“How was I to know she meant anything to you, Princess Meredith?”
“Consider this my only warning to you, Onilwyn”—I raised my voice so that it carried down the hallway—“and for the rest of you who don’t know me. Onilwyn assumed that the death of a servant meant nothing to me.” Some of the men at the far end turned and looked at me. “I spent a great deal of time with the lesser fey while I was at court. Most of my friends here were not among the sidhe. You made it plain that I was not pure-blooded enough for most of you. You have only yourselves to blame, then, that my attitude is a little more democratic than usual for a noble. Think upon that before you say something as foolish to me as Onilwyn just did.” I turned back to the guard in question, and let my voice go lower. “Bear all that in mind, Onilwyn, before you open your mouth again, and say something else equally stupid.”
He actually dropped to one knee and bowed his head, though I think that was to hide the anger on his face. “As my princess bids, so I do.”
“Get up, and go stand somewhere farther away from me.”
Doyle told him to go to the other end of the hallway, and he went, without another word, though the starbursts in his eyes were glittering with his rage.
“I do not agree with Onilwyn,” Amatheon said, “not completely, but are you truly going to bring in the human police?”
I nodded.
“The queen will not like it.”
“No, she won’t.”
“Why would you risk her anger, Princess?” He seemed to be truly puzzled by that. “I would not risk her anger again for anything, or anyone. Not even my honor.”
He had been one of the sidhe who had made my childhood hellish, but lately I’d seen another side to Amatheon. A side that was frightened, and vulnerable, and helpless. I always had trouble hating people who showed me they could feel pain, too. “Beatrice was my friend, but more than that she was one of my people. To rule a people is to protect them. I want whoever did this. I want them caught and I want them punished. I want to stop them from doing it to anyone else. The reporter was our guest, and to kill him like this is an insult to the honor of the court itself.”
“You don’t care about the honor of the court,” he said, and I watched him struggle to understand me.
“No, not really.”
He swallowed hard enough for me to hear it. “There is no one’s death that I fear, not even my own, enough to bring the human policemen down into our home.”
“Why do you fear the police?”
“I do not fear them. I fear the queen’s anger at inviting them in.”
“No one gets to kill people I have sworn to protect, Amatheon, no one.”
“You are not sworn, not yet. You have taken no oath for this court, you sit on no throne.”
“If I do not do my utmost to solve these deaths, to protect everyone in this sithen, from greatest to least, then I do not deserve to sit on any throne.”
“You are mad,” he said, and his eyes were very wide. “The queen will kill you for this.”
I glanced back at Beatrice’s body, and I thought of another body so many years ago. The only reason she hadn’t hidden my father’s body from the press is that they found him first. Miles away from the faerie mounds, cut to pieces. They found him and took pictures of him. Not only were his bodyguards too late to save his life, they were too late to save his dignity, or my horror.
The police had done some investigating because he was killed off our lands, but no one had helped them. They had not been allowed inside any of the faerie mounds. They had been forbidden to question anyone. They had been stopped before they began because the queen was convinced we would find who had done this terrible thing, but we never did.
“I will remind my aunt what she said when my father, her brother, was murdered.”
“What did she say?” he asked.
It was Doyle who answered, “That we would find who had killed Prince Essus, that the humans would only hinder us in our search.”
I looked at him, and he met my gaze. “This time I will say to her that the humans have things the sidhe cannot hide from. That the only reason to keep the police out is if she does not want these murders solved.”
“Merry,” Rhys said, “I’d put it a different away, if I were telling her.” He looked a little pale himself.
I shook my head. “But you aren’t princess, Rhys, I am.”
He smiled, still pale. “I don’t know, I think I’d look cute in a tiara.”
I laughed, I couldn’t help it. I hugged him then. “You’d look adorable.”
He hugged me back. “You will discuss this with the queen before telling the press or contacting the police, right?”
“Yes, and just the police. We’re going to try to get the press out of here first.”
He hugged me tighter. “Thank the Consort.”
I drew back from the hug, and said, “I’m determined, Rhys, not suicidal.”
“You’re hoping she loved her brother enough to feel guilty,” Amatheon said, and the fact that he’d grasped that made me think better of him.
“Something like that,” I said.
“She cares for no one except Prince Cel,” he said.
I thought about that. “You might be right, or you might be wrong.”
“Will you wager your life on that?” he asked.
“Not wager, no, but I’ll risk it.”
“Are you so certain that you are right?”
“About the queen, no, but I am right about what we need to do to find our murderer. I am right about that, and I’m willing to tell the queen so.”
He shuddered. “I would rather stay here and guard the hallway, if you do not mind.”
“I don’t want anyone with me who’s more afraid of the queen than of doing what’s right.”
“Oh, hell, Merry, then none of us can come,” Rhys said.
I looked at him.
He shrugged. “All of us fear her.”
“But I will go with you,” Frost said.
“And me,” Galen said.
“Do you need to ask?” Doyle said.
It was Adair who finally spoke for most of them. “I think this is foolishness, though honorable foolishness, but it does not matter. You are our ameraudur, and that is a title that I have not let pass my lips for many years.”
Ameraudur meant a war leader who was chosen for love, not bloodline. Ameraudur meant that the man who called you this would give his own life before he saw yours fail. It was the word that the Welsh had used for Arthur, yes, that Arthur. It was the term that some of my father’s men had used for him.
I didn’t know what to say because I hadn’t done enough to deserve the title. Not yet. “I haven’t earned such a title from you, Adair, or from anyone. Do not call me so.”
“You offered yourself in our place last night, Princess. You took the might of the queen herself upon your mortal body. Seeing you draw magic against her was one of the bravest things ever I saw, my oath on that.”
I didn’t know whether to be embarrassed, or try to explain that it wasn’t brave. That I’d been afraid the whole time.
“You are our ameraudur, and we will follow you wherever you may lead. To whatever end. I will die before I let another harm you.”