“It is faint and incomplete,” the queen said from the far wall.
“Yes.” Rhys nodded and looked at her. “But it is a beginning.”
Nicca’s voice came soft, and I’d almost forgotten him, standing so still to one side. His wings began to gleam in the dark, as if their veins had begun to pulse with light instead of blood. He fanned those huge wings. They had been only a birthmark on the back of his body until a few days ago, when they had sprung from his back, real and true at last. They began to glow as if the individual colors were stained glass gleaming in sunlight that we could not see.
He held out his right hand, and showed us a mark on the outer part of the wrist, almost on the hand itself. The light was too uncertain for me to be sure of what it was, but Doyle said, “A butterfly.”
“I have never held a mark of favor from the Goddess,” Nicca said in his soft voice.
The queen lowered her blade completely, so that it went back to being invisible in the full black skirt of her robe. “What of the rest of you?”
“You’ll be able to feel it, if you think about it,” Rhys said to the others.
Frost called a ball of light that was a dim silver-grey. It held above his head much as Galen’s greenish light had. Frost began unbuttoning his shirt. He rarely went nude if he could avoid it, so I knew before he bared the perfect curve of his right shoulder that there would be something there.
He turned his arm so he could see it. The queen said, “Show us.”
He let her see first, then turned in a slow half circle to us. It was as pale and blue as Rhys’s had been, a small dead tree, leafless, naked, and the ground underneath it seemed to hint at a snowbank. Like Rhys’s salmon it was dim, and not drawn in completely, as if someone had begun the job but not finished.
“Killing Frost has never held a sign of favor,” the queen said, and her voice was strangely unhappy.
“No,” Frost said, “I have not. I was not fully sidhe when last the sidhe held such favors.” He shrugged back into his shirt and began to button it into place. He wasn’t just dressed, he was armed. Most of the others held a sword and dagger, but only Doyle and Frost had guns. Rhys had left his gun behind with his clothes in the bedroom.
I noticed a bulge here and there under Frost’s shirt, which meant he held more weapons than could be easily seen. He liked being armed, but this many weapons meant something had made him nervous. The assassination attempts, maybe, or maybe something else. His handsome face was closed to me, hidden behind the arrogance that he used as a mask. Perhaps he was just hiding his thoughts and feelings from the queen, but then again…Frost tended to be moody.
Rhys said, “Let Abeloec and Merry finish what they began. Let us all finish it.”
Queen Andais took in a deep breath, so that even across the dimly lit chamber I could see the rise and fall of the V of white flesh in her robe. “Very well, finish it. Then come to me, for we have much to discuss.” She held out her hand to Mistral. “Come, my captain, let us leave them to their pleasures.”
Mistral did not question. He stood and took her pale hand.
“We need him,” Rhys said.
“No,” Andais said, “no, I have given Meredith my green men. She does not need the whole world.”
“Does grass grow without wind and rain?” Doyle asked.
“No,” she said, and her voice was unfriendly again, as if she would like to be angry but couldn’t afford to be right now. Andais was a creature of her temper; she always indulged it. This much self-restraint from her was rare.
“To make spring, you need many things, my queen,” said Doyle. “Without warmth and water, plants wither and die.” They stared at each other, the queen and her Darkness. It was the queen who looked away first.
“Mistral may stay.” She released his hand, then looked across the cavern at me. “But let this be understood between us, niece. He is not yours. He is mine. He is yours only for this space of time. Is that clear to all of you?”
We all nodded.
“And you, Mistral,” the queen said. “Do you understand?”
“My geas is lifted for this space of time with the princess alone.”
“Clearly put, as always,” she said. She turned her back as if she would walk through the wall, then turned and looked over her shoulder. “I will finish what I was doing when I noticed your absence, Mistral.”
He dropped to his knees. “My queen, please do not do this…”
She turned back with a smile that was almost pleasant — except for the look in her eyes, which even from here was frightening. “You mean, do not leave you with the princess?”
“No, my queen, you know that is not what I mean.”
“Do I?” she said, danger in her voice. She glided over the dead brush and placed the point of Mortal Dread under his chin. “You didn’t come to ask the advice of my Darkness. You came to bid the princess to intercede for Nerys’s clan.”
Mistral’s shoulders moved as if he’d breathed deeply, or swallowed hard.
“Answer me, Mistral,” she said, a whine of rage like a razor’s edge in her voice.
“Nerys gave her life on your word that you would not kill her people. You — ” He stopped talking abruptly, as if she’d nudged the point close enough that he couldn’t speak without cutting himself.
“Aunt Andais,” I said, “what have you done to Nerys’s people?”
“They tried to kill you and me last night, or have you forgotten?”
“I remember, but I also remember that Nerys asked you to take her life, so that you might spare her house. You gave your word that you would let them live if she died in their place.”
“I have not harmed a single one,” she said, and she looked entirely too pleased with herself.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“I merely offered the men a chance to serve their queen as a member of my royal guard. I need my Ravens at full strength.”
“Joining your guard means giving up all family loyalties and becoming celibate. Why would they agree to either of those things?” I asked.
She took the blade away from Mistral’s throat. “You were so eager to tattle on me. Tell her now.”
“May I rise, my queen?” he asked.
“Rise, cartwheel — I care not — just tell her.”
Mistral rose cautiously, and when she made no move toward him, he began to ease across the room toward us. His throat was dark in the flickering lights. She’d bled him. Any sidhe could heal such a small cut, but because Mortal Dread had done the damage, he would heal mortal slow; human slow.
Mistral’s eyes were wide, frightened, but he moved easily across the dead ground, as if he weren’t worried that she would do something to him as he walked away from her. I know that my shoulder blades would have been aching with the fear of the blow. Only when he was out of reach of her sword did some of the panic leave his eyes. Even then, they were that shade of tornado green. Anxiety.
“Far enough,” she said. “Meredith can hear you from there.”
He stopped obediently, but he swallowed hard, as if he didn’t like that she’d stopped him before he got back to us. I didn’t blame him. The queen had magic that could destroy from this distance. She’d probably made him stop just so he would worry. She might intend him no more harm, but she wanted him to be afraid. She liked for people to be afraid of her.
“She has put metal chains of binding on all of the house of Nerys, so they can do no magic,” said Mistral.
“I can’t argue with that,” I said. “They attacked us at court, all of them. They should lose their magic for a time.”
“She has given the men the chance to become her Ravens. The women she has offered to the prince’s guard, his Cranes.”