The only doors in the entire sithen that were black were the doors leading to my aunt's chambers. They were a shining improbable black stone that stood taller than the tallest guard, and wider than that semi the first hallway could hold.
The doors were their usual ominous selves, but the two men who stood at attention before the doors were not usual. One, there were rarely guards on this side of the doors. The queen enjoyed an audience, especially if that audience could not participate, no matter how much they wanted to. Sometimes you'd find guards outside if they were waiting to escort people away once the queen was finished speaking with them. But somehow I didn't think that was it. Call it a hunch, but I was betting the guards were there waiting for me. What was my first clue? They were nude except for enough leather belts and straps to hold swords and daggers, and boots that came to their knees.
"I'm sensing a theme," Rhys said.
So was I. Because not only were they more nude even than Hawthorne and Ivi had been, but they were also vegetative deities. Adair still bore the name of what he had been once, for adair means "oak grove." His skin was the color of sunlight through leaves, that color more common among the Seelie than the Unseelie, the color we call sun-kissed. His ankle-length brown hair had been butchered short, shorter than Amatheon's by nearly half a foot. Someone had shorn him, so that there was almost nothing left to remind the eye what beauty once framed that golden body.
Amatheon spoke as if I'd asked, "I was not the only one who was reluctant, Princess. She began her... example with Adair."
Adair's eyes were three circles of gold and yellow, like staring into the sun. Those eyes held nothing as he watched us come toward the doors. He had been cast out of the Seelie Court for speaking too strongly against their king, and to avoid exile from faerie he had joined the Unseelie. But he had never truly taken to the dark court's way of life. He existed among us, and tried to be invisible.
I spoke low: "I know why you do not want my bed, but Adair and I have no quarrel."
"He wants to be left alone, Princess. He wants to not be involved in this fight."
"Unless you're Switzerland, there is no neutrality," I said.
"So he learned."
The other guard still stood in a cloak of his own pale yellow hair. That hair framed a body that was a pale whitish-grey, not moonlight skin like mine, but a soft, almost dusty color. His eyes gleamed out of a narrow, high-cheekboned face, eyes the color of dark green leaves, with an inner star of paler green like some sort of starred jewel. His lips were the reddest, ripest, prettiest in the courts, either court, if you asked me. The ladies envied him that mouth, and only the brightest, most crimson of lipsticks came close to producing it. His name was Briac, though he preferred to be called Brii. Briac was just another form of the name Brian, and had nothing to do with plants or agriculture. I knew that Brii was some sort of plant deity, or had been, but beyond that his name kept its secrets.
He smiled as we came nearer - those red, red lips, distracting from the jewels of his eyes, the curtain of his hair, and even the long naked lines of his body. As if he felt me looking, his body began to respond, as if my approach was enough to whet his anticipation and bring him partially erect.
Adair's body was as empty of reaction to my approach as his eyes. He was lucky I was not my aunt, for she sometimes took lack of response on an involuntary level as a personal insult. I did not. Adair had, at the very least, had his pride cut away with his hair. I had no idea what other pains my aunt had put him through to make him willing to stand at this door and await me. He was angry, on that I would have bet a great deal. Anger and embarrassment are not always the best aphrodisiac. My aunt has never truly understood that.
Brii's head went to one side like a bird. His smile slipped a little. "You have not done your duty by the princess."
"There was an assassination attempt on the princess," Doyle said.
The last of his smile was gone. "The blood."
"What else did you think it was from?" I asked.
He shrugged and gave a rueful smile. "Someone else's blood smeared on the queen's face would mean she had a very, very good time. My apologies for assuming the same of you." He gave a bow that swept his hair out and around one arm like a cloak then stood up smiling again, with that look in his eyes that was all male, and said plainly that no amount of unpleasantness could take all the pleasure from this duty, at least not for him.
Adair stood on the other side of the doors, wooden-faced and limp-bodied. He wouldn't even look at me.
"We must tell the queen of the attack." Doyle moved up as if to touch the doors.
Adair moved first, but Brii followed, and their arms crossed in front of the door handles. "Our orders were very specific," Adair said. His voice tried to be as empty as the rest of him, but failed. There was a razor-thin edge of rage in those simple words. So much so, that it danced a line of magic down the hall, across our skins like tiny bites. He was fighting very, very hard to control himself.
I rubbed my arm where the edge of his power had touched me, had hurt me, totally by accident, and cursed my aunt. She'd made it so that Adair would obey her orders and bed me, but she'd made certain that neither one of us would enjoy it.
"And what were those orders?" Doyle said, his dark voice, lower even than normal, sounding as if it would crawl down your spine and hunt for vital organs.
Brii answered, trying to make his voice upbeat, conciliatory. I didn't blame him; I wouldn't have wanted to be standing between Doyle and Adair when the flags went up, either. "If the ring knows both Hawthorne and Ivi, then they are to service the princess as soon as possible. If the ring does not know both of them, then one of us is to take the place of the one the ring did not recognize." He smiled, at Doyle, as if trying to ease some of the tension. It didn't work.
"Open the door, Brii. We have much to tell the queen, and much of it is not only dangerous but also not something to be discussed in the hallway, where more ears may hear us than the queen would like."
Brii actually moved back, but Adair did not. Somehow I'd known he wouldn't. "The queen has been at great pains to be certain that I follow all her orders. I will do as she has... bid me, and follow those orders to the absolute letter. I will not give her cause to abuse me again this day." The anger had quieted and didn't bite down the hall now, but Doyle moved like a horse when a fly settles on it. Perhaps all that stinging anger had gone only on his skin.
"I am captain here, Adair, not you."
"It is good to have you back, Captain" - Adair made that last word an insult - "but whatever your rank, it is not greater than the queen's. She is our master, not you. She made this very clear to me, Darkness, very clear."
They were almost touching, so terribly close, almost too close to fight. "You refuse my direct order?"
"I refuse to disobey the queen's direct order, yes."
"I ask you one last time, Adair, will you step aside?"
"No, Darkness, I will not."
Magic breathed through the hallway. That first hot breath that it draws sometimes, like the tensing of a muscle before a blow. It wasn't that I didn't think Doyle would win. He was the Queen's Darkness. It was that it seemed a waste to fight among ourselves when we had enemies to fight. I didn't know who those enemies were, not yet, but they'd tried to kill me earlier today. We needed to save our energy for them, not spend it in senseless bickering.
"Stand down, Doyle," I said, soft but clear.
The magic grew in the hallway, as if the very air were drawing a breath.
"I said, stand down, Darkness," and this time my voice was not soft.
The power that was growing all around us hesitated, flickered. Doyle did not turn from the man he faced, he merely growled, "He stands in our way, and we must needs see the queen."
"We will see the queen," I said, and began to work my way up through the men. I looked at both Abloec and Usna. "Do you both stand by what you said, that you will tell the queen what needs telling?"
"I forgot how wretched it is to be sober, so let this wretchedness end. I will tell the queen of what I saw; you have what word is left me." He even began a bow, but it seemed to hurt his head, so he stopped in midmotion.
"Usna," I said.
He gave me that cat-that-ate-the-canary smile and said, "Of course, Princess, I am always a man of my word."
"I will allow no one past me until we have obeyed everything the queen instructed," Adair said.
"Do you really think that you can withstand the might of this many of your fellow Ravens?" Barinthus asked, though he did not move up closer to the door. I think he was afraid of what might happen if he used his power to fight. I know I was.
I stepped past Frost's back and got a glimpse of Adair's determined face before Frost moved in front of me. "You are too close, Meredith," he said.
I shook my head. "Not close enough, Frost."
He frowned down at me. "I did not save you from a human assassin to have you hurt by your own guards."
"I will not be hurt, not in that way, at least."
Puzzlement filled his grey eyes, and he frowned harder. "I do not understand."
There was no time to explain it. Power was building on the very air again. A glance showed that Adair's skin was beginning to glow.
"It wasn't a human who tried to assassinate me today, Frost." I made sure my voice carried. "It was sidhe magic that bespelled that human. Sidhe magic that put a spell on Doyle that made him slow to defend me. Only a sidhe could have put such a spell on the Darkness himself."
Brii spoke up as I'd hoped he would, "Who could bespell Darkness, except for the queen herself."
"There are those who can, but none that stood with us today," Doyle growled, his eyes still on the softly glowing Adair. "But someone powerful enough to send a spell from a distance and for none of us to notice it until too late."
"I don't believe you," Adair said.
"May the sluagh eat my bones if I lie," Doyle said, his voice still a threatening growl. It was like listening to a dog speak, too low for a human throat.
Adair's glow faded around the edges so that the center of his face glowed like a candle in the middle of him. "Even if I believe you, even if I agree that the princess should see the queen immediately, if I allow you to pass without a fight, I will be at the queen's mercy." He raised a hand as if to touch his hair, then stopped, as if he could not stand to touch the near-bare scalp. "I have been at her mercy, and I do not care for it."
"Let me pass, Frost."
He moved. Reluctantly, but he moved.
I touched Doyle's arm. "I will tell you this for a third and a last time, Doyle, stand down."
His dark eyes flicked to me, then he took a breath so deep that it ended with his body shuddering like a dog ruffling its fur after a nap. He took one small step back from Adair. "As my princess commands, so shall it be." His voice was still deeper than normal, and perhaps only I could hear the question in that growl. But he trusted me enough to do as I said. Trusted me enough to let me take his place in front of Adair.
I looked up at Adair, and I could not keep a moment of sorrow out of my eyes when I beheld his short hair up close.
Adair turned his face from me, mistaking my sorrow for pity, I think.
"I will let you taste the ring, Adair, as the queen wishes."
His gold-and-yellow eyes slid back to look at me, though his head was still turned away. "Has the ring not known Hawthorne and Ivi?"
I ignored the question, which was not a lie. I stared into his eyes, concentrated on their beauty. Their inner circles were gold, like metal melted down; the next circles were yellow, the yellow of pale sunlight; and the last and widest circles were almost an orange-yellow like the petals of a marigold. I gave to my eyes the wonder that I saw before me, so that Adair turned his face full to me, and his coldness thawed a moment before anger returned. "Do you think to win with seduction what Doyle could not win with magic?"
"I thought we were supposed to be seducing each other. Isn't that what the queen wants?"
Adair frowned at me, clearly puzzled. It wasn't that he was stupid, but more that he wasn't accustomed to people simply agreeing with his arguments. Most people weren't.
"I... yes... The queen wishes two of the four of us to bed you before you come before her."
"Then don't we need for the ring to recognize at least two of you?" I kept my voice very matter-of-fact, but I stepped in closer to him, so close that a hard thought would have closed the distance. I could feel his body now, not the flesh of it, but the vibrating energy of it, like a line of warmth just above my own. Even through my clothes, even through my shields, and his, I felt his magic like a trembling thing. It nearly took my breath, and it puzzled me. With most of the sidhe, they had to be manifesting power on purpose to feel like this against my skin. Then I realized that vegetative deities were often fertility deities as well. I could boast, or complain, of five different fertility deities in my lineage, but I'd never lain with anyone who had once been worshiped as one.
His body reacted to the power that shivered between us even as he closed his eyes and fought to not react. But it was like, well, a force of nature. There were precious few fertility deities, fallen or otherwise, among the Unseelie; that was a Seelie court power for the most part. My father, Essus, had been an exception, but even he was not a fertility of sex and love but more of sacrifice and crops.
I found enough air to speak, but it was on a whisper that I said, "When the time comes, make sure we do not bring down the walls."
Doyle's voice came from behind me like molasses, slow and dark: "What are you going to do?"
"What Adair wants me to do."
Adair looked at me then, and his eyes held pain, but it was a pain born of desire. He wanted to unleash the power that vibrated between us, to unleash it and let it spill between us, over us. Like me, he had not felt the rush of another's magic that so mirrored his own in a very long time.
I was not such a fool as to believe it was the sight of me that filled his eyes with such need. It was the power that trembled and beat like a third pulse between us. I'd been near Adair before and never felt so much as a twinge of such things. Only two things, perhaps three, had changed. One, he was nude, and he was one of the guards who did not participate in the casual nudity of the court or the casual teasing. He seemed to believe, as had Doyle and Frost once, that if there was no release then they did not wish to play. I stood there, wanting to close that last inch of distance between us and near afraid to. So much power already, what would it be like to touch his skin, to let my body sink in against that power, and the power that lay in the muscles and meat of him.
I put my hands out to either side of his waist, against the slick black stone of the door. Even that cold touch could not cool the rising power between us. His body was no longer ignoring me, but standing firm and solid, tight against his own stomach, though he lay a little to one side, a graceful, thick curve instead of the straightness I'd become accustomed to.
I raised my gaze back up until I found his eyes again. With every other tricolored iris each individual shade burned brighter, but as Adair's power spilled through his eyes, it was as if the colors became one, the golden yellow of sunshine. His eyes were simply yellow light, as if two tiny, perfect suns had come to rise in his face.
It took him two attempts to whisper, "Princess."
The power breathed and writhed between us, as if our two magicks were a line of air, one hot, one cold, so that as they mixed, storms would rise. I steadied myself, against the stones and slowly, slowly, began to lean into that warmth.
It was like bathing in power, and I mourned that I wore clothes and could not feel what this was like on my bare skin. But I would not have stopped now, not even to undress. I would not lose an inch of closeness to the trembling heat. A second before my body touched his, Adair said, "The ring..."
Our bodies touched, and the magic thrust through us both, tearing a cry from our throats, stripping us of our shields and most of our control. We filled the hallway with shadows. My skin glowed like the moon on the brightest of nights. Adair glowed as if the sun in his eyes had spilled over his skin. It wasn't that he was formed of light, but as if his skin lay just over the light, like a film of water over a fire.
But it wasn't hot, this fire, it was warm. A warmth to keep you safe on a winter's night. A warmth to bring your fields back to life after the long cold. A warmth to drive desire through your body, and all other thoughts from your mind. It was the only excuse I had for forgetting that I had not touched him with the ring. All that had gone before was without the touch of that magic.
I raised my hands to caress the sides of his body, and the ring brushed against him, the lightest of touches, and the world trembled around us, as if the air itself had drawn a breath. Adair began to fall backward. He put one arm around my waist, and the other had a sword naked in it, before his back hit something solid.
We were half standing, half leaning inside a stone alcove. Adair shoved me behind him, so that his tall body blocked most of the opening, and hid me from sight. I stumbled in a small hole and fell back against the limbs of a small dead tree that covered the back of the alcove. The light in our skins had not died away, so that it bounced shadows on the crumbling stone and the rock-strewn hole at my feet. I knew this alcove, but it was floors lower, and had never been near my aunt's rooms.
Doyle's voice came: "You are safe. This is no attack."
"Then what is it?" Adair said, and his voice held a tension that was only a little reassured by Doyle's words.
"The queen's doors moved through the stone as if the stones were water," Barinthus said, "and the alcove appeared behind you."
"You know that the sithen rearranges itself," Doyle said.
"Not this suddenly," Adair said.
Now that I knew I wasn't in imminent danger, I moved my feet, carefully, out of the empty pool. Once it had been a bubbling spring. The story was that the spring had a fruit tree behind it, so that from the outside the tree was small like an apple tree espaliered against the stones, but if you knelt at the spring to drink or lay offerings, then the tree rose above you and there was a glimpse of meadows behind it. Once there had been entire worlds below ground for the fey to live in. Our hollow hills had hidden other suns and moons, and meadows, and pools, and lakes, from the sight of the humans. But all that had been long gone before I was born. I had seen a few rooms full of dead trees, dead grass, long dead and covered with the dust of centuries.
I touched the tree at my back, for the wall ended within my arm's length. The tree was small and pinned against it. The wood was dry and felt lifeless, but a few crumbling leaves clung here and there, and the trunk seemed thick for a tree that was barely taller than I.
There was hardly room for me to stand with a foot on either side of the dry pebbled basin. Adair's back took up almost all the opening, save for a small space above his head. Barinthus would have been too tall to stand inside the stone arch.
The light was pulling back from Adair's body, leaving a wash of red, as if the sun were setting across his lower back and buttocks. The white in my own skin was fading as well, but it was merely the dying of the light. Adair's body held a wash of colors, like the sky itself.
Adair moved out of the alcove, only a step. He was still close enough for me to touch his lower back. The moment I did, the color flushed deep crimson under his skin, and he let out a strangled cry. That one touch seemed to stagger him, because he groped for the stone wall.
He looked back at me, his eyes swimming down to three golden circles of color, still brighter than they had begun, but they no longer shone like small individual suns. He managed to gasp out, "What did you do to me?"
I could feel his power on my fingertips where I'd traced his skin. Could feel it, heavy and thick upon my fingers, like the heavy blood of trees, but there was nothing to see on my hand, only that sensation of thick liquid. I didn't know what I'd done to him, so what could I say?
I started to reach out to him, to offer the power on my fingers back to him, but something stopped me. Suddenly I knew what I needed to do. I moved to the front of the alcove and knelt inside it, in front of the dry spring bed. There, to the side, hidden in the dry leaves, was a small wooden cup. It was cracked on one side. Cracked with age and disuse.
"Come, Meredith, let us see the queen." It was Barinthus's voice.
Doyle said, "Not yet, Barinthus, wait a moment."
"You opened the door while I was distracted," Adair said, and his voice held anger again. "It was a trick!"
I held the dirty cup in my two hands, for it had no handle, and my hands were too small to hold it comfortably one-handed. I held it toward the place in the rock where the water had once bubbled forth. I knew exactly where the water should have flowed from. I knew it even though I had never seen it. I touched the cup to the rock, just below the opening.
"There is no water to be had from this place, Princess," Adair said.
I ignored him and held the cup against the rock. I sent the power on my fingers into that small dark opening, spread it on the crack like invisible jam, so thick, so rich. I knew in that instant that it had been meant for another more real liquid to be spread upon it. But this would do; this, too, was part of Adair's essence. Part of his power, his maleness. Male energy to touch the opening in the rock, like the opening of a woman. Male and female to bring forth life.
I called my power, let my skin dance with silver and white light, and the moment my power touched his where it lay against the rock, water trickled from the opening, filling the cracked cup.
Someone said, "The queen is coming."
Adair touched my arm, grabbed it. "You have tricked me!" He jerked me to my feet, spun me around to face him, and as he did water spilled out of the cup, into his surprised face, across his naked chest. The water dripped down his body in clear, shining lines. He let go of me, eyes wide.
The cup in my hands was formed of white wood, polished until it gleamed. Images of fruit and flowers covered the wood, and peeking out of that lovely tangle of vines and leaves were the faces of men. Not just one green man, but many, like hidden images in a children's puzzle. A woman's image graced the other side of the cup, hair flowing like a cloak down her body. There was a dog on one side of her, and a tree heavy with fruit on the other. She smiled at me from the wooden cup. It was a knowing smile, as if she knew everything I would ever want to know.
Doyle said, voice uncertain, "The queen awaits us inside, Meredith. Are you ready?"
I knelt back at the alcove and found the water trickling clear and sweet into the basin. The dried leaves and debris of years that had filled it were gone. The basin was a roughly round depression full of water-smoothed pebbles and rocks. I held the cup underneath the water, and it gave a small gurgle, flowing faster, as if eager to fill the cup. When the water overflowed the cup, running down my hands, in cool fingers, only then did I stand.
I stood with the cup filled to the brim, more water overflowing down my arms, trailing underneath the sleeves of my jacket. There was energy in the water, a quiet, humming power. With that inner eye, I could see the glow of power in that water, and the wooden cup was like a white star inside my head.
"Who is the cup for?" Doyle asked.
"One who needs healing, though she knows it not." My voice held an echo of the glow in the cup.
"I ask you again, who is the cup for?"
I didn't answer him, because he knew. They all knew. The cup was meant for the Queen of Air and Darkness. The cup would cleanse her, heal her, change her. I knew the cup was meant for her, but I did not know if she would drink it.