Swallowing Darkness - Laurell K. Hamilton [97]
I sighed. “Well, that’s disappointing.”
Doyle came to me. “We need to go outside and welcome our human rescuers, but Merry, are you truly thinking of assassination as a cure for our problems?” There was no judgment on his face, just that patient waiting. That look that said that he simply wanted to know.
“Let us just say that I am no longer ruling out any solution to our problems,” I said.
He cupped my chin in his fingers, and looked deeply into my eyes. “You mean that. What is it that has made you suddenly so much harder?” Then his fingers dropped away, and his face looked uncertain. “I am a fool. You watched your grandmother die.”
I grabbed his arm, made him look at me. “I also had to watch you carried out by doctors, and thought you might die again. Taranis and the rest seemed very determined that you had to die first.”
“They fear him the most,” Sholto said.
“They tried to kill you too,” Doyle said, looking at the other man.
Sholto nodded. “But it is not me personally they fear, it is the sluagh, and my command of them.”
“Why did I get singled out then?” Mistral asked. “I have no army to command. I have never been the queen’s right or left hand. Why did they go to such lengths to kill me as well?”
“There are those who are old enough to remember you in battle, my friend,” Doyle said.
Mistral looked down, his hair falling around his face like gray clouds covering the sky. “That was very long ago.”
“But much of the old power is returning. Perhaps the oldest among both courts feared what you would do if you were your old self again,” Doyle said.
I had a thought. “Mistral is also the only storm deity we have in the Unseelie Court. The others either stayed in Europe or are Seelie.”
“That is true,” Doyle said, “but that is not your point.”
“My point is,” I said, “what if Taranis feared exactly what has happened? He knew that if his spear came back to a Seelie Storm Lord, he could command and they would give it over. But he cannot command Mistral. He cannot demand anything from the Unseelie.”
“Do you truly think that he believed this would return?” Mistral asked, holding the spear ceilingward.
I shrugged. “I don’t know, but it was a thought.”
“I think it is simpler than that,” Doyle said.
“What then?” I asked.
“Magic powers, hands of power, follow bloodlines. You are proof of that with your father’s hand of flesh, and a hand of blood that is similar to your cousin Cel’s.”
“His is the hand of old blood, so he can open old wounds but not make fresh ones,” I said.
“No, yours is a more complete power, but dealing with blood and body magic runs in your father’s bloodline. The children you carry may inherit the ability to deal with storms and weather. If they do, and Mistral is alive, then it is clear who gave them that blood trait. But if Mistral were dead long before the babes were born, by the time they were old enough to exhibit such power, Taranis could make another plea that they were indeed his.”
I shook my head. “But he is my uncle already. His brother is my grandfather, so I could carry the gene for storm magic in me already.”
Doyle nodded. “True, but I think the king grows desperate. He has convinced half his court that the twins could be his, including your mother. Her belief in it, and her lack of belief that he…took you, will go far to convince doubters. They will think ‘her mother would not believe lies.’”
“Do they not know her by now?” I asked.
“The Seelie, like most humans, do not want to believe such evil of a mother to her daughter.”
“But the Unseelie know better,” Mistral said.
Doyle and Sholto both nodded.
I sighed again. “My cousin actually thought that they could convince Rhys to join the Seelie Court again, and that Galen would be no threat. It’s why they didn’t attack the two of them.”
“Then why did Taranis include Rhys and Galen in the false rape charges?”
“And Abeloec too,” I said. That made me wonder. “Is Abe in danger too?”
“If Rhys