Лорел Гамильтон - Seduced by Moonlight

There were gasps and sounds of pleasure, as if some of the court were enjoying the show. The black eagle circled once, then came to the center of the room and began to flap its way to the floor, but before those great talons landed, the wings seemed to dissolve into mist, and it was great black hooves that struck the stones and pranced a few steps among the tables. The great black stallion walked to Maelgwn's table and looked at the wolf lord with Doyle's dark eyes. Either the mist rose up again, or the horse became the black mist, and it dissolved into the black mastiff that I had seen before. The huge dog panted at Maelgwn. Even sitting, the dog was tall enough to see over the table and meet Maelgwn's gaze.

The wolf lord gave a motion somewhere between a nod and a bow. It seemed to satisfy the dog, because it charged toward the dais. The great paws hit the steps and bounded up to sit next to me. The dog sat beside the arm of my throne, and I reached out to stroke that soft fur without thinking about it.

The mist rose up, and it felt as cool as it smelled, like breathing in rain deep in the forest. My hand tingled with magic as Doyle's body grew and shifted. There was no sliding of bones and flesh as there had been in California. Even with my hand lost in the black mist, it felt light and effervescent, like bubbles or electricity against my skin. Doyle was just kneeling beside my throne in human form, nude, with his long black hair lying in a dark pool at his feet.

My hand was still on his face, stroking his human cheek as I'd been stroking the dog's seconds before.

I wanted to compliment him, but I didn't dare let the court know that I'd never seen such an effortless performance.

«Most impressive,» Maelgwn said, and there was nothing but seriousness left in his voice. «I don't remember you being a bird.»

«I was not,» Doyle said.

«So you have gained what was lost, and added to your powers besides.»

Doyle nodded, my hand still playing in the thick fall of his hair.

«How has this miracle come to pass?» Maelgwn asked.

«A kiss,» Doyle said.

«A kiss,» Maelgwn repeated. «What does that mean?»

«You know a kiss,» Rhys said from behind me, «you just pucker up your lips.»

«I know what a kiss is,» Maelgwn interrupted. «What I don't know is how a kiss has brought about this change in the Darkness.»

«Tell him whose kiss brought you back into your powers,» Andais said.

«Princess Meredith's kiss,» Doyle said, still kneeling by my chair, still with my hand playing in the thick warmth of his hair, tickling along the back of his neck.

«Lies.» This from Miniver; she was head of her own house. She was tall and blond and could have passed for Seelie Court, because once she had been. She had come to the Unseelie and fought her way to a position of power, until the tall commanding beauty was the head of her own house in the dark court. That she had preferred to rule in the Unseelie Court, rather than accept exile to the human world, meant that the Seelie Court would never accept her back. Her exile from the shining throng would be eternal. They sometimes took back those who had wandered among the humans, but once you went to the dark court, you were considered unclean.

She stood in front of her throne, a shining thing with her yellow braids sliding over a dress of shimmering gold cloth. A golden circlet graced her brow, over the perfect arch of dark eyebrows and the tri-blue of her eyes. She had never adopted the darker colors favored by Andais and her court. Miniver dressed as if she expected to walk into a different court.

«Did you say something, Miniver?» Andais said, and by merely leaving off any title she had insulted the golden figure. It was a warning. A warning to sit down and shut up.

«I said, and I say again, that it is a lie. No mortal could bring anyone into his power.»

«She is a princess of the sidhe, and that makes her a little more than a mere mortal,» Andais said.

Miniver shook her head, sending those heavy yellow braids sliding along the gold of her dress. «She is mortal, and you should have drowned her when she was six, as you tried to. It was weakness for your brother that stopped your hand.»

She spoke as if I could not hear her, as if I were not sitting there alive in the same room with her now.

«My brother, Essus, once told me that Meredith would make a better queen than my own son, Cel, would make a king. I did not believe it then.»

«At least Cel is not mortal,» Miniver said.

«But Cel has not brought back a single drop of the power we have lost. Nor have I,» Andais said, and there was no teasing to her now. There was no showmanship.

«And you would have us believe that this half-breed mortal has done what pure sidhe blood has not?» Miniver pointed at me in what I thought was an overly dramatic gesture, but it did show the sleeve of her dress to perfection, flashing the slits of cloth open so that the blue cloth of the underdress showed through. Sometimes if you've lived nearly forever, you think overly long about how things appear. «This abomination cannot be allowed on the throne, Queen Andais.»

I thought abomination was a little harsh, but I said nothing, for in a way it wasn't me she'd challenged, it was the queen.

«I say who will and who will not sit on the throne of this court, Miniver.»

«Your obsession with a hereditary monarchy of your own bloodline will be the death of us all. We have all seen what happens on the dueling ground when one of us shares blood with that thing. They become mortal through the disease that her blood carries.»

«Mortality is not a disease,» Andais said, quietly.

«But it kills like one.» Miniver looked out over the court, and there were a lot of faces turned to her. Many showed by either silence or nodding that they agreed with at least this much. They, too, had worried about my blood. «If this mortal becomes queen, then we are honor-bound to take blood oath from her, to bind us to her. To take blood oath, very much as we take on the dueling ground.» Miniver looked up at Andais, and there was something close to pleading on her face. «Don't you see, my queen, if we take her blood into us and bind ourselves to her mortal peril, then we could lose our own immortality? We would cease to be sidhe.»

It was Nerys who stood up and said, «We would cease to be anything.»

Three, then four others of the noble houses of the Unseelie stood. They stood and showed their support for what Miniver had said. Six houses out of sixteen stood against me. That was something we had not foreseen. Or I had not.

Doyle had gone very still under my hand. All my men had gone very still, except the goblins at my feet and the Red Cap at my back. Either immortality didn't mean the same thing to them as it did to the sidhe, or other things were happening with the goblins. Things I had not quite grasped.

«I say who will be my heir,» Andais said, «unless you wish to challenge me to personal combat, Miniver, Nerys, all of you. I will gladly fight you each in turn, and this arguing will cease.»

Miniver shook her head. «Your answer to everything is death and violence, Andais. It has led us to be childless and near powerless, but our immortality, you cannot have that.»

«Then challenge me, Miniver. Make yourself queen, if you can.»

If Miniver's anger could have flown across the room and struck Andais, the queen would have died where she sat, but Miniver's anger did not have that kind of power. The day when the fey, any fey, could have killed with simply an angry thought was centuries past.

Andais looked at Nerys. «You, Nerys, do you wish to be queen? Do you wish it enough to challenge me to a duel? Defeat me and you can be queen.»

Nerys just stood there, staring at her with tri-grey eyes that nearly mirrored the queen's own. Nerys's long black hair was done in a series of complicated braids that hung like a heavy cloak at her back. Her dress was white with touches of black in the trim, the belt, the lace at her wrists. She looked cool and collected. There was no sense of outrage that Miniver vibrated with.