Лорел Гамильтон - A Kiss Of Shadows

He watched me with cool eyes. "You're quite right, Princess Meredith, your bedroom is no concern of mine. I am a court gelding."

I shook my head. "No, that's the problem. You're not a gelding; none of you are. She just won't share."

He shrugged, making it look graceful. The movement caused him to wince.

"How is your wound?" I asked.

"You were angry with me seconds ago, now you are not. Why?"

I tried to put it into words. "It's not your fault."

"What is not my fault?"

"You did not endanger me. You saved my life. You didn't send the sluagh after me. You didn't cause the hand of flesh to manifest tonight. It's not your fault. I'm angry, and I want someone to blame, but you shouldn't pay the price for other people's shit."

He raised black-on-black eyebrows at that. "A most enlightened attitude for a princess."

I shook my head. "Drop the title, Doyle. I'm Meredith, just Meredith."

The eyebrows went up even farther, until his eyes looked impossibly wide, and his expression actually made me laugh. The laughter sounded normal, felt good. I sat down on the edge of the bed and shook my head. "I didn't think I'd be laughing tonight."

He knelt in front of me. "You have killed before—why is this different?"

I looked at him, surprised that he'd understood exactly what was bothering me. "Why was it so important that I kill Nerys?"

"A sidhe comes into their power through ritual, but that doesn't mean that the power will manifest itself. After the first time the power is used, then the sidhe must bloody themselves in combat." He put a hand on the bed on either side of me, but not touching. "It is a kind of blood sacrifice; it will ensure that the powers do not go back to sleep, but continue to grow."

"Blood makes the crops grow," I said.

He nodded. "Death magic is the oldest of all magics, Princess." He gave that small smile. "Meredith." He said my name softly.

"So you had me chop Nerys up so that my powers wouldn't go dormant again?"

He nodded again.

I looked into that serious face. "You said a sidhe comes into their power after a ritual. I had no ritual."

"The night you spent with the roane was your ritual."

I shook my head. "No, Doyle, we did nothing ritualistic that night."

"There are many rituals for awakening the power, Meredith. Combat, sacrifice, sex, and many more. It is not surprising that your power chose sex. You are descended from three different fertility deities."

"Five actually. But I still don't understand."

"Your roane was covered in Branwyn's Tears; for that one night he acted the part of a sidhe lover for you. He brought on your secondary powers."

"I knew it was magical, but I didn't know… " My voice trailed off. I frowned at him. "It seems like there should be more to it than just good sex."

"Why? It is sex that makes the miracle of life—what could be greater than that?"

"The magic healed Roane, gave him back his sealskin. I didn't try to heal him, because I didn't know I could."

Doyle sat down beside the bed, his long legs curled up against the dresser. "Healing one skinless roane is nothing. I have seen sidhe raise mountains from the sea, or flood entire cities, when they came into their power. You were lucky."

I was suddenly scared. "You mean my coming into my powers could have caused some great natural disaster?"

"Yes."

"You'd think someone would have warned me," I said.

"No one knew you were leaving us, so we could give you no parting advice. And no one knew that you had secondary powers, Meredith. The queen was convinced that if seven years with Griffin in your bed and years of duels had not awakened your powers then they were not there to waken."

"Why now?" I asked. "Why after all these years?"

"I do not know. All I know is that you are Princess of Flesh, and you have one more hand of power that has not manifested yet."

"It's rare for a sidhe to have more than one hand of power. Why would I have two?"

"Your hands had melted two of the metal bars on the bed. Two bars melted, one for each hand."

I stood and stepped away from him. "How did you know that?"

"I watched you sleep from the balcony. I saw the headboard."

"Why didn't you make yourself known to me?"

"At that point you were in what amounted to a drugged sleep. I doubt I could have wakened you."

"Why not the night you used the spiders? The night at Alistair Norton's?"

"You mean the human who was worshiping the sidhe."

That stopped me. I stared at him. "What are you talking about, Doyle? When did Norton worship the sidhe?"

"When he stole the power from the women using Branwyn's Tears," Doyle said.

"No, I was there. I was nearly a victim. There was no ceremony invoking the sidhe."

"Every schoolchild in this country is taught the one thing that the sidhe were prohibited from doing when we were welcomed into this country."

"We could not set ourselves up as gods. We could not be worshiped. I got the lecture at home from Father, and at school in history class, government class."

"You are the only one of us ever educated with the common humans. I forget that sometimes. The queen was livid when she discovered Prince Essus had enrolled you in a public school."

"She tried to drown me when I was six, Doyle. She tried to drown me like a purebred puppy that came out with the wrong markings. I wouldn't think she'd have given a damn what school I went to."

"I don't think I've ever seen the queen so surprised as when Prince Essus took you, and his entourage, and set up housekeeping among the humans." He smiled, a brief flash of white in that dark face. "Once she realized that the prince would not stand for your mistreatment, then she began to try and lure him back to court. She offered him much, but he refused for ten years. Long enough for you to grow from child to woman out among the humans."

"If she was so upset, why did she allow so many of the Unseelie Court to visit us?"

"The queen, and the prince, feared that you would grow too human if you did not see your people. Though the queen did not approve of your father's choices for his entourage."

"You mean Keelin," I said.

He nodded. "The queen never understood why he insisted on choosing a fey who had no sidhe blood in her veins as your constant companion."

"Keelin is half brownie like my grandmother."

"And half goblin," Doyle said, "which you do not have in your background."

"The goblins are the foot soldiers of the Unseelie army. The sidhe declare war, but the goblins begin it."

"You're quoting your father now," Doyle said.

"Yes, I am." I was suddenly tired again. The short burst of humor, the amazing new possibilities of power, a return to the court—nothing could keep me from a bone-numbing weariness. But one thing I had to know. "You said Alistair Norton was worshiping the sidhe. What did you mean by that?"

"I meant that he used ritual to invoke the sidhe when he set up the circle of power around his bed. I recognized the symbols. You saw no ritual because even the most uneducated human would know that he was not allowed to call on sidhe power for magic."

"He did the preparation ritual before the women came," I said.

"Exactly," Doyle said.

"I saw a sidhe in the mirrors, but I did not see a face. Could you sense who it was?"

"No, but they were powerful enough that I could not break through. All I could send you was my animal, and my voice. It takes a great deal to bar me from a room."

"So one of the sidhe is allowing himself—"

"Or herself," Doyle said.

I nodded. "Or herself to be worshiped, and they gave Branwyn's Tears to a mortal to be used against other fey."

"Normally, humans of fey descent would not qualify for full fey status, but in this case, yes."