Swallowing Darkness - Laurell K. Hamilton [84]
He gazed up at me, his handsome face anguished. “But it was my hand that struck the blow.”
“If you had not done it, and I could have,” Doyle said, “it would have been my hand.”
Mistral spoke from near the door. “What all has been happening while I was being tortured?”
“There is much to tell,” Doyle said, “but let it wait for a later time.”
Mistral came to stand near us, but there wasn’t much of me left to touch. I offered him a hand, and after a moment’s hesitation, he took it. “I will follow you into exile, Princess.”
“I cannot leave my people,” Sholto said, still on his knees.
“You will be in danger if you stay in faerie,” I said. “They’ve already proven that the three of you are marked for assassination.”
“You must come with us, Sholto, or never leave the safety of the sluagh mound again,” Doyle said.
Sholto hugged my legs, rubbing his cheek along my thighs. “I cannot leave my people without both king and queen.”
“A dead king is not worth anything to them,” Mistral said.
“How long will this exile last?” Sholto asked.
“Until the babies are born, at least,” I said.
“I can travel from Los Angeles to parts of the sluagh mound, for thanks to our magic there is a beach edge inside the mound. So I can visit my people without making myself a target to the sidhe.”
“You say sidhe, not Seelie,” I said. “Why?”
“Onilwyn is not Seelie, but he helped your cousin and her Seelie allies try to kill Mistral. We have enemies on all sides, Meredith. Isn’t that why you are leaving faerie?”
I thought about what he’d said, then could only nod. “Yes, Sholto, that is exactly why we must leave faerie. There are more enemies than even the Goddess herself could have foreseen.”
“Then we go into exile,” Doyle said at my back, his voice rumbling through my body like a purr to ease my nerves.
“We go into exile,” Mistral said.
“Exile,” Sholto said.
We were agreed. Now we just had to find Rhys and Galen and tell them we were leaving.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
DOYLE BORROWED A NONMAGICAL DAGGER FROM SHOLTO, WHO had several weapons stashed around the office. I wondered if his bedroom was similarly armed, and figured that it probably was. It showed a lack of arrogance and a caution that I found commendable in a sidhe warrior, and outrageously attractive in a king. Tonight, we were trying to survive and flee, and extra weapons that weren’t major artifacts of power seemed like a very good idea.
Doyle used the dagger to contact Rhys. Most of faerie used mirrors, but some of the first reflection magic had been with one of the few reflected surfaces that all of us had carried. Even nonwarriors had carried a blade to cut food or do chores. A knife was useful for many things besides killing. You just needed a body fluid to paint across the blade. For whatever reason, mirrors didn’t need that extra personal touch, which was probably why we’d gone to mirrors.
Doyle made a small cut on his finger and painted his blood across the side of the dagger. Then he leaned close and called for Rhys.
I sat in Sholto’s big office chair, my feet curled up underneath me. The living crown had unraveled and gone to wherever it went. Sholto’s hair was also bare once more. Apparently, the power had made its point.
I wasn’t certain if it was the retreat of such major magic, or the events finally catching up with me, but I was cold. It was a cold that had little to do with the constant temperature of the faerie mound. Some types of cold have nothing to do with skin and blankets, but are a cold of heart and soul.
The sword Aben-dul lay on the clean surface of Sholto’s big desk. The images that had appeared on its hilt were still there, frozen in whatever the hilt was made of. It felt like bone, but not quite. There was a woman’s nude body frozen in a miniature attitude of pain and horror, her face melting into the leg of the man above her.
The hand of flesh was one of the most terrible magics that the sidhe possessed. I’d used it only twice, and each time haunted me. If I’d used it on humans it might have been less awful, for they would have died if you turned