A Kiss of Shadows (30 page)

“The ring, I think.” I stepped into the room. It was a typical box room done in shades of blue.

Barinthus had put the suitcase on one of the dark blue bedspreads. “Please make haste, Meredith. Galen and I still have to dress for dinner.”

I looked at him standing in the blue-on-blue room. He matched the decor. If the room had been green, Galen would have matched. You could color code your bodyguards to your room. I laughed.

“What?” Barinthus asked.

I motioned at him. “You match the room.”

He looked around as if he'd just noticed the blue print wallpaper, the dark blue bedspreads, the powder blue carpet. “So I do. Now, please, get dressed.” He unzipped the suitcase to emphasize the request, though it had the taste of an order, no matter how it was worded.

“Is there a deadline I'm not aware of?” I asked.

Galen sat down on the other bed. “I agree with the big guy on this one. The queen's planning a welcome home event for you, and she won't like waiting for us to get dressed, and if we're not dressed in the outfits she had made for us, she'll be angry with us.”

“Are the two of you going to be in trouble?” I asked.

“Not if you hurry,” Galen said.

I went into the bathroom with the carry-on bag. I'd packed my outfit for tonight in the bag just in case the suitcase went missing. I didn't want to have to do emergency shopping for an outfit that would meet with my aunt's approval for court fashion. Slacks were not appropriate dinner wear for women. Sexist, but true. Dinner was formal attire, always. If you didn't want to dress up, you could eat in your room.

I slipped into black satin and lace panties. The bra was underwire, firm hold with lace. The hose were black and thigh high. The old human saying about wearing clean underwear in case you get hit by a bus applied to the Unseelie Court, sort of. Here you wore nice underwear because the queen might see it. Though truthfully I liked knowing that everything I wore was pretty, even the things that touched my skin where no one else would see.

I darkened the eye shadow and mascara to shades of grey and white. I applied enough eyeliner that my eyes stood out in shocking relief, like emeralds and gold set in ebony. I chose a shade of lipstick that was a dark, dark wine burgundy.

I had two Spyderco folding knives. I flipped one of them open. It was a six-inch blade, long, slender, gleaming silver, but it was steel—their military model. Steel or iron was what you needed against my relatives. The other knife was much smaller—a Delica. Each knife had a clip-on so you just slipped them over your clothing. I checked both knives for ease of release, then closed them, and put them on. The Delica fit down the center of the bra on the underwire. I slipped a black garter over my left leg, not to hold up the hose—they didn't need it—but to hold the military blade.

I slipped the dress out of the garment bag. The dress was a deep rich burgundy. It had just enough strap to hide the bra. The bodice was satin, tight and fitted; the rest of the dress was a softer, more natural-looking cloth, falling in a soft, clinging line to the floor. The matching jacket was made of the same soft burgundy cloth except for the satin lapels.

I had an ankle holster complete with a Beretta Tomcat, their newest .32 auto pistol. The thing weighed nearly a pound. There were guns out there that were smaller, but if I had to shoot someone tonight, I wanted more than a .22 backing me up. The real trouble with ankle holsters is that they make you walk funny. There is a tendency to drag the foot that the holster's on, to widen your step in an odd little movement. The added problem was I was wearing hose, and the chances of not snagging them on the holster as I walked were pretty much nil. But it was the only place I could think to hide a gun that wasn't obvious just by glancing at me. I'd sacrifice the hose to keep the gun.

I walked back and forth in the burgundy high heels. They were only two-inch heels. The better to move quickly in, and with a skirt this long most people wouldn't be noticing how high, or how low, my heels were. I'd had the shop where I bought the dress hem it for the shoes. At five foot even, you don't buy off-the-rack formals, wear two-inch heels, and not have to hem the dress.

I added the jewelry last. The necklace was antique metal darkened until it was almost black, with only hidden glimpses of the true silver color. The stones were garnets. I purposefully hadn't cleaned the metal so that it would keep that dark color. I thought the stain set the garnets off nicely.

I'd gone to the trouble of curling under the ends of my hair so that it brushed my shoulders. It gleamed a red so dark it was the color of the garnets. The burgundy dress brought out a matching burgundy sheen in my hair.

My aunt might let me keep my weapons or she might not. I probably wouldn't be challenged to a duel my first night back with a special request from the queen herself for my presence, but . . . it was always better to be armed. There are things at the court that aren't royal and don't fight duels. They are the things that have always been of the Host—the monsters of our race, our kind—and they do not reason as we do. Sometimes, for no reason that anyone can explain, one of the monsters will attack. People can die before it can be stopped.

So why keep such unstable horrors around? Because the only rule that has always been in the Unseelie Court is that all are welcome. No one, nothing, may be turned away. We are the dark dumping ground of nightmares too wicked, too twisted, for the light of the Seelie Court. So it is, so it has always been, so it will always be. Though being accepted into the court doesn't mean you're accepted as one of the sidhe. Sholto and I both could attest to that.

I looked in the mirror one more time, added a touch more lip pencil, and that was it. I put the lip pencil in the small beaded purse that matched the dress. What did the queen want of me? Why had she insisted I come home? Why now? I let out a long breath, watching the satin across my chest rise and fall. Everything about me gleamed: my skin, my eyes, my hair, the deep gleam of the garnets at my throat. I looked lovely. Even I could admit that. The only thing that said I was not pure sidhe was my height. I was just too short to be one of them.

I added a small brush to the lipstick in my small purse, then had to decide whether I was going to take more makeup to use to freshen up throughout the evening or a small sleek canister of mace. I chose the mace. If you have a choice between extra makeup or extra weapons, always take the weapons. Just the fact that you're debating between those two choices proves that you're going to need the weapons more.

Chapter 24

 

THE SITHIN, THE FAERIE MOUNDS, ROSE OUT OF THE DYING LIGHT, SMALL
mountains of velvet against an orange melt of sky. The moon was already high, smooth and shining silver. I took several deep breaths of the chill, crisp air. Sometimes in California you'd wake to a morning where the air felt like autumn. You'd wear pants and a light sweater before noon. Some leaves would fall to the ground sporadically, with no pattern to it, and there would be small pools of dried brown leaves that on certain mornings would dance in a dry skittering dance, pushed by a wind that felt like October. Then by noon you'd need to switch to shorts, and it would feel like June.

But this was the real thing. The air was chill, but not quite cold. The wind that trailed at our backs smelled like dried cornfields and the dark, crisp scent of dying leaves.

If I could have come home to October and seen only the people I wanted to see, I'd have enjoyed it. Fall was my favorite time of year, October my favorite month.

I stopped on the path, and the men stopped with me. Barinthus looked down at me, eyebrows raised. Galen asked, “What's wrong?”

“Nothing,” I said, “absolutely nothing.” I took another deep breath of the autumn air. “The air never smells like this in California.”

“You always did love October,” Barinthus said.

Galen grinned. “I took you and Keelin trick o' treating almost every year until you got too old for it.”

I shook my head. “I didn't get too old for it. My own glamour just got powerful enough to hide what I was. Keelin and I went alone when I was fifteen.”

“You had enough glamour at fifteen to hide Keelin from the sight of mortals?” Barinthus asked.

I looked at him, nodding. “Yes.”

He opened his mouth as if to speak, but we were interrupted. A smooth male voice said, “Well, isn't this touching?”

The voice whirled us all around to face a spot farther down the path. Galen moved in front of me, putting me behind the shield of his body. Barinthus was searching the darkness behind us for others. The near darkness spread behind us empty, but what was in front was enough.

My cousin Cel stood in the middle of the path. He wore his midnight hair like a long straight cloak so that it was hard to tell where hair ended and his black duster coat began. He was dressed all in black except for a gleam of white shirt that shone like a star among all the blackness.

He wasn't alone. Standing to one side of him, ready to move in front of him if the need arose was Siobhan, the captain of his guard and his favorite assassin. She was small, not much taller than me, but I'd seen her pick up a Volkswagen and crush someone with it. Her hair shone white in the dark, but I knew the hair was white and silvery grey, like spiderwebs. Her skin was a pale, dull white, not the shining white of Cel's and mine. Her eyes were a dull grey, filmed over like the blind eyes of a dead fish. She was wearing black armor, her helmet tucked under one arm. It was a bad sign that Siobhan was in full battle armor.

“Full body armor, Siobhan,” Galen said. “What's the occasion?”

“Preparation is all in battle, Galen.” Her voice matched the rest of her, a dry whispering sibilance.

“Are we about to do battle?” Galen asked.

Cel laughed, and it was the same laugh that had helped make my childhood hellish. “No battle tonight, Galen, just Siobhan's paranoia. She feared that Meredith would have gained powers in her trip to the lands of the west. I see that Siobhan's fears were groundless.”

Barinthus put his hands on my shoulders, pulling me against him. “Why are you here, Cel? The queen sent us to bring Meredith to her presence.”

Cel glided down the path, tugging on the leash that went from his hand to a small figure crouched at his feet. The figure had been hidden behind the sweep of Cel's coat and Siobhan's body. At first I didn't realize who it was.

The figure unfolded from the ground to a crouch that put her head no taller than Cel's lower chest. She was brown of skin as Gran, but the hair on her head was thick and fell in straight brown folds to her ankles. She looked human or close to it in the near dark, but I knew that in good light one would see that her skin was covered in thick, soft, downy hair. Her face was flat and featureless, like something half-formed and never finished. Her thin, delicate body held several extra arms and one extra set of legs, so that she moved in a strange rocking motion. Clothing could hide the extra appendages but not the movement of her walk.

Keelin's father had been a durig, a goblin of a very dark sense of humor—the kind of humor that could get a human killed. Her mother had been a brownie. Keelin had been chosen as my companion almost from birth. It had been my father's choice, and I had never had cause to complain of it. We'd been best friends growing up. Maybe it was the brownie blood that we both carried. Whatever caused it, there had been an instant connection between us. We'd been friends since the first time I looked into her brown eyes.

Seeing Keelin on the end of Cel's leash left me wordless. There were a variety of ways to end up as Cel's “pet.” One was to be punished by the queen and given to Cel. The other was to volunteer. It had always amazed me how many of the lesser fey women would allow Cel to abuse them in the most base manner possible, because if they got pregnant they would be members of the court. Just like my Gran.

Though Gran would have put an iron spike through my grandfather's heart before she let him treat her like an abused dog.

I stepped away from Barinthus until his hands fell away and I stood alone on the path. Galen and Barinthus stood behind me, one to either side like good royal guards. “Keelin,” I said, “what are you doing . . . here?” It wasn't exactly the question I wanted to ask. My voice sounded calm, reasonable, ordinary. What I wanted to do was shout—scream.

Cel drew her to him, stroking her hair, pressing her face against his chest. His hand slid down her shoulder, lower and lower, until he cupped one of her breasts, kneading it.

Keelin turned her head so her hair hid her face from me. The sun was almost down, true dark only minutes away; she was just a thicker shadow against Cel's darkness.

“Keelin, Keelin, talk to me.”

“She wants to be part of the court,” Cel said. “My pleasure in her makes her part of all the festivities.” He pulled her closer into his body, his hand sliding out of sight down the round neck of her dress. “If she gets with child, she will be a princess, and her babe heir to the throne. Her child could push you back to fourth from the throne instead of third,” he said, voice smooth and even as he reached farther and farther down her body.

I took a step forward, hand half reaching. “Keelin . . .”

“Merry,” she said, turning to face me for a moment, her voice the same small sweet sound it had always been.

“No, no, my pet,” Cel said. “Don't speak. I will speak for us.”

Keelin fell silent, hiding her face again.

I stood there, and until Barinthus touched my shoulder and made me jump, I didn't realize my hands were in tight fists. I was shaking again, but not from fear, from anger.

“The queen put a geas on us all not to tell you, Merry. I should have warned you anyway,” Galen said, moving up on the other side. It was almost as if the two of them expected to have to grab me and keep me from doing something foolish. But I wasn't going to be foolish—that's what Cel wanted. He'd come here to show off Keelin, to enrage me, with Siobhan at his back to kill me. I'm sure he could have concocted some story about me attacking him and his guard having to defend him. The queen had believed thinner stories than that over the years. He had every reason to be confident where the queen was concerned. I could be calm, because I could do nothing here and now but die. Cel, I might have considered taking on. He was one of the few people that I would use the hand of flesh on, and not lose sleep over it. But Siobhan, she was different. She would kill me.

“How long has Keelin been with him?” I asked.

Cel started to answer, and I raised a hand. “No, don't speak, cousin. I asked the question of Galen.”

Cel smiled at me, a flash of white in the moonlit dark. Strangely, he stayed silent. I hadn't really expected him to, but I also knew that if I had to hear his voice one more time, I was going to start screaming just to drown out his voice.

“Answer me, Galen.”

“Almost since you left.”

My chest was tight, eyes hot. This was my punishment. My punishment for escaping the court. Even though I hadn't told Keelin that I was leaving, even though she was innocent, they'd hurt her to hurt me. Cel had kept her as a pet for nearly three years waiting for me to come home. Enjoying himself no doubt, and if there was a child, all the better. But it wasn't a desire for children that had motivated the choice of Keelin. I looked into Cel's smug face, and even by moonlight I could read his expression. She'd been chosen out of revenge to punish me. And I'd been thousands of miles away, unknowing.

Cel and my aunt had waited patiently to show me their surprise. Three years of Keelin's torment and no one told me. My aunt knew me better than I'd thought, because the knowledge that Keelin had suffered the entire time I'd been gone would eat at me. And if she held out Keelin's freedom to me as a prize for whatever it was she wanted from me, she might have me. I needed to speak with Keelin alone.

As much as I hated Cel, this was one of the very few ways that Keelin could enter the court. She'd been one of my ladies in waiting—my companion. But being my friend and my servant had allowed her to see the inner workings of the court. I'd known she had a great hunger to be accepted in that darkling throng, hunger enough, maybe, to endure Cel and resent if I put a stop to it. Just because I saw it as a rescue didn't mean Keelin would. Until I knew exactly how she felt, I could do nothing.

Cel's hand finally slid back into sight. Seeing his pale hand on Keelin's shoulder instead of deep in her dress made it easier to just stand and watch. “The queen has sent me to escort my fair cousin to her private chambers. The two of you have an appointment at the throne room.”

“I am aware of what
I
am expected to do,” Barinthus said.

“How can we trust you not to harm her?” Galen asked.

“Me? Harm my fair cousin?” Cel laughed again.

“We shall not leave.” Barinthus's voice was very low and steady. You had to know his voice well to hear the anger in it.

“You fear that I will harm her, too, Barinthus?”

“No,” Barinthus said. “I am afraid she will harm you, Prince Cel. The life of her only heir means a great deal to our queen.”

Cel laughed loud and long. He laughed until either tears actually crept from his eyes, or he merely pretended to wipe them away. “You mean, Barinthus, that you're afraid she will try to harm me, and I will put her in her place.”

Barinthus leaned over me and whispered, “You cannot afford to appear weak before Cel. I did not expect him to meet us. It is a bold move. If you have gained power in the lands to the west, show it now, Meredith.”

I turned, staring up into his face. He was so close to me that his hair trailed against my cheek, smelling of the ocean and something herbal and clean. I whispered back to him, “If I show him my powers now, it will take away all element of surprise later on.”

His voice was the soft murmur of water over round stones. He was using his own power to quietly make sure that Cel could not overhear us. “If Cel insists that we leave and we refuse, it will go badly for us.”

“Since when has the Queen's Guard answered to her son?” I asked.

“Since the queen has decreed it so.”

Cel called to us, “I order you, Barinthus, and you, Galen, to go to your overdue appointment. We will escort my cousin to the queen's presence.”

“Make him afraid of you, Meredith,” Barinthus said. “Make him wish for us to remain. Cel would have access to his mother's ring.”

I stared up at him. I didn't bother to ask if Barinthus really thought that Cel had tried to kill me in the car. If he didn't believe it possible, he wouldn't have said it.

“I gave you both a direct order,” Cel said. His voice rose, riding on the growing wind.

The wind picked up, rushing through the men's long coats, whispering in the dried leaves of the trees at the edge of the field to our left. I turned to those whispering trees. I could almost understand the wind and the trees, almost hear the trees sighing of winter's coming and the long cold wait ahead. The wind rushed and hurried, sending a small herd of newly fallen leaves skittering down the rock path past Cel and his women, to brush up against my feet and legs. The wind picked the leaves up in a swirl like tiny hands playing against my legs. The leaves were carried up and past us in a sudden burst of sweet autumn wind. I closed my eyes and breathed in that wind.