I looked away. My nerve broke every time, because I wasn't entirely sure where those winter eyes would lead me, or what secrets they might reveal. There was something in the snow that frightened me. There was no reason for it. No logic to it, but I did not like the snow.
If I'd been human I'd have accused myself of being unnerved by the strangeness of it, but I wasn't human enough for that, and Goddess knows I'd seen stranger things than snow fall in someone's eyes.
I was already warmer. The cold never lasted long, but I didn't like it. He had used it as foreplay once in our lovemaking, and though interesting, I didn't want to repeat it. To hide the fact that I was unnerved by his magic in a most un-sidhe-like way, I said, "Why is it that only Rhys's magic bemuses me like that?" I didn't meet his eyes as I asked. Eventually, his eyes would return to their normal grey.
"None of us had lost as much as Rhys, and he was once a deity to rival any."
That made me look up. His eyes held a sense of movement, but were grey again. "None of you talks about what it was like before."
"It is hard to speak of that which is lost, and can never be regained."
"Are you saying that Rhys was more powerful than any of the rest of you?"
"He was the Lord of Death himself. Death followed at his step, if he willed it. When he was great among us, Meredith, none could withstand us."
"Then why didn't the Unseelie destroy the Seelie?"
"Rhys was not always Unseelie."
That surprised me. "He was Seelie Court?"
Frost nodded, then frowned. He frowned so much that if he'd been able to wrinkle, he would have had grooves in his forehead and around his mouth by now, but his face was smooth and flawless, and always would be. "Rhys was a power apart. He was the ruler of the land of the dead, and that is not truly Unseelie or Seelie. He was welcome at the shining court, but he was truly a thing apart, as were some of the rest of us. The system of two courts of the sidhe is relatively recent. Once there were many courts. The humans chose to call those of the fey who were beautiful and did them no harm Seelie. Those they found ugly, or harmed them, they named Unseelie. But it was not so clean a line."
"Like the goblins and the sluagh, now?"
"More like the goblins. The King of the Sluagh is a noble of the Unseelie Court. They are no longer truly separate. King Kurag holds no title among us; nor does any sidhe hold title in his court."
Rhys came back in with a white terry-cloth robe belted around his body. It was long enough that it came nearly to his ankles. It would have draped the floor on me. His white curls looked darker against the white of the robe, the difference between fresh snow and ivory. Shades of white.
He held the robe that matched my bikini. It was red, and meant more to decorate the body than to cover, so that most of the robe was sheer, like seeing your skin through a haze of fire.
Rhys looked from one to the other of us. "Why do you both look so solemn? Nobody died while I was gone, did they?"
I shook my head. "Not that I know of." I took the robe and slipped in between the patches of silk and the scratchier sheerness. The next robe I got was going to be just silk, or satin, something that didn't feel like it was catching on my skin as I moved.
"So what do you want me to do once we're in talking to Kurag?" Rhys asked.
"Just flaunt yourself—maybe flash your ass or upper thigh. They're supposed to be two of the prime cuts of meat that you can carve off our bodies."
Rhys put his head to one side, as if thinking. "Will it bother him to see meat he can't taste?"
"It will be a little bit of torture, and I don't use the word lightly. The worst thing you can do to a goblin is show him something he wants and deny it to him. Showing Kurag his wildest desire when he knows he can't have it, it'll drive him mad."
"Or make him so angry he walks away from the negotiations," Frost said.
"No, Frost, if we make Kurag lose control that badly, he won't walk away. He'll respect the fact that we beat him this round. He'll try to find something else to distract us for next time, but he won't hold it against us. Goblins love a good game of one-upmanship. He'll be flattered that we went to the trouble."
"I do not understand the goblins," Frost said.
"You don't have to," I said. "My father made sure I did."
Frost looked at me, and there was something I couldn't read on his face. "Prince Essus raised you as if he was grooming you to rule the courts, yet he knew that Cel was heir, and not you. If Cel had produced even one child, the queen would never have offered you this chance."
"You're right on that."
"Why do you think he taught you to rule, if you were never going to mount the throne?"
"My father was secondborn and never going to rule, yet his father raised him to be a ruler. I think he raised me the only way he knew how."
"Perhaps," Frost said, "or perhaps, Prince Essus did not lose all his prophetic abilities when the rest of us did."
I shrugged. "I don't know, and I don't have time to worry about it."
Doyle came to the front of the hallway. "Kurag is willing to talk to you, Meredith, but he is not happy about it."
"I didn't expect him to be."
"He fears your enemies," Frost said.
"That makes two of us," I said.
"Three," Rhys said.
"Four," Doyle said.
Frost shook his head, his hair glittering like a curtain of Christmas tree tinsel. "Five. I fear for your safety. If we lose the goblins' threat, Cel's allies will move against us."
"Then we're agreed," I said.
Doyle was looking from one to the other of us. "What have we agreed to?"
"I'm going to play hors d'oeuvre for the Goblin King," Rhys said.
Doyle's black-on-black eyebrows raised up nearly to his hairline. "I have missed something."
"Rhys is going to help me negotiate with Kurag," I said.
"Help how?" Doyle asked.
Rhys dropped the robe off one pale shoulder, flashing down to one tight nipple. He grinned and shrugged back into the robe.
Doyle raised dark eyebrows. "Do not take this in a spirit in which it is not meant, but you have been a stumbling block to our work with Kurag. He has chided you, fully clothed, and you have practically foamed at the mouth like an ill-used dog. What makes you believe you can do..." He seemed to be searching for a word. He finally settled for, "What makes you believe you can stand up to Kurag's teasing on this day?"
"Today, I'll be teasing back. Merry said that Kurag is like a schoolyard bully, and she's right. Besides, if Merry can do it, so can I." He looked suddenly fierce again. All the humor had gone, leaving his face bleak. "Though I'd much rather kill goblins than negotiate with them."
"Funny," Doyle said, "that's exactly what King Kurag said about the sidhe only moments ago."
"Perfect," I said. "Let's all go and irritate each other."
Doyle led the way down the hallway. He looked terribly nude from the back. I realized that Kurag would have more than just Rhys and I to ogle. I wondered if Doyle thought of himself as a potential sex partner, or as a meal? I guess that all depended on how Kurag felt about sidhe men, and if he preferred dark meat to light.