Sage stood on tiptoe, gazing into the bureau mirror, as close to the glass as he could get. He was gazing at his new eyes, which seemed utterly fascinating to him. I seemed unduly fascinated with him. If he was in my line of sight, I stared at him. I couldn't seem to stop myself. The soft yellow of his skin looked as if his body had been drenched in a small piece of sunlight. His body was one long line from his feet - raised high on their toes - to his calves, his thighs, the curve of his buttocks, the smooth plain of his back, the swell of his shoulders, and over all of it his wings, held tight over his back. The broad band of golden yellow with its fusion of brilliant blue and splashes of red, and orangey red, was clearer than I'd ever seen it. The black veins that held the butter-yellow tissue of his wings together seemed thick and black as miniature roads, as if I could trace my way across his wings and find myself somewhere else. Some magical place where winged lovers came at my beck and call, and there were no responsibilities. No throne. No assassins.
I frowned and put my hands over my eyes to block the seemingly gorgeous view of Sage at the mirror. This wasn't what I really wanted, but of course, that wasn't entirely true. Wasn't my deepest desire to have a life where whoever came to my bed came out of lust, or true love, or at least friendship, and not because I was daughter of Essus and heir to a throne? The best glamour, the best enchantments feed off your own needs and desires. The more personal, the more secret, the harder it is to resist.
I concentrated on my breathing in the cool darkness of my closed eyelids. Not being able to see Sage helped. I could think about something other than the sex we'd just had, wanting more of it, and wanting to touch his wings, wanting to see if the thick, black veins were truly paths that led to my heart's desire.
Stop it, Meredith, stop it. I tried not to think, but only to count my breaths. I took air deep into my body, and let it out slowly. When my pulse was calm, I started to count not the deep, even breaths, but just to count. When I reached sixty, I lowered my hands slowly.
I was staring into washboard abs so sculpted they looked artificial. I knew that stomach. I gazed up and found Rhys's chest, and finally his face. "Are you all right, Merry?"
I shook my head. "I don't know." My voice was only a whisper, as if I was afraid to talk louder. It wasn't until that moment that I realized I was afraid. But afraid of what?
I felt the bed move a moment before I felt Nicca's presence behind me. He wasn't a burning heat now, but it was as if he were the warmth of the earth itself. The warmth that lives down in the rich brown soil, and keeps all the seeds, and all the small creatures safe and warm through the winter. When his hands touched my shoulders, it was like being wrapped up in the warmest, softest blanket in the world. So safe, so warm, as if you could snuggle down and sleep for months, and wake refreshed, whole, and the earth would be made new again. The magic of spring itself was in the touch of his hands.
Something must have shown on my face, though whether it was fear, or longing, or something else, Goddess alone knew, because I surely didn't. Rhys asked again, "Are you all right, Merry?"
I whispered, "Get Doyle." It was all I had time to say before Nicca turned me in his arms, and planted a kiss on the bend of my neck. I was suddenly drowning in the scent of fresh-turned earth and the rich, green scent of growing things. His mouth tasted like fresh rain. My hands slid over his shoulders, and found the arch of his wings. It made me open my eyes and pull back from the kiss enough to gaze down his back at the newness of them.
When the wings had been only a pattern on his back, the details had been blurred. Now the sweep and color of them spread over his body like twin cathedrals. The main color was a pale buff tan, like the fur of some pale lion, and the tips of the forewings looked as if they'd been dipped in pink and violet-red. The deep violet-red wove down the edges in a scalloped pattern that mixed with white and purple, and was edged on one side with a reddish brown, like a braid of auburn hair laid across all that golden tan. That line of rainbow colors - violet-red, white, purple, and reddish brown - traced a second scallop on his lower wings, with a line of more golden tan on the other side of that run. There was an eyespot with a blue-green center larger than my hand in his front wings, edged with black, and a yellow that was almost an echo of his overall pale buff, then an edge of brilliant blue, and that violet-red repeated above that pool of eye color like some psychedelic eyebrow. The second eyespot on his hind-wings was larger than my face, like a pool of blue-green iridescence, with that outline of black around every color as if to emphasize every shade. The pale yellow ring around the pool of sparkling blue-green, the thin gleaming line of blue and reddish violet arching over all that color. There was a heavier black ring around the larger eyespot, so that the thick velvet black that surrounded all that color sat in a pool of pinkish orange. The scalloped line of colors flowed down the edge of the rear wings as it did the front - red-violet, white, purple, and reddish brown tracing the edge of all his wings downward past the brilliance of pink and orange to spill on long curved tails so that that last grace of wing was thick with dark stripes of color.
The undersides of the wings were like dusty copies of the surface, with only the eyespots showing through with the same flashing brilliance of the surface. Thick brown hair like silken fur edged the base of the wings so that the line where the wings entered Nicca's back was hidden from me.
Nicca kissed the edge of my cheek, but all I could see were his wings. He kissed his way down my cheek, and when I never looked at his face, he bit me, gently, along the neck. It brought a gasp from my throat, but not my gaze to his face. He moved lower onto my neck, and bit harder. Hard enough that my eyes closed and when my eyes opened, his face was before me.
It was the same face as before, it was Nicca, yet it wasn't. There was a forcefulness to him, a demand in his eyes, his face, his lips. I stared into those brown eyes and saw that he wanted something. My pulse was frantic in my throat. I was afraid of the desire in his face. More than a want, though, it was need.
He made a sound low in his throat. "I want to sink my teeth into you. I want to feed." He gripped my arms hard enough that it bruised, and his fear flashed in his eyes. "What is happening to me? What am I becoming?"
"Is it food you want?" I heard myself ask the question, but didn't remember thinking of it. My pulse was slowing, and I felt calm, peaceful.
Nicca shook his head. "No, not food, not drink." He shook me, then seemed to remember himself, and stopped. I watched him fight to relax his grip on my arms, but he didn't let me go. "I want you, Merry, you."
"Sex?"
"Yes, no." He frowned, then he yelled, one wordless sound of frustration. "I don't know what I want." Then he looked at me, puzzled. "I want you, but it's like you are food and drink and sex."
I nodded and raised my hands until I cupped his arms. Even the skin of his elbows was soft. Had it been this soft before the wings came? I couldn't remember. It was as if I couldn't remember Nicca without the wings. As if he hadn't been real until they sprang from his back.
"She is the Goddess," Doyle said from the doorway. "We all crave the touch of the divine."
Through the unnatural calmness, I knew he was right. "I could make him into what the Goddess wants him to be, now, tonight."
"But she is a goddess and you are mortal, and you need more sleep than she does," he said, striding into the room like some moving piece of the darkness itself. He walked to the far side of the bed and, after a moment's hesitation, bent down. He stayed kneeling by the bed, but a pressure I hadn't known was there eased. I could breathe again, and my pulse was back to its frantic dance. The fear returned with a flash of adrenaline that left me light-headed, but the fear faded almost as fast as it had come. Nicca blinked at me, looking confused. "What happened, just now? What happened?" He let go of my arms and moved back carefully onto the bed, having to move with care because of the wings.
Doyle was still kneeling by the far side of the bed. "It seems the chalice has a mind of its own."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"It had unwrapped itself and fallen underneath the bed."
I walked around the bed to see that he had pulled the cup out from under the bed by the edge of the silk it still lay upon, but it was uncovered. "I wrapped it up, Doyle. Even if it had fallen over, it couldn't have unwrapped that neatly, not so that the silk was a perfect rectangle again."
He gazed up at me, still on one knee, his finger and thumb still holding the silk corner. "As I said, Merry, the chalice has a mind of its own, but I would move it farther from the bed if I were you. Otherwise you will have a busy night every time one of us comes to you."
I shivered. "What's happening, Doyle?"
"The Goddess has decided to become busy among us once more, so it would seem."
"Explain that," I said.
He looked up at me. "The chalice has returned, and on the day of its return Her grace pours upon us once more. Cromm Cruach walks among us once more, as does Conchenn. Those of us who were gods are returning to our former glory, and some who were never gods are being visited with such powers as they never dreamt to have."
"The Goddess is using Merry as a messenger," Rhys said. He frowned and shook his head. "No, Merry is like the flesh version of the chalice. It fills with grace and pours upon us."
"I had nothing to do with you coming back into your powers," I said, hands on hips.
Rhys smiled. "Maybe not."
"You were in the room," Doyle said.
I looked at him and shook my head. "No, Doyle, what happened with Maeve and Frost was different from what happened to Rhys."
Doyle stood up, brushing his hands down the front of his unbuttoned jeans, as if he were wiping the feel of something off his fingers. Wiping what away? Power, magic, the feel of the silk? I almost asked, then Sage spoke.
"Look at my eyes, Darkness. Look at my eyes, and see what our lovely Merry has done." Sage walked around the bed so Doyle could see the eyes up close.
"Rhys told me that your eyes are tricolored."
Sage's wings sagged a little, as if he were disappointed that his news had been spoiled. "I am sidhe now, Darkness, what do you think of that?"
A smile curled Doyle's lips, a smile I hadn't seen before. If it had been anyone else, I'd have said it was a cruel smile. "Have you tried to grow small since it happened?"
Sage frowned at him. "What does that matter?"
Doyle shrugged, and that smile deepened. "Have you tried to shift your form since your eyes changed? It is a simple question."
Sage went very still as he stood between Doyle and me, then I saw his wings shiver, like flowers caressed by a strong wind. He shivered once, twice, then he threw back his head and wailed. Wordless, speechless, a hopeless, wrenching sound.
It wasn't until the last echoes of that scream faded from the room that I could move. "What's wrong?" I reached around his wings to touch his shoulder.
He jerked away from me. "Do not touch me!" He was backing away, toward the door. Frost appeared in the door behind him, and Sage began to back away from him, too. It was as if he was afraid of all of us.
"What's wrong?" I asked again.
"Being sidhe comes with a price for those with wings," Doyle said, and there was a note of satisfaction in his voice. I'd always known there was some bitter history between the two of them, but I'd never realized just how bitter until that moment. I'd never seen Doyle be petty before.
Sage pointed at Nicca, who was still kneeling on the bed. "He knows nothing of wings. He has never flown above a spring meadow, or tasted how sweet and clean the wind can be." He pounded his fist into his bare chest. "But I know! I know!"
"I'm missing something," I said. "What difference does being sidhe mean for Sage?"
"You have stolen my wings from me, Merry," he said, and there was a look on his face, of such unbearable loss, that I moved toward him. I had to hold him. Had to touch him. Had to try to take that look from his eyes.
He held a pale yellow hand out toward me. "No, no more, Merry. I have had enough of the sidhe for one night."
Rhys cleared his throat, and the noise seemed to startle Sage. He turned to find Rhys almost behind him, having walked across the room to stand near the mirror. Sage looked wildly around the room as if we'd trapped him and he was seeking a way out. It was true that Frost was near the only door, but he wasn't trapped. Not in any way that I understood.
Sage pointed a finger at Nicca. "Do you know what we would call him if he had gotten his wings as a child?"
Everyone gave their version of blank face, though it looked like everything from humor to arrogance. It was Rhys who said, "I give up. What would you call Nicca if he'd gotten his wings as a kid?"
"Cursed." Sage spat the word as if it was the worst thing he could ever call anyone.
"Cursed, how?" I asked.
"He has wings but he cannot fly, Merry. He is too heavy for the wings of a moth to carry him aloft" - he smacked his fist into his chest - "as I am too heavy for mine now."
"What's happened?" Galen asked from the doorway. He was rubbing sleep from his eyes. His bedroom was the farthest away from this room.
Before any of us could answer, Sage marched to him, brushing past Frost. "Look, look at what has become of me!"
Galen gaped at Sage. "What... your eyes."
Sage pushed past him, snarling one last phrase over his winged shoulder. "Wicked, wicked sidhe." And he was gone.