Swallowing Darkness - Laurell K. Hamilton [94]
“You lie.”
“I led the wild hunt to get my revenge. If it had not been the absolute truth, the hunt would either have not answered my call, or when it arrived the hounds of the hunt would have torn me limb from limb. They did not. They helped me hunt Cair down. They helped me kill her, and save the fathers of my children, who were still being attacked.”
She shook her head, but looked a little less sure of herself. A bit, but I knew her. Her certainty would return. It always did. She would get a glimpse of how wrong she was, or how evil her allies were, then she’d shake off that flitting insight and embrace her ignorance like a well-worn cloak.
I leaned forward in Sholto’s lap, my hand finding his hand so that I held both his and Doyle’s hands. I leaned toward the mirror on the wall and spoke quickly, trying to get through this small chink in my mother’s willful ignorance.
“Mother, the wild hunt does not do the bidding of liars or traitors. Taranis did rape me, but he was too late. I am to have twins, and the Goddess has shown me who the fathers are.”
“You have two babies, but three men. Who is to be left out?” She was retreating from the harshest truths to concentrate on smaller things. Not a question about the rape, or the traitors whom the wild hunt had helped us destroy, but the math of fathers and babies.
“The history of the sidhe is full of goddesses who had children by more than just one man, Mother. Clothra is the one most oft named, but there have been others. Apparently, I will need many kings, not just one.”
“You have been bespelled, Meredith. All know that the King of the sluagh is a great one for glamour.” She was back to her certainties. Sometimes I wondered why I tried with her. Oh, she was my mother. I suppose we never quite give up on parents. Maybe they feel the same way about us.
“Faerie itself has made us a couple, Mother.” I unbuttoned my tight-fitting cuff, and rolled it back as much as the coat would allow, which was not much. Sholto’s sleeve was looser, so that more of his rose and thorn tattoo showed, but enough showed to prove that the tattoos were a pair.
She shook her head. “You can get a tattoo at any human shop.”
I laughed then. I couldn’t help it.
She looked startled. “There is nothing funny here, Meredith.”
“No, Mother, there is not.” But my face was alight with humor. “But it is either laugh or start screaming at you, and I don’t think that would be helpful.”
I pushed my sleeve back down and closed the bone button once more. Sholto followed my lead. I stood and walked out of sight of the mirror, just long enough to fetch something from the table near the far wall.
Mistral said, “Do you think that wise?”
I looked at the table that held all the ancient weapons that had come to us. Was it a good idea? I wasn’t entirely certain, but I was tired. I was tired of people trying to kill us. I was tired of people assuming that if they could strip me of my men I would be a pawn to be used as they saw fit. I’d had enough.
I hesitated with my hand over the sword Aben-dul. I prayed. “Goddess, do I show them what I am? Do I make them afraid of me?” I waited for some sign, and thought at first that she would not answer me, then a faint perfume of roses came. I felt the tattoo on my arm flare to life, and the moth on my stomach flutter. The weight of the rose and mistletoe crown wove itself to life on my head.
I wrapped my hand around the hilt of the sword. I was afraid of it. Afraid of what it could do in my hands. The hand of flesh was a terrible power. With this sword I could use that power from a distance, and no one could take it from my hand without risking the very horror that they were trying to avoid.
I walked back to the mirror with the sword held in one hand like you would hold a flag. I stood in front of Sholto, and held the sword before me.
“Do you know this sword, Mother? Does anyone within sight of this mirror know this sword?”
She frowned, and I was willing to bet that she wouldn’t know it. Mother never cared for Unseelie power. But someone in the