. I held Bryluen closer to my face, smelling the sweet clean scent of her to hide my face, because in that moment I wasn't certain I could have kept it neutral.
Bryluen opened those huge almond-shaped eyes, all swimming blue, and I had a sensation like falling. I had to literally drag myself back from the brink. I lowered my baby away from my face and avoided direct eye contact with her. It wasn't just glamour, she had power, did our little Cornish Rose. How much, and how did we teach her not to use it willy-nilly? How do you explain to a newborn the concept of abuse of power?
"We vowed never to speak of some things, Rhys," Andais said, in a voice that crawled along the spine and raised the hairs on the back of my neck.
Alastair began to cry, high and piteous. He waved small fists as he did it. He couldn't be hungry--we'd made sure that everyone had nursed or had a bottle before this call, so we wouldn't have to deal with it. Sholto began to rock him side to side. Alastair didn't like to be bounced the way Gwenwyfar did, and Bryluen liked to be held up on the shoulder and have her back rubbed while you rocked her. Three days and the babies were already so different, so individual. I'd been told that multiples were like each other, but I was beginning to wonder if that was just because most of them looked alike, so people expected it.
Sholto began to rock Alastair in wider arcs, so his upper body turned from side to side. The movement began to quiet the baby.
"We vowed, but we did not swear," Rhys said. If he had given his sworn word he couldn't have spoken of it, because to be an oathbreaker was one of the few "sins" among the fey. An oathbreaker could be cast out of faerie forever.
Andais was looking at the crying baby. "I have seen the girls, but not the boy. Would you bring him closer so I might?"
It was Doyle who said, "If you will stop trying to unsettle us, my queen, perhaps, but if your behavior of the last few minutes continues, then what is the point? We do not want our children raised in an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty."
"How dare you question my behavior, Darkness?"
He shrugged with his hand on my shoulder, and the other still holding Frost's hand. "And this is exactly why we do not want the babies raised around you, or your court. I thought Essus a fool when he took Merry and his retinue and left the Unseelie Court, but now I see it for wisdom. Even if Merry could have survived in our court as a child, she would have been a different person now. I do not think that person would have been better, or kinder."
"You cannot be kind and rule the sidhe, or the goblins, or the sluagh, or anyone inside or out of faerie. Kindness is for children and human fairy tales."
"Kindness where possible is not a weakness," Doyle said.
"In a queen it most certainly is," she said.
"You have seen Merry on the battlefield; do you think her kindness made her less ruthless, or less dangerous, my queen?" he asked, and his voice was lower, crawling down into those vibratingly low tones that had frightened me once. Now it made me shiver for a different reason, a much more fun reason, because three things make a man's voice lower, and all are testosterone based--heavy exercise, violence, and sex.
"Do you think it is wise to remind me that I watched her slaughter my son in front of me?"
"Do you think it wise that you reminded Frost of the loss of his first love?"
"Frost cannot punish such impudence as I can," she said.
"And there you go again," Rhys said.
She looked back at him. "What are you talking about?"
Eamon moved beside her and spoke low and clear, in the kind of voice you use to calm wild animals or talk jumpers off ledges. "My queen, my beloved, he means that if you keep threatening punishment they have no reason to share your nieces and nephew with you. Your brother's grandchildren are before you; do you want to be a part of their lives, or do you prefer to be the Queen of Air and Darkness, frightening and unyielding to all insults?"
"I have already offered to give up being the Queen of Air and Darkness if Meredith will but take the throne."
"So you would rather be Aunt Andais to Essus's grandchildren than queen of all?"
She seemed to think about it for a moment or two, and then she nodded. "Yes, to see my bloodline continue, to have three descendants of our line who are already displaying such power, for that I would step down."
It wasn't just descendants, but powerful, magical descendants. She'd already seen the lightning mark on Gwenwyfar's arm and watched it spark at Mistral's touch. Alastair had displayed no overt talent as the girls had done, but she seemed willing to take it for granted that he, too, would be powerful. If any of our children proved without magic, by her standards, she would still see them as useless, as not worthy, as she'd decided with me when I turned six and she tried to drown me.
Eamon laid his hand over hers, cautiously. "But, my beloved, it's more than stepping down from the throne; Meredith and her consorts want to feel safe around you, and at this moment, they do not."
"They shou
ld not. I am the Queen of Air and Darkness, ruler of the Unseelie Court. The fact that people fear me is part of the point, Eamon; you know that."
"For ruling our court, perhaps, and for keeping the Golden Court in check, absolutely, but my love, perhaps being frightening is not the best way to be Great-Aunt Andais."
She frowned at him as if she didn't understand the words, The words made sense, she could hear them, but I wasn't certain she could grasp their meaning.
She finally said out loud, "I don't understand what you mean, Eamon."
He tried to pull her into his arms as he said, "I know you do not, my love."
She pushed away from him. "Then explain it to me, so I will understand."
"Aunt Andais," I said.
She looked at me, still frowning, still not understanding.
"Do you regret the loss of Tyler?"
"I said so, didn't I?"
"You did."
"Then what are you talking about, Meredith?"
"Will you regret not being Aunt Andais to our children?"
"I am their aunt, Meredith; you cannot change that."
"Perhaps not, but I can decide whether you are aunt in name only, or whether you actually have a place in their lives so they know who you are in a pleasant way; or will you be on the list of people that we warn them about? Do you want to be a bogeyman to your nieces and nephew? If you see your Aunt Andais, run. If she comes for you, call for help, fight back. Is that the legacy you want in their lives?"
"They could not fight me and win, Meredith; even you could not."
"And that is not the point of what I said; the fact that you think it is means you are not welcome here."
"Do not make me your enemy, Meredith."
"Then apologize, Aunt Andais."
"For what?"
"For reminding Frost of past pain, for trying to frighten Kitto, for every threat, every hint of pain and violence you've spoken since this conversation began."
"A queen does not apologize, Meredith."
"But an aunt does."
She blinked at me. "Ah," she said, "you want me to be some cheerful relative that comes with gifts and smiles."
"Yes," I said.
She smiled, but it was an unpleasant one, as if she'd tasted something bitter. "You want me to be other than I am around your children?"
"If by that you mean pleasant, kind, and just a normal aunt, then yes, Andais, that is what I want."
"It is not their heritage to be any of those things."
"My father, your brother, thought otherwise, and he raised me to be all those things."
"And it was love and kindness that got him killed, Meredith. He hesitated, because he loved his killer."
"And perhaps if you had raised your son, as my father raised me, to be kinder, considerate, happy, then neither of them would be dead right now."
She startled as if I had slapped her. "How dare you ..."
"Speak the truth," I said.
"So I must be this false self, this fiction of a cheerful, smiling auntie, or you will try to keep me out of the lives of my nieces and nephew?"
"Yes, Aunt Andais, that is exactly what I mean."
"And if I said there is always darkness through which I can step and visit as I will, what would you say?"
Doyle said, "I would say that if it is death you seek, come unasked, unbidden, unannounced, and we will grant that wish."
"You dare threaten me, my own Darkness."
"I am no longer your anything, my queen. You cared for me not at all except as a visible threat by your side--'Where is my Darkness, bring me my Darkness'--and then you would send me to kill on your behalf. I have a life now, and a reason to keep living, beyond just the fact that I do not age, and I will let nothing stand between me and that life."
"Not even your queen," she said, voice soft.
"Not even you, my queen."
"So either I concede to your ridiculous demands or I lose all contact with the babes."
"Yes," I, Doyle, Frost, and Rhys said at the same time. The others nodded.
"Once I would have threatened to send my sluagh to the Western Lands and find you, or the babies, and bring all to me, but now the King of the Sluagh stands by your side and no longer answers to me."
"You sent me to the princess, my queen."
"I sent you to bring her home, not to bed her. You I did not choose for her."
"You gave her the choice of all your Raven guards, and I am that, as well as King of the Sluagh."
She looked at me, and there was threat and anger, and everything I wanted to keep away from our babies in her face. "You have stripped me of most of my threat, Meredith. Even the goblins answer to you now, rather than to me, and that I did not intend. That was your doing, niece of mine."
"Essus, your brother, made certain I understood all the courts of faerie, not just the Unseelie. He wanted me to rule all, if I ruled any."
She nodded and looked thoughtful, the anger gone as if she could not stay enraged and think at the same time, and that was probably truer than was pretty to think about.
"You are right, Meredith; it was you who bargained with the goblins so wisely, and you who seduced the sluagh to your side, and you who won the loyalty of my Darkness, and my Killing Frost. I did not see you as a threat to my power, but only as a pawn to be used and discarded if it did not serve me, and now here we are with you more powerful than I ever envisioned, and that is without a crown upon your head."
"I did not have your magic to protect me, aunt; I had to find power where it was offered for it was not within me."
"You wield the hands of flesh and blood, niece; those are formidable powers on the battlefield."
"But if all I depended on was my magic, then I would not have Doyle, or Frost, or Sholto, or the goblins, or any of what I have won. I have killed only to save my life and the lives of those I love. My ability to kill, no matter in what horrific way, is not where my power lies, aunt."
"And where does your power lie, niece?"
"Love, loyalty, and when forced being utterly ruthless, but it is kindness and love that have won me more power than any death I have dealt."
She made a face, as if she smelled something bad. "Your hands of power may be Unseelie Court magic, but you are so"--and here she rolled her eyes--"the descendant of all those bloody fertility deities in the Seelie Court. Love and kindness will win the day, oh yes, oh my, my ass."
"The truth is in the results, aunt."
"I have ruled for over a thousand years; kindness and love will not see you rule for that long."
"No, because I shall not live that long, Aunt Andais, but my children will and their children."
"I've never liked you, Meredith."
"Nor I you."
"But I am beginning to truly hate you."
"You're late to this party, Aunt Andais; I've feared and hated you most of my life."
"Then it's hatred between us."
"I believe so."
"But you want me to come and pretend otherwise in front of your children."
"If you wish to be their aunt in truth, rather than just by bloodline, yes."
"I do not know if I have that much pretense in me."
"That is for you to decide, aunt."
She patted Eamon's hand. "I understand what you were trying to tell me now. I will never be other than your aunt by bloodline, Meredith."
"Agreed, Aunt Andais."
"But you would give me the chance to be more to your children."
"If you behave yourself, yes."
"Why?"
"Truth, you are powerful enough that I would rather not go from hating each other to trying to kill each other."
She laughed so abruptly it was more of a snort. "Well, that is truth."
"But there is one other reason I'm willing to do this, Aunt Andais."
"And what would that be, niece Meredith?"
"My father told me stories of you and him playing together when you were children."
/> "He did?"
"Yes, he did. He would tell me of you as a little girl with him a little boy, and his face would soften and the memories gave him joy, and in hopes that my father's sister is still inside you somewhere, I will give you a chance to show Essus's grandchildren the part of you that made my father smile."
Her eyes were shining again, but it wasn't magic; tears glittered in her tricolored eyes. She swallowed hard enough I could hear it, and then she said, "Oh, Meredith, nothing you could have said would have hurt me more than that."
"I did not mean to cause you pain."
"And I know that you mean that, and that is the cruelest blow of all, my niece, my brother's daughter, because you remind me of him. He should have killed me and taken the throne when Barinthus urged him to; so much pain could have been saved."
"You were his sister and he loved you," I said.
The tears began to fall down her face. "I know that, Meredith, and I will miss him forever." She blanked the mirror with a wave of her hand as she began to cry harder.
CHAPTER
TWELVE
WELL, THAT WAS unexpected," Rhys said.
"Merry made her cry," Cathbodua said, and came to drop to her knees in front of me, her raven-feathered cloak spilling around her like shiny black water. The cloak always moved as if it were made of different things than it appeared to be, as if it were more liquid than solid sometimes, but then once it had given her the gift of shapeshifting, so maybe that was it.
I felt Galen shift where he sat by my legs. He didn't always like Cathbodua. I felt Kitto flex underneath my slippers; he would have flinched if he'd not still been pretending to be an object. He was afraid of Cathbodua, though she'd not done anything to him to make him afraid; it just seemed to be an on-principle sort of thing for him. It seemed to be the same reason Galen didn't like her.
Cathbodua wasn't that close to either of them. She'd knelt far enough away from me to keep everyone in the room in view. Battle goddesses, even fallen ones, always seem to remember that you never look away from anyone who could hurt you, and that meant everyone in the room.
"I have only seen one other person who could move the queen as you just did, and that was your father, Prince Essus. Him I would have followed forever, and today I see that you are your father's daughter."
"Thank you, Cathbodua; that makes me happy to hear, for I loved and respected my father."