Swallowing Darkness - Laurell K. Hamilton [20]
“Gran,” I said, “it’s not…”
“No, child, I know what face I bear, and I know that it takes a special sidhe to love it. I ne’r found that sidhe, but I was not part sidhe. I did na’ have the blood of the court running in my veins. I was a brownie who got uppity, but Cair, she is one of them. It must be a thing of great pain to watch the others with their perfect faces get what she longs for.”
“I know what it is like to be denied a place at court,” Sholto said, “because you are not perfect enough to be bedded. The Unseelie sidhe run scared of my bed, for fear they will breed monsters.”
Gran nodded, and finally looked at him. “I am sorry that I said some of the things I said, Shadow Lord. I should know better’n most what it is to be hated for bein’ less than sidhe.”
He nodded. “The Queen called me Her Creature. Until Merry came to me, I thought I would be doomed to live out my life until I became simply Creature, as Doyle is Darkness.” He smiled at me then, with that intimate look that he hadn’t quite earned yet. It was so odd to be pregnant after only one night with a man. But then, hadn’t that been what had happened with my parents? One night of sex, and my mother had been trapped in a marriage she did not want. Seven years of marriage before she was allowed to divorce him.
“Aye, the courts are cruel, though I had hoped the dark court would be a little less so.”
“They accept more,” Doyle said, “but even the Unseelie have their limits.”
“They saw me as proof that the sidhe were failing as a people, because once they could bed anything and breed true,” Sholto said.
“They saw my mortality as proof that they were dying,” I said.
“And now the two they feared the most may be the saving of us all,” Doyle said.
“Nicely ironic,” Rhys said.
“I must go, Merry-girl,” Gran said.
“Let us test the spell and remove any lingering effects on you,” Doyle said.
She gave him a look that wasn’t entirely friendly. “Rhys and Galen can touch you,” he said. “I do not need to.”
She took a long breath, her thin shoulders going up and down. Then she looked at him with a softer, more thoughtful look. “Aye, ya should look at me, for the thought of you touching me was not a good one. I think the spell lingers in me mind, and it is not good to linger on such thoughts. They grow and fester in the mind and heart.”
He nodded, still holding my hand in his. “They do.”
“Test the spell, Rhys,” she said. “Then cure me of it. I must away, unless you can find a way for me to be proof against such sorceries.”
“I’m sorry, Hettie.”
She smiled at him, then turned a less-happy face to me. “Sorry I am that I will nae be able to help ya through this pregnancy, or help tend the bairns for ya.”
“Me, too,” I said, and meant it. The thought of her leaving hurt my heart.
Rhys held the shining thread out. “I’d like your opinion on it, Doyle.”
Doyle nodded, squeezed my hand, then walked around the bed to Rhys. Neither of them seemed to want to give Gran a clear way to touch me. Was it really that strong a spell, or were they just being cautious?
If it was caution, I couldn’t blame them, but I wanted to say good-bye to Gran. I wanted to touch her, especially if it was the last time I’d see her until after the babies were born. Just thinking that all the way through—when the babies were born—shocked me a little. We’d been trying to get me pregnant for so many months that the pursuit of the pregnancy had been all I’d thought about. That, and staying alive. I hadn’t thought about what it would mean. I hadn’t thought about babies, and children, and having them. It seemed a strange oversight.
“Your face, Merry-girl, so serious,” Gran said.
I looked at her, and remembered being very small, so small that I could curl up in her lap and she had seemed large. I remembered feeling utterly safe, as if nothing in the world could harm me. I had believed that. It must have been before I was six, before the Queen of Air and Darkness,