"I do not need his permission to take what I want from Kitto. I can take what I like from any goblin if he has not the strength to keep it from me." He pointed at Kitto. "And he is not that strong."
I said, "There are many kinds of strength, Kurag."
He stepped back from the mirror and sank into his chair once more. He was shaking his head. "No, Merry, there is only one kind of strength: the strength to take what you want."
"And the strength to keep it," a male voice said out of sight of the mirror.
Kurag flashed a frown in the direction of the voice, then turned back to me. "Let me fuck you, and taste the white knight, and I'll agree to a month for every goblin you make sidhe."
Rhys let me go, slowly, almost reluctantly. If he'd had trouble touching Kitto so closely, it didn't show. Kitto had cleaned the last of the tears from my face and stood pressed against the front of my body.
"I can't help you break your marriage vows, no matter how loosely you hold them. Our laws forbid it. As for my guards, all my guards, they are not meat." I kissed the top of Kitto's head.
"Then we can have no bargain." For a second I saw the relief of that decision on his face.
Doyle's voice fell into the silence like some deep, heavy bell, the purring beat of his voice playing along my skin. "I was there when the goblins were stripped of their magic, Kurag. I remember your wizards. I remember that there was a time when the goblins' magic was as feared as their physical power."
"And who slaughtered every wizard and witch among us?" There were the beginnings of anger again.
"I did," Doyle said. I'd never heard two words so empty of emotion, so carefully nothing.
"And it was sidhe magic that sucked the magic from our veins."
"That was not an Unseelie spell, Kurag. We meant to win the war, not to destroy you."
"That bastard Taranis did not destroy us. Him and his shining folk who did the spell. They sucked our magic, and they kept it. Don't believe otherwise, Darkness. That shining bunch of hypocrites kept what they stole."
"I put nothing past the King of Light and Illusion," Doyle said.
Kurag stared at Doyle for a second or two, then spoke slowly, even though I could still see the anger on his face. "You helped take our magic. Why would you help give it back?"
"I did not agree that it should be taken the first time. I had no problem with killing your people. They were slaughtering us. If their spells had stayed in place, it might have gone badly for the sidhe."
"We'd have won, and owned all your shining asses."
Doyle shrugged. "Who can say what will happen in a war? But I say this now: We can offer you back some of the magic that was stolen away."
I whispered against the curve of Kitto's ear, "Shine for him, Kitto."
Kitto raised his head to meet my eyes with his own. His face was so solemn, as if he didn't want to do it. I wanted to ask why not, but I couldn't ask in front of Kurag because I didn't know what answer Kitto would give. I'd learned long ago that in the middle of negotiations, you never ask a question you don't know the answer to. The answer is so likely to hurt you.
Kitto said, in a small voice, "I'm afraid."
I understood then. Anger, lust, all sorts of emotions could make the magic flare, but fear, strangely, could kill it. It depended on the kind of fear. If it was that mind-numbing, panic-inducing kind of terror, you just couldn't concentrate around it. But a little fear could help you bring it on, and sometimes your greatest fears could manifest your greatest powers. Still, especially at the beginning, when the magic was new, you never knew which way fear would work for you.
Kitto couldn't draw his magic because he was scared to death of Kurag and Creeda. He was too terrified to think clearly, let alone do magic.
I cupped his face in my hands. "I understand." I glanced behind me at Rhys, and sighed. Rhys had played a good game up to now, but that one forceful hug was the most physical interaction he'd had with Kitto. Asking Rhys to help me do what amounted to foreplay with Kitto was asking too much. My white knight, as Kurag put it, had done his duty for the day.
With his face still cupped in my hands, I laid a gentle kiss on Kitto's mouth.
"What's this?" Kurag asked.
I raised my face enough to see his face. "I want Kitto to call his magic, but he fears you too much."
"What use to the goblins is such frail magic?"
"In the beginning of your powers, you sometimes need help drawing them."
Doyle added, "It is like any other weapon, Kurag. Someone new to the sword may hesitate in battle, or be unsure where to strike the blow."
He frowned, settling into his big chair as if it were suddenly less comfortable. "I don't do magic, but if you say it's like a weapon, then so be it." I could tell by his face that he'd gotten our meaning, though.
Creeda hopped back into the frame of the mirror. Kurag picked her up absently, as if she were a pet that had asked to be taken onto his lap. "Shine for us, Princess, shine for us," Creeda said in an eager voice that still held a touch of that high, mechanical whine.
Kurag cuffed her gently on the side of the body. She rolled her eyes up to him. "What? You wanted me to make the little one shine."
Looking at Kurag, fighting to keep his face neutral, I realized that it was one thing for Creeda to have her fun with Kitto, but another to include me. In that moment, I knew two things. One, I had the advantage of Kurag in any negotiations; two, the other goblins would notice, if they hadn't already, and they'd see it as a weakness. The goblins don't have a hereditary monarchy. You become king because you are strong enough to slay the old king. No Goblin King ever dies quietly in his sleep. They all feared Kurag, but if they sensed one weakness, they'd suspect there were others. Goblins, like sharks, sniff for blood.
"Will the rest of us miss the show?" The male voice that had commented earlier spoke off camera again.
Kurag sent a baleful look in the direction of whoever it was. "The princess doesn't do shows." He turned back to me. "Or has that changed since you got your harem?" He'd managed to get his face back into a belligerent blankness, using anger to hide whatever he was thinking.
"To ease Kitto's fears, I will caress him."
There were shouts and sounds from beyond the mirror. They were typically masculine sounds, and wouldn't have been out of place in most bars on a Saturday night.
Kurag ignored them, as he should have, but the effort showed in his big hands, the set of his shoulders. His queen tensed, as if she were poised to leap to safety.
"It will not be much of a show by goblin standards, or even by Unseelie standards, but I will ease his fears and open him to his magic."
"I've seen him shine, Merry. I believe he's sidhe. I believe he has magic in him. But not the kind of magic that will help on a battlefield. And that is the only kind of magic we need."
"You say that, Kurag," Doyle said, "because the goblins have never known any other kind of magic."
"I say it because it is true." His eyes were more orange than yellow, colored with his anger.
"Do you want to see him shine with the magic that could be yours, Kurag?" I asked, and I dropped my voice a little. I admit to using his attraction to me against him. If we could gain the goblins for near-permanent allies, we could keep most of our enemies at bay. For the lives of those I held dear, for the future of the Unseelie Court itself, I could manipulate a king.
He gave a gruff nod. Creeda clapped her many hands together, those that had mates to clap, and bounced like a child on his lap.
I looked at Kitto. I asked him with my eyes if he was ready. He mouthed, Yes. I kissed him gently on the mouth, not as foreplay but as a thank-you, and as an apology for making him do something he didn't want to do.