A Lick Of Frost

CHAPTER 24

"I DON'T CARE HOW MANY GALLY-TROTS YOUR MAGIC CALLS back," Ash said. "You swore you would lay with us, and you have not done so." He paced the room, hands pulling at his short blond hair as if he would pull it out.

Holly sat on the large white couch with the Gally-trot lying on its back in his lap, or in as much of his lap as it would fit, which meant it filled up a large portion of the large couch. Holly ruffled the dog's chest and stomach. Holly of the hot temper seemed more relaxed than I'd ever seen him.

"The sex was so she'd bring us into our powers. She's brought us power."

"Not sidhe-sided power," Ash said, coming to stand in front of his brother.

"I would rather be goblin," Holly said.

"I would rather be king of the sidhe," Ash said.

"The princess has told you that she is with child," Doyle said.

"You've come too late to the party," Rhys said.

"And whose fault is that?" Ash asked. He came to stand in front of me now. "If you had only bedded us a month ago, then we would have had our chance."

I stared up at him, too numb to react to his anger and disappointment. Someone had put a blanket around me. I huddled in it, cold. Colder than I knew how to cure. So funny, Frost was gone, and I mourned him by being cold.

There were diplomatic answers I could have given. There were many things I could have said, but I simply didn't care. I didn't care enough to mind my tongue.

I stared up at him. Galen slipped onto the couch beside me. He curled his arm around my shoulders. I snuggled in against him. I let him hold me. He had been standing with the others whom Doyle had called into the living room. Standing in case Ash's anger got the better of his sense. The goblin's anger had been so great that Doyle and Rhys were still standing. They wanted to be up and ready. In case this oh so reasonable brother lost his head.

Galen held me, closer now, but it wasn't for fear of Ash. I think he was afraid of what I might do. He was right to be afraid, because I was so unafraid. I felt nothing.

"Your king, Kurag, is happy with the new strength that has returned to the Red Caps," I said. "He is overjoyed at the Galley-trot. When your king is happy, warrior, you are supposed to be happy in his joy." My voice sounded cold but not empty. There was an edge of anger in my voice like a crimson thread in a field of white.

"If we were sidhe, but we are goblin, and kings are fragile things."

Galen moved a little forward beside me. I read his mind, and knew the goblin did, too. He would shield me with his body. But it wasn't that kind of fight.

"Kurag is our ally. If he dies the treaty between us dies with him."

"Yes," Ash said. "Yes, it does."

I laughed, and it was an unpleasant laugh. The kind of laugh you make because you can't cry yet.

The sound startled Ash. It made him take a step backward from me. No anger would have gotten such a reaction, but laughter, he didn't understand it.

"Think before you threaten, goblin. If Kurag dies then we are honor bound to avenge him," I said.

"The Unseelie Court is forbidden to interfere directly in the line of succession of its subsidiary courts," Ash said.

"That is a bargain that the Queen of Air and Darkness made. I am not my aunt. I have made no such agreement to limit my powers."

"Your guards are great warriors, but they cannot prevail against the combined might of the goblins," Ash said.

"As I am not bound by my aunt's agreement, I am not bound by goblin rules."

Ash looked uncertain, as if he was thinking on what I had said but hadn't figured it out yet.

It was Holly who said it. "What will you do, Princess, send your Darkness to assassinate us?" He was still ruffling the huge dog, but his face was no longer simply happy. His red eyes stared at me with a weight and intelligence that I hadn't seen before in him. It was a look more often seen on his brother's face.

"He is no longer merely my Darkness. He will be king." But that had been what I was thinking.

"That is another thing that makes no sense," Ash said. He pointed at Doyle. "How can he be king and father of your child, and he," he pointed at Rhys, "and he?" and at Galen last. "Unless you are having a litter, Princess Meredith, you can't have three fathers."

"Four," I said.

"Who…" Then a look crossed his face and the first bit of caution.

"Killing Frost," Holly said.

"Yes," I said, and my voice was back to sounding empty. My chest actually hurt. I'd heard the phrase brokenhearted, but I hadn't actually felt it before. I'd come close, but never truly. My father's death had destroyed me. My fiancé's betrayal had crushed me. When I thought I'd lost Doyle a month ago in the battle, I had felt like my world would end. But until now, I had not truly been heartbroken.

"You can't have four fathers for two children," Ash insisted, but he had calmed a little. It was almost as if he saw my pain for the first time. I didn't think he cared that I was in pain, but it made him more cautious.

"You're too young to remember Clothra," Rhys said.

"I've heard the story, we've all heard the story, but that was just a story," Ash said.

"No," Rhys said, "it was not. She had a single child by all of her brothers. He was marked by each of them. The boy became high king. He was called Lugaid Riab nDerg, of the red stripes."

"I always thought the stripes referred to some kind of birthmark," Galen said.

Doyle's deep voice filled the room, and held an echo of godhead. "I saw that the princess will have two children. They will have three fathers each, as Clothra's son did."

"Don't try your sidhe magic on me," Ash said.

"It is not sidhe magic, it is god magic, and the same Deities serve and are served by all of feykind," Doyle said.

I was running slow, but I finally heard what he'd said enough to say, "Three fathers apiece? You, Rhys, Galen, Frost, and who?"

"Mistral and Sholto."

I stared at him.

"But that was a month ago," Galen said.

"A month ago," Doyle said, "and do you remember what we did when we arrived back in Los Angeles that night?"

Galen seemed to think about it, then he said, "Oh." He kissed me on the top of my head. "But I didn't even have intercourse with Merry. We'd all agreed I'd make a lousy king. Oral sex doesn't get you pregnant."

"Kiddies," Rhys said, "the raw magic of faerie was out that night. I was still Cromm Cruach, with the ability to heal and kill with a touch. Merry had given life to the dead gardens with Mistral and Abe. She had raised the wild hunt with Sholto. Wild magic was out that night. We were all touched by it. The rules are different when that kind of magic is out and about."

"You were the one who started the sex when we got home, Rhys. Did you know this could happen?" Galen asked.

"I was Cromm Cruach again, a god again. I wanted to feel Merry under me while I was still…" Rhys put his hands out as if he couldn't quite put it into words.

"I was just happy that everyone was alive," I said, and my heart squeezed harder, as if it would truly break. The first hot, hard tear crept out of my eye.

"He is not dead, Merry," Galen said. "Not really."

"He is a stag, and no matter how magical and wonderful that is, he is not my Frost. He cannot hold me. He cannot talk to me. He is not…"

I stood up, letting the blanket fall to the floor. "I need some air." I started for the far hallway that would lead farther into the house and eventually to the backyard. Galen got up to follow me.

"No," I said. "No. Just no." I kept walking.

Doyle stopped me at the doorway. "I must finish this talk with our goblin allies."

I nodded, fighting not to break down completely. I couldn't afford to appear that weak in front of the goblins. But I felt like I was suffocating, I had to get somewhere where I could breathe. Somewhere where I could break down.

I started down the corridor at a fast walk. My hounds were suddenly beside me. I started to run and they leaped with me. I needed air. I needed light. I needed…

I heard voices behind me, my guard, calling, "Princess, you shouldn't be alone…"

The hallway changed to a different hallway. I was suddenly outside the dining room. Only the faerie sithen itself was capable of moving with my wish.

I stood there for a moment outside the big double doors, wondering what had we done to Maeve's house. Was the house now a sithen? Was the whole house now part of faerie? No answers, but just through these doors, and through the French doors that had never been there before was outside, and air, and light, and I wanted it.

I opened the doors. I walked carefully on the marble in the heels that I'd worn to please the twins. I thought about taking off the shoes, but I wanted outside first. The dogs's nails clicked on the floor. The Red Caps stood when I entered.

They went down on one knee, even Jonty. "My queen," he said.

"Not queen yet, Jonty," I said.

He grinned up at me, and it was strangely unfinished without his pointy teeth and more frightening face. It didn't quite look like him until I saw his eyes. Jonty was still in there in those eyes.

"Once all rulers were chosen by the gods. It is the old way. The way such things are meant to be done."

I shook my head. I had never wanted less to be ruler of faerie. The cost, as I'd feared, was so terribly high. Too high.

"Your words are well meant, but my heart is heavy."

"The Killing Frost is not gone."

"He will not help me raise his child. That is gone, Jonty." I started across the vast floor toward the far doors. The windows were a line of brightness. I realized with a start that it had been night when we began this, and was still night outside the main house, but through the windows it was bright day. The sunlight had moved, shadows changing across the floor in the hour since it had appeared, but it ran on a different time than the outside world. It was as if the doors led into the heart of this new sithen. Was this our garden? Our heart of faerie?

Mungo bumped my hand. I stroked his solid head and looked into those eyes. Those eyes that were just a little too wise for a dog. Minnie rubbed against my other leg. They were telling me in the only way they could that I was right.

Rhys and Doyle said that the night we had conceived the babes inside me had been a night of wild magic, but this was wild magic, too. This was creation magic, and that was ancient magic. The most ancient magic imaginable.

The doors opened without my hand reaching out. The breeze was cool and warm at the same time. There was a scent of roses.

I stepped through the doors. They closed behind me and vanished. It didn't frighten me. I had wanted to be outside, and the hallways had changed for me. Inside the Unseelie sithen I could call doors. I didn't want a door right now. I wanted to be alone. The dogs were about as much company as I could stand. I wanted to grieve, and those closest to me were too torn between happiness and sorrow. Sorrow for Frost, but happiness at being kings. I could not bear the mingling of joy and sadness in them anymore. I would be joyful later. But for now, I needed to give myself over to other things. I stood in the center of a sun-drenched clearing with the dogs on either side of me. I raised my face to the heat of that sun and let go of my control. I gave myself over to my grief, with no hands to hold me and be happy. I held the grass-covered earth, the warmth of the dogs fur, and finally wept.