Swallowing Darkness - Laurell K. Hamilton [73]
I touched his arm, but he pulled away.
“I feared she would hurt you for being with me,” I said. “I am so sorry.”
“I knew it was the price I would pay.” He almost looked at me, but finally let his long gray hair fall between us like a curtain to hide behind. “I was content to pay, because I had hoped…” he shook his head. “I hoped too late.” He turned to Doyle and held out his hand. “I envy you, Captain.”
Doyle came to take his hand, dark to light, clasping forearms together. “I cannot believe the queen did not tell her court the truth.”
“I have only been released from the chains this night, so whatever she told her court, I do not know. I am too far out of favor to be told anything. I was released and lured to my death by one of our own. Onilwyn needs killing, my captain.”
“He betrayed you?”
“He led me into an ambush of Seelie archers, armed with cold iron arrows.”
“This is the first I have heard of it. He will be punished.”
“He’s already been punished,” I said.
They both looked at me. “What do you mean, Merry?” Doyle asked. “Onilwyn is dead.”
“By whose hand?” Mistral asked.
“Mine.”
“What?” Mistral asked.
Doyle touched my arm, and studied my face. “What has happened while I was in the human hospital?”
I told them as quick a version as I could. They were full of questions about the wild hunt, and Doyle held me while I confirmed that Gran was dead.
“The Seelie being at the gates here is partly my fault. I sent the Seelie sidhe who were forced to join the hunt back to Taranis with a message—that I had killed Onilwyn by my own hand, and that the chalice had chosen to come to my hand.”
“Why did you show them the chalice when the queen has forbidden it?” Mistral asked.
“To save your life.”
“You used the chalice to save me?” Mistral asked.
“Yes.”
“You should not have wasted its magic on me. Doyle you had to save, and Sholto, but I was not worth such a risk.”
Doyle looked at me.
“He doesn’t know,” I said.
“I do not think he does.”
Mistral looked from one to the other of us. “What do I not know?”
“I did not mention Clothra’s name without purpose, Mistral. Just as she had one son with three fathers, so I will have two babes with three fathers each.”
“So many kings; what will you do with all of them, Princess?”
“Meredith, Mistral. Call me Meredith. If I am to bear your child, we should at least be on a first-name basis.”
Mistral stared at me for a moment, then shook his head. He turned back to Doyle. “She speaks in riddles. If I had been one of the fathers, the queen would have released me and let me go to the Western lands.”
“We found out only moments before the king abducted Meredith. So there was not time for you to come to us in the Western lands because we were here in faerie, and in St. Louis.”
“Did she not know that I was one of the fathers?” Mistral asked.
“I informed her that Meredith was with child and who the fathers were personally,” Doyle said.
“She unchained me, but she told me nothing.” He turned to me, his eyes full of different colors, as if tiny slices of the sky, or clouds of different colors, were blowing through them. He didn’t seem to know what to think or feel, and his uncertainty was bare in his eyes.
I went to him, touched his arm, and gazed into those uncertain eyes. “You are to be a father, Mistral.”
“But I was only with you twice.”
I smiled. “You know what they say; once is enough.”
He smiled then, a little uncertainly. He glanced at Doyle. “Is it true?” “It is. I was there when the visions spoke loudly to more than just Meredith. We are both to be fathers.” Doyle flashed that white smile in his dark face.
Mistral’s face filled with light. His eyes were suddenly the blue of a clear, summer sky. He touched my face very gently, as if afraid I would break. “Pregnant, with my child?” He made it a question.
“Yes,” I said.
I watched clouds slide across his eyes, like a reflection. His eyes were the color of a rainy sky. That sky began to rain down his strong, pale cheeks. I watched him cry, and of all the possible reactions; that was not