A Caress Of Twilight

Chapter 37

We were finishing lunch the next day when Taranis called back.

I bolted the last of my fruit salad and fresh bread while Doyle spoke with him. Maeve was pregnant; the magic had quickened inside her. Taranis couldn't know that yet, but I feared what he would do when he found out. It added one more little stress to dealing with the king.

I'd chosen a royal purple sundress with a scoop neck and one of those little ties in back. It was very feminine, very nonthreatening, and a style that had been in vogue for a very long time. The only thing that had changed was the hem length. Sometimes when dealing with the Seelie Court, you wanted to go slow into the twenty-first century.

I sat on the freshly made bed, and it wasn't accidental that the purple of my dress complemented the burgundy bedspread and matched the purple pillows scattered among the burgundy and black ones.

I had refreshed the red lipstick and left the rest alone. We were going for dramatic natural. I had my ankles crossed, even though he couldn't see them, and my hands folded in my lap. It wasn't formal, but it was about the best I could do without a formal answering room.

Doyle stood on one side and Frost on the other. Doyle wore his usual black jeans, black T-shirt. He'd added black boots that reached to his thighs, then folded them down to just above his knees. He'd even pulled the spider necklace out of his shirt so that it gleamed in plain sight on his black shirt. The spider was part of his livery, his crest, and I'd once seen him cause the skin of a human magician's body to split as the spiders depicted in the jewels poured out of the man until he'd become nothing but a writhing mass of them. The unfortunate victim had been the man Lieutenant Peterson thought I had killed.

Frost had gone more traditional, dressed in a thigh-length tunic of white, edged with silver, white, and gold embroidery. Tiny flowers and vines were sewn in such detail that you could tell the vines were ivy and roses, with some harebells and violas embroidered around them. A broad belt of white leather, with a silver buckle, fastened at the tunic's waist. His sword, Winter Kiss, Geamhradh Pog, hung at his side. He left the enchanted blade at home most days because it couldn't stop modern bullets; it didn't possess that kind of magic. But for an audience with the king, the sword was perfect. Its handle was carved bone, inset with silver. The bone had a patina like old ivory, rich and warm, like pale wood polished from all the centuries of being handled.

They both did their best to stand to one side and not overwhelm me physically, but it was hard work. Even if I'd been standing up, it would have been hard work; sitting down it was nearly impossible, but we were trying to have me seem friendly. They would do the unfriendly parts if it needed doing. It was a sort of good cop, bad cop, but for politics.

Taranis, King of Light and Illusion, sat on a golden throne. He was clothed in light. His undertunic was the movement of sunlight through leaves, soft dappled light, with pinpoints of bright yellow sunlight, like tiny starbursts appearing through the light and shadow. The overtunic was the bright, almost blinding yellow of full summer sunlight on bright leaves. It was both green and gold, and neither. It was light, not cloth, and the color changed and moved as he moved. Even the rise and fall of his breathing made it dance and flow.

His hair fell in waves of golden light around a face that was so bright with light that only his eyes shone out of the dazzlement. Those eyes were three circles of brilliant, livid blue, like three circles of three different oceans, each drowning in sunlight, each a different shade of blue; but like the water they were borrowed from, they changed and shifted as if unseen currents boiled within.

So much of him moved, and not in complementary ways. It was like looking at different kinds of light on different days in different parts of the world but having them be forced together. Taranis was a collage of illumination that flashed and flowed and fluttered, and never in the same direction. I had to close my eyes. It was dizzying. I felt I'd grow sick if I looked at it long enough. I wondered if Doyle or Frost were feeling a little motion sick, or if it was just me.

But that wasn't something I could ask aloud in front of the king. Aloud I said, "King Taranis, my part-mortal eyes cannot behold your splendor without feeling quite overwhelmed. I would beg you lessen your glory so that I might look upon you without growing faint."

His voice came in a rush of music, as if he was singing some wondrous song, but he was only speaking. In my head, I knew it wasn't the most beautiful sound I'd ever heard, but my ears heard something beyond beguiling. "Whatever you need to make this conversation pleasant will be given to you. Behold, I am more easy upon mortal eyes."

I opened my eyes cautiously. He was still as bright, but the light didn't move and flow so rapidly. It was as if he'd slowed down the play of light, and his face was not quite as dazzling. I could see more of the outline of his jaw, but there was still no hint of the beard that I knew he wore. His golden waves were more solid, less radiant. I knew what color his hair was, and this wasn't it. But at least it didn't make my head spin to look at him anymore.

Well, except for the eyes. He'd kept his eyes that swimming blue play of light and water. I smiled, and asked, "Where are those beautiful green eyes that I remember from childhood? I had looked forward to seeing them again. Or has my memory deceived me and it is some other sidhe's eyes that I thought were yours? These eyes were the green of emeralds, the green of summer leaves, the green of deep, still water in a shaded pool."

The men had given me tips on dealing with Taranis, from centuries of doing it themselves and seeing the queen do it. Tip number one had been: You never went wrong flattering Taranis; if it was sweet to the ears, he tended to believe it. Especially if a woman said it.

He gave a musical chuckle, and his eyes were suddenly just as lovely as I remembered them from childhood. It was as if the huge iris of his eye was a flower with many, many petals, each one green, but different shades of green, some edged with white, some with black. Until I'd seen Maeve Reed's true eyes, I'd thought that Taranis's eyes were the prettiest sidhe eyes I'd ever seen.

I was able to give him a true smile. "Yes, your eyes are as beautiful as I remember them."

He finally appeared as a being formed of golden light with brighter gold hair in waves around his shoulders. His green eyes seemed almost to float atop that golden light like flowers riding on water. The eyes were real, as extraordinary as they were, but the rest was not. If you had tried to take a photo of him now, you'd have gotten those eyes and just a blur. Modern cameras don't like that much magic being pointed in their direction.

"Greetings, Princess Meredith, Princess of Flesh, or so I hear. Congratulations. It is a truly frightening power. It will make the sidhe of the Unseelie Court think more than twice about challenging you to a duel." His voice had calmed to an almost normal, though lovely sound.

"It is good to be protected at last."

I think he frowned. It was difficult to tell through all the glory in his face. "I sorrow that you had such a dangerous time of it in the dark court. I assure you that at the Seelie Court you would not find life so difficult."

I blinked, and fought to keep my face pleasant. I remembered what life at the Seelie Court had been for me, and difficult didn't begin to sum it up. I had been quiet too long, because the king said, "If you would come to our feast in your honor, I can guarantee that you will find it pleasant and most fair."

I took a deep breath, let it out, smiled. "I am most honored at the invitation, King Taranis. A feast in my honor at the Seelie Court is a most unexpected surprise."

"A pleasant one, I hope," and he laughed, and the laugh was again that ringing joyous sound. I had to smile when I heard it. The sound even pulled a laugh from my own lips.

"Oh, most pleasant, Your Highness." I meant it when I said it. Of course it was pleasant to be invited by this glowing man with the extraordinary eyes to a feast in my honor among the beautiful, shining court. Nothing could be better than that.

I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath, then held it for a few heartbeats, while Taranis kept talking in a progressively more beautiful voice. I concentrated on my breathing, not his voice. I felt my breath, the ebb and flow of my body. I concentrated on just drawing air in and letting it out, on controlling it, feeling my body pull it inside me, then holding it until it was almost painful not to exhale, finally letting the air trickle slowly out.

I heard Doyle's voice moving smoothly into the silence I'd left. I caught pieces of it as I performed the breathing exercise and began to be aware of what was outside my own body again.

"The princess is overawed by your presence, King Taranis. She is, after all, a relative child. It is difficult to face such power unaffected."

Doyle had been the one who warned me that Taranis was so good at personal glamour that he used it routinely against other sidhe. And no one told him it was illegal, because he was the king and most feared him. Feared him too much to point out that he was cheating. It had been Doyle's warning that had prepared me to do the breathing exercise rather than try to be brave and tough it out. I'd spend most of my life around beings that had better persuading glamour than I did, so I'd learned how to break free of it. Sometimes it required me to do things that were noticeable, like the breathing. Most sidhe would rather have been bespelled than show just how hard they found it to withstand another sidhe's power. I had never been able to afford that kind of pride.

I opened my eyes slowly, blinking until I felt myself slide more firmly into the here and now. I smiled. "My apologies, King Taranis, but Doyle is correct. I am a touch overwhelmed by your glowing presence."

He smiled. "My most sincere apologies, Meredith. I do not mean to cause you discomfort."

He probably didn't, but he wanted me to come to his little party. He wanted that badly enough to try to «persuade» me magically.

I wanted so badly to simply ask why it was so important that I come to his little soiree. But Taranis knew exactly who had raised me, and no one ever accused my father of being less than polite. Direct sometimes, but always polite. I couldn't pretend to be an ignorant human, as I had with Maeve Reed. He'd know better. The problem was, without direct questions, I wasn't sure how to learn what I needed to know.

But it didn't matter. The King was far too busy trying to bewitch me to worry about anything else.

I didn't try to match glamour with one of the greatest illusionists the courts have ever birthed. I tried truth first. "I remember your hair like a sunset woven into waves. So many sidhe have golden-yellow hair, but only you have the colors of the setting sun." I did a pretty little frown, an expression that women have been using for centuries to good effect. "Or do I misremember? Most of my memories of you when you were not clothed in glamour are from a child's memory. Perhaps I only dreamed of such color, such beauty."

I wouldn't have fallen for it; none of my guards would have believed it; Andais would have slapped me for such obvious manipulation. But none of us had known the social coddling that Taranis had grown accustomed to. He'd had centuries of people speaking to him just like that, or even sweeter. If all you ever hear is how wondrous you are, how lovely, how perfect, is it really anyone's fault that you begin to believe it? If you believe it, then it no longer seems silly or manipulative. It seems like the truth. The true secret was that I did think that his honest form was more attractive than the light show. I was being honest, and flattering. It could be a powerful combination.

It was as if the golden waves were twisted, carved into individual locks of hair, so that his true hair didn't simply appear all at once but was brought slowly into view, like a striptease. His true color was that crimson that sunsets can have, as if the entire sky is filled with neon blood. But woven through were locks of that red-orange that sometimes hap pens when the sun is just sinking below the horizon, as if the sun itself had been crushed across the sky. A few strands of hair played throughout, like the yellow of the sun drawn down to threads that winked and shimmered through the more solid waves of his hair.

I let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding. I had not lied when I'd said his natural color was more spectacular than the illusion had been.

"Does this suit you better, Meredith?" His voice was rich enough to touch, as if I could have grabbed handfuls of it and clutched it to my body. I couldn't quite figure out what it would feel like in my arms, but something thick, sweet, maybe. Like covering yourself in cotton candy, all air and spun sugar, something to melt and grow sticky.

I jerked back to myself when Doyle touched my shoulder. Taranis had been using more than simple glamour. Glamour changes the appearance of something, but you still have the choice of accepting it or not. Glamour might make a dry leaf appear to be a sweet bit of cake, and you are more likely to eat the cake illusion than the dry leaf of fact; but you must still choose to eat it. The glamour changes only the experience. It doesn't make your choice to accept it.

What Taranis had just done would try to make my choice for me. "Did you just ask me something, Your Highness?"

"He did," Doyle said, and his voice reminded me of dark, thick, sweet things, like honeyed mead done nearly black. I realized that a touch of glamour made me think that. But Doyle wasn't trying to control me; he was trying to help me fight against the King's power.

"I asked if you would do me the honor of attending a feast in your honor."

"I am honored that you would go to such trouble, Your Highness. I would be more than happy to attend such a function in a month or so. Things are so busy right now, Yule preparations and all, you know. I do not have a cadre of servants to make my plans go as smoothly as yours." I smiled, but inside I was screaming at him. How dare he try to manipulate me like I was some befuddled human or lesser fey. This was not the way you treated an equal. I shouldn't have been surprised. All along his treatment of me had been shabby, at best. He didn't see me as an equal. Why should he treat me as one?

I could turn my hair a different color, tan my skin, make small changes to my appearance. I was a master of that kind of glamour. But I had nothing that would keep me safe from the immense power Taranis was so casually throwing at me.

What did I do better than Taranis? I had the hand of flesh, and he didn't, but that was something that could only kill, and only by touch. I didn't want to kill him, just keep him at bay.

His sweet voice continued. "I would very much enjoy your company before Yule."

Doyle's hand tightened on my shoulder. I reached up to touch his hand, and the feel of his skin helped steady me. What did I do better than Taranis?

I moved my hand so that Doyle wrapped his fingers around mine. His hand was very real, very solid. It was as if the touch of his hand helped push back that heavy voice and shining beauty.

"I would hate to say no to Your Highness, but surely the visit could wait until after Yule."

His power pushed at me in a nearly raw wave. If it had been fire, I would have burst into flames; if it had been water, I would have drowned; but it was persuasion, almost a type of seduction, and I could no longer remember why I didn't want to go to the Seelie Court. Of course I would go.

A sudden movement stopped me from saying yes. Doyle had sat down behind me, putting his legs on either side of my body so that I was cradled against him. His hand stayed pressed against mine. It stopped me from saying yes, but it wasn't enough. The press of his skin against my hand was still more precious to me than his entire clothed body against me.

I reached out blindly, and Frost found my hand. He squeezed it, and that helped, too.

I looked back at the mirror. Taranis was still a shining thing, beautiful like a work of art, but he was not the kind of beauty that made my pulse race. It was almost as if he was trying too hard for me to take him seriously. He looked a little ridiculous in his shining mask and his clothes made of sunlight.

His power surged again, like a warm slap in my face. "Come to me, Meredith. Come to me in three days, and I will show you a feast the likes of which you have never seen."

The opening door saved me that time. It was Galen. He stared at Doyle on the bed and Frost holding my hand. "You called, Doyle?"

I hadn't heard Doyle say anything. I think I couldn't hear anything but the king's voice for a moment or two.

I found my voice; it was thin and breathy. "Send in Kitto. Just as he is, please."

Galen raised his eyebrows at that but gave a quick bow, unseen from the mirror, and fetched the goblin. I'd worded my request purposefully. Kitto wore very few clothes when he curled in his hidey-hole. I wanted skin touching mine, and I didn't want to ask the guards to strip.

Kitto came into the room wearing nothing but his short-shorts; from Taranis's view he would probably look nude. Let him think what he wished.

Kitto shot a questioning look at Doyle and me. He was careful not to look in the mirror. I placed Doyle's hand against the side of my neck and held out my free hand to Kitto. He came to me without question. His small hand wrapped around mine, and I pulled him to the floor so that he sat at my feet. I pulled him in against my bare legs. I had worn no hose, only purple open-toed sandals to match my dress.

Kitto curled his body around my legs, and the warm brush of his skin on mine, the feel of his hands, his arms around my bare legs underneath the skirt steadied me.

I began to realize a method behind the madness when Andais spoke to the Seelie Court covered in naked bodies. I'd always assumed she did it as a sly insult to Taranis, but now I wasn't so sure. Maybe the insult began with the king, and not the queen.

"I thank you for the honor you do me, Taranis, but I cannot in good conscience agree to a feast before Yule. I would be most honored to attend once the busy season of Yule is past." My voice came out very clear, very steady, almost clipped.

Doyle finally figured out that I was after skin, because he kept his hands busy on my neck, caressing the parts of my shoulders and arms that showed. Normally, the feel of his hands running over my skin would have been seductive; now it was just something to keep me anchored.

The king lashed at me with his power, fashioning it into a whip that hurt even as it felt good. It tore a gasp from my throat, and I would have flung myself at the mirror, even cried yes, if I could have spoken, if I could have moved. In that one desperate moment, three things happened: Doyle laid a gentle kiss on my neck, Kitto licked the back of my knee, and Frost sat down on the bed to raise my hand to his mouth.

The touch of their mouths were three anchors that kept me from slipping away. Frost slipped to the floor on the other side from Kitto and slid my finger into his mouth, perhaps to hide his actions from Taranis. I wasn't sure, and I did not care. The feel of his mouth was like a velvet glove around my flesh.

I let out a shaking breath — and I could think again, a little. Doyle ran his fingers from the base of my skull to the top of my head, kneading along my scalp under my hair. What should have been terribly distracting cleared my mind.

"I have tried to be polite, Taranis, but you have been as blunt with your magic as I am about to be with my words. Why is it so important that you see me at all, let alone before Yule?"

"You are my kinswoman. I wish to renew our acquaintance. Yule is a time of coming together."

"You have barely acknowledged my existence most of my life. Why do you care to renew our relationship now?"

His power seemed to fill the room, as if I were trying to breathe something more solid than air. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't see. The world was narrowing down to light; light was everywhere.

A sharp pain brought me back so abruptly that I screamed. Kitto had bitten my leg like a dog trying to get my attention, but it had worked. I reached down and stroked his face. "This interview is over, Taranis. You are being unaccountably rude. No sidhe does this to another sidhe, only to the lesser fey."

Frost rose to his feet to blank the mirror, but Taranis said, "I have heard many rumors about you, Meredith. I wish to see for myself what you have become."

"What do you see, Taranis?" I asked.

"I see a woman where once there was a girl. I see a sidhe where once there was a lesser fey. I see many things, but some things will go unanswered until I see you in person. Come to me, Meredith, come and let us know one another."

"Truth between us, Taranis, I can barely function in the face of your power. You know it, and I know it. This is from a distance. I would be a fool to let you try this in person."

"I give you my word that I will not vex you in this manner if you will but come to my court before Yule."

"Why before Yule?"

"Why after Yule?" he countered.

"Because you seem to want it so badly, and that makes me suspicious of your motives."

"So, because I want a thing too much, you would deny me, just for the wanting of it."

"No. It is because you want a thing too much and seem willing to do anything within your power to get it that I fear your wanting of it."

Even through the golden mask I saw him frown. He wasn't following my logic, though it seemed clear enough to me. "You have frightened me, Taranis. It is as simple as that. I will not put myself in your grasp, not until you take some very serious oaths. . that you will behave yourself around me and mine."

"If you will come before Yule, I will promise whatever you like."

"I will not come before Yule, and you will still promise whatever I like. Or I will not come at all."

He began to shine, his red hair glinting like hard blood. "You would defy me?"

"I cannot defy you because you have no power over me."

"I am Ard-Ri, the high king."

"No, Taranis, you are high king of the Seelie Court, as Andais is high queen of the Unseelie. But you are not my Ard-Ri. I am not of your court. You made that clear to me when I was younger."

"You would hold old grudges, Meredith, when I extend my hand in peace."

"I will not be swayed by pretty words, Taranis, or pretty sights. You nearly beat me to death once when I was a child. You cannot blame me for fearing you now, not when you went to such trouble to train me to fear you."

"That is not what I meant for you to learn," he said, without denying that he'd beaten me. At least that part was honest.

"What did you mean for me to learn, then?"

"Not to question your king."

I sank into the feel of Doyle's hands and mouth on the back of my neck, on Frost's tongue licking across my palm, on Kitto's teeth biting gently along my leg. "You are not my king, Taranis. Andais is my queen, and I have no king."

"You seek a king, Meredith, or so rumor says."

"I seek a father for my children, and he will be king of the Unseelie Court."

"I have told Andais long that what is ill with her is lack of a king, a true king."

"And are you such a king, Taranis?"

"Yes," he said, and I think he believed it.

I didn't know what to say to that. Finally I said, "I seek a different kind of king then, one who understands that a true queen is worth any amount of kings."

"You insult me," he said, and the light that had been friendly before became harsh, and I wished for sunglasses to shield from the unfriendly glare.

"No, Taranis, you insult me, and my queen, and my court. If you have no better words for me than this, then we have nothing to discuss." I nodded at Frost, and he blanked the mirror before Taranis could do it himself.

We remained in silence for a second or so, then Doyle said, "He's always thought himself quite the ladies' man."

"Do you mean that was some sort of seduction?"

I felt Doyle shrug, then his arms encircled me, hugging me to him. "For Taranis, anyone who isn't impressed with him is a thorn in his side. He must scratch at anyone who does not worship him. He must pluck at it, like a small piece of grit in the eye, always there, always hurting."

"Is this why Andais talks to him nude and covered in men?"

"Yes," Frost answered.

I looked up at him, still standing by the mirror. "Surely it's an insult to do such to another ruler?"

He shrugged. "They have been trying to seduce one another, or kill one another, for centuries."

"Killing or seduction — is there a third choice?"

"They have found their third choice," Doyle said against my ear. "An uneasy peace. I think Taranis seeks to control you — and through you, eventually the Unseelie Court."

"Why is he so pressing about Yule?" I asked.

"Once there were sacrifices at Yule," Kitto said softly. "To ensure the light would return, they slew the Holly King to make way for the rebirth of the Oak King, the rebirth of the light."

We all looked at one another. It was Frost who said, "Do you think the nobles at his court are finally getting suspicious of his lack of children?"

"I have not heard even the breath of that rumor," Doyle said. Which meant that he had his own spies in that court.

"It was always a king to be sacrificed for a king," Kitto said. "Never a queen."

"Perhaps Taranis wants to change custom," Doyle said, holding me close. "You will not be going to the Seelie Court before Yule. There is no reason good enough."

I sank back against his body, let the solid circle of his arms be my comfort. "I agree," I said softly. "Whatever Taranis is planning, I want no part of it."

"We are all agreed then," said Frost.

"Yes," Kitto said.

It was unanimous decision, but somehow not very comforting.