Лорел Гамильтон - A Kiss Of Shadows

Rhys whispered against my hair, "May I have a kiss before I die?"

"We don't seem to be dying," I said.

"Easy for you to say. You're on the bottom of the pile." This from Galen.

"What's happening up there? I can't see a thing," I said.

"Be happy you cannot," Frost said.

"What is happening?" I asked again, putting more force into my voice.

"Nothing," Doyle's deep voice rumbled down through the pile of men, as if the other bodies carried the low tone of his words like a tuning fork straight down my spine. "And I find that surprising," he said.

"You sound disappointed," Galen said.

"Not disappointed," Doyle said, "curious."

Doyle's cloak slid out of sight, the weight above me was suddenly less.

"Doyle!" I shouted.

"Have no fear, Princess. I am fine," he said.

The pressure above me lightened once more, but not by much. It took me a few seconds to figure out that Frost was raising up, but not moving his body from the pile. "This is singular," he said.

Galen's arm vanished from my sight. "What is it doing?" he asked.

I couldn't hear anyone walking around, but I could see Galen to one side, kneeling. I parted Rhys's hair from my face like two edges of a curtain. Frost was kneeling beside Galen. Doyle was the only one standing alone on the other side of us. I could see his black cloak.

Rhys raised upward, bracing with his arms like half a push-up. "Strange," he said.

That was it. I had to see. "Get off of me, Rhys. I want to see."

He lowered his head over my face so he was looking at me upside down, still supporting his upper body with his arms, but pinning my lower body with his. Under other circumstances I'd have said he was doing it on purpose. But the material of my dress was thin enough and his clothing light enough that I could tell he wasn't happy to see me. Staring into his tri-blue eye from inches away but upside down was almost dizzying, and somehow strangely intimate.

"I'm the last body between you and the great bad thing," he said. "I'll move when Doyle tells me to move."

Watching his small round mouth move upside down made my head hurt. I closed my eyes. "Don't talk upside down," I said.

"Of course," Rhys said, "you could just look up." He drew his face back, pulling back until he was on all fours above me like a mare shielding her foal.

I stayed flat on the ground but craned my neck backward. All I could see was the snaking tendrils of the roses. They hung above us like thin, fuzzy, brown ropes waving gently back and forth almost as if there was wind, but there was no wind, and the fuzziness was thorns.

"Other than the fact that the roses are alive again, what am I supposed to be seeing?"

Doyle answered, "It is only the small thorns that are reaching for you, Merry."

"And?" I said.

His black cloak came closer as he stood above us. "It means I don't believe the roses mean you harm."

"What else could they want?" I asked. It should have felt silly talking from the ground with Rhys perched over me on all fours. But it didn't. I wanted something, someone, between me and the rustling of the thorns.

"I believe, I think, it may want a drink of royal blood," Doyle said.

"What do you mean a drink?" Galen asked it before I could. He sat back on the floor, moving so I could see most of his upper body. Blood had dried in spots and small trails down his upper body, but the bites were almost gone, leaving only the blood as proof that he'd been injured. The front of his pants was blood-soaked, but he moved better, less pain-filled. Everything was healing.

I would not heal if the thorns tore into my body. I'd simply die.

"The roses once drank from the queen every time she passed this way," Doyle said.

"That was centuries ago," Frost said, "before we ever dreamed of traveling to the lands to the west."

I propped myself up on my elbows. "I have passed under the roses a thousand times in my life, and they've never reacted to me, not even when they still had a few blooms left."

"You have come into your power, Meredith. The land recognized that when it welcomed you tonight," Doyle said.

"What do you mean the land welcomed her?" Frost asked. Doyle told him.

Rhys bent over to stare into my face again in that awkward upside-down movement. "Cool," he said.

It made me smile, but I pushed his head up out of my face anyway. "The land recognizes me as a power now."

"Not merely the land," Doyle said. He sat down on the far side of me from Galen, spreading the black cloak around his body in a familiar gesture, as if he wore a lot of ankle-length cloaks. He did.

I could see his face now. He looked thoughtful, as if contemplating some weighty philosophy.

"This is all fascinating," Rhys said, "but we can discuss whether Merry is the chosen whatever, later. We need to get her out of here before the roses try to eat her."

Doyle looked at me, dark face impassive. "Without swords we have very little chance of making either door with Merry alive. We would survive the roses' worst attentions, but she would not. Since it is her safety that is paramount and not our own, we must think of a way out of this that does not require violence. If you offer the roses violence, they will return the favor." He waved his hand upward, vaguely including the trailing vines. "They seem to be quite patient with us, so I suggest we use their patience to think."

"The land has never welcomed Cel, nor have the roses reached for him," Frost said. He crawled around me to sit near Doyle. He didn't seem to trust the roses' patience as much as Doyle did. I agreed with Frost on this one. I had never seen the roses move before, not so much as a twitch. I'd heard the stories, but never thought to see the reality of it for myself. I'd often wished to see the room covered in sweet fragrant roses. Be careful what you wish for. Of course, there were no blooms, just thorns. That wasn't exactly what I'd wished for.

"Just because you put a crown on someone's head doesn't make them fit to rule," Doyle said. "In olden days it was the magic, the land, that chose our queen or king. If the magic rejected them, if the land didn't accept them, then bloodline or no bloodline, a new heir had to be chosen."

I was suddenly very aware of all of them looking at me. I looked from one to the other of them. They had almost identical expressions on their faces and I was half afraid I knew what they were thinking. The target on my back just kept getting bigger and bigger. "I am not the heir apparent."

"The queen will make you so, tonight," Doyle said.

I looked into his dark face and tried to read those raven-black eyes. "What do you want of me, Doyle?"

"First, let us see what happens when Rhys opens the way for the thorns. If they react violently, then we will go no farther. Eventually, the other guards will rescue us."

Rhys asked, "Do you want me to move now?"

Doyle nodded. "Please."

I wrapped a hand around both of Rhys's arms, keeping him above me. "What happens if the roses pour over me and try tearing me limb from limb?"

"Then we throw ourselves on your body and let the thorns rend us before they touch your white flesh." Doyle's voice was bland, empty of meaning, but still interested. It was the voice he used in public at court when he didn't want anyone to guess his motives. A voice honed by centuries of answering to royals that were often not quite sane.

"Why is that less than comforting?" I asked.

Rhys flipped his head upside down to peer into my face again. "How do you think I feel? I'll be sacrificing all this toned and muscled flesh just when I thought someone else might get to appreciate it."

It made me smile.

He smiled at me upside down like the Cheshire cat. "If you'll let go of my arms," he said, "I promise to throw myself on top of you at the first hint of danger." His smile widened to a grin. "In fact, with your permission I'll throw myself on top of your body at every opportunity."