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Chapter Fifteen

The dreaan for me, on a hill I kneasn&039;t a real hill It washill I was never certain whether the hill had never existed outside of dream and vision, or whether it was the first hill from which all others were copied The plain that stretched below the hill was green and full of cultivated fields I&039;d stood on this hill and watched war come to faerie, and seen the plain dry and dead Noas so alive Its wheat was golden, as if autuin But there were other fields with vegetables, where the plants were s above the surface of the rich earth The plain, like the hill, represented an ideal The fact that it was solid underfoot - and I knew that if I walked down I&039;d be able to touch the plants, rub the grain between my hands, and see the kernels free of the dry husks, all of it real - didn&039;t change the fact that it was both real and not

There was a tree besideoak Part of the tree had the first green leaves of spring, another had bigger leaves with the tiny green beginnings of acorns, then the leaves of late suer, then the brilliance of autumn and the brown acorns ready to be picked, all the way to a section that inter-bare with only a few acorns and a few dried brown leaves clinging to the branches I stared up at the dark lace of branches and knew they were not dead, but only resting When I&039;d first seen the tree it had been dead and lifeless; nohat it was meant to be

I touched the bark of the tree, and it had that deep, thruy that old trees have It was as if if you listened hard enough you could hear it, but not with your ears You heard it with your hands, or your face where you pressed it against the cool roughness of the bark You felt the life of the tree beating against your body as you pressed yourself to its hard sides It was like a slow, deep heartbeat that started as the tree, then you realized that it was the earth itself, as if the planet had a heartbeat of its own

For a moment I felt the turn of the planet, and held on to the tree as if it were my anchor to so much reality Then I was back on the hilltop, and I could no longer feel the pulse of the earth It had been an aift to sense the hum and flow of the planet itself, but I was mortal, and we are not lie every moment takes holy men or mad men, or both

I sure of the Goddess She hid her face frolilie, color, everything She was the Goddess, she was every wo at that tall cloaked figure, I realized that she was like the heartbeat of the planet You couldn&039;t see her too clearly, or hold her too starkly in yourtoo holy to live, or too , but it carries weight

"If this place had died it would not have been just faerie that died, Meredith" Her voice was like the gli into one another so you would never be able to tell what Her voice was, not exactly

"You mean reality is tied to this place too?" I asked

"And is this not real?" She asked

"Yes, it is real, but it is not reality It is neither faerie nor the li smart It made me smile to see Her smile It was as if your mother had smiled at you when you were very s to you, and all is right with the world when she smiles at you For me as a child, it had been my father&039;s sh rief aside, but it was there, waiting for rief, only postpone when it will find you

"I cannot stopto do harm"

"You helped me save Doyle and Mistral Why couldn&039;t we save Gran?"

"That is a child&039;s question, Meredith"

"No, Goddess, it is a hu else, but it is th"

"Do you believe that I would be able to cohter of Essus?"

"No, but if I was not also the granddaughter of Hettie, and the great-granddaughter of Donald, then I could not walk through the human hospital to save Doyle It is not just my sidhe blood that makes me the tool you need"

She stood there, Her hands drawn back into Her cloak, so that all of Her was in shadow "You are angry with ht "So much death, Goddess, so many plots Doyle has nearly been killed twice in just a few days Frost is lost to me I would protect my people and myself" I touched my sto of pregnancy I had a moment of fear

"No fear, Meredith You do not see yourself as pregnant yet, so your dreae is how you see yourself"

I tried to quiet the sudden racing of er, but there are also children You will know joy"

"I have too row in nuic you perform"

"Are you certain that I will survive to sit the dark throne?"

Her silence was like the wind, howling across the plain It had an edge of coldness to it that ht of that sun

"You are not certain"

"I can seemade Some of those choices lead you to the throne Some do not Your own heart has debated whether the throne is even what you want"

I remembered moments when I would have traded all of faerie for a lifetione "If I illing to leave all of faerie behind and go with Doyle and hter us I have no choice but to take the throne or die"

She stood with aged hands on a cane now "I aht they would rally around you when they saw race return They are ined" Sorroas thick in Her voice so that it made me want to cry with Her

She continued "Perhaps it is tis to the humans"

"What do you mean?"

"When you wake, you will all be healed, but there are too many in faerie ould do you and yours harm Go back to the Western lands, Meredith Go back to your other people, for you are right, you are not just sidhe Perhaps if they see that iven to others, it willyou would usethat if the sidhe turn away frorateful hearts and ic, Mother; huic, Meredith It is all miracles Now sleep, and wake rested, and know that I will do what I can for you I will speak loudly to those who still listen To those who have shut their hearts and estured toward ain "Rest now, and when you wake you will go back to the an to fade, and I was once er ached from the thorns, and I couldThe thought was solid enough to wake me, but the blanket of flower petals tucked itself underyou in when you are very s could harht with the world I had aof the Goddess wasthan she herself had been on the hillside I felt the brush of a kiss on my forehead, and heard her voice, Gran&039;s voice "Sleep, Merry-girl I will keep watch" And as I had when I was small, I believed, and slept

Chapter Sixteen

I woke to the brush of flowers, and the spill of hair as war I sahen I openedbetter to wake up to I reached up to touch his face His smile widened, a flash of white in his dark face His eyes filled with a look that was only for o, I hadn&039;t believed would ever be in those black eyes for anyone, let alone for me Had he ever looked at anyone like that before? He was more than a thousand years old, so the answer had to be yes, didn&039;t it? But for this moh

"Doyle " But whatever I was going to say was lost to a kiss His lips on rew into hands and aran to kiss my way down the smooth muscles of his chest, while he stayed above me and finally went to all fours I wanted to celebrate that the burns on his torso were healed by touching every inch of hi , and into the nipple beneath, to suck and play and tease, until he cried out "Enough" in a strangled voice

That voice etThe queen had taught hiave the I wanted to knohat ive it to them

I laid down underneath hiaze down the line of him and see all that he had to offer His hair was a black richness that he&039;d thrown to one side of his body, like a living cloak I was sheltered and content under the covering of his body

I caressedlower so that I could cup the hard, swelling richness of his body in my hands I wrapped one hand around that hardness, and put ently as I began to stroke hiht I&039;d lost you," I said, and wiggled down between his legs while he still held himself above me on his hands and knees With my hand wrapped around him, there was still much of him bare, and I lowered that nakedness toout from the circle of his foreskin, then slippedit, and sucking on it seperately from the rest of him, until I felt his body spasm above me Only then did I take the meat of him more firmly in the center of ripped the base of hier trust h to play on those softer bits, so I put my other hand on the smoothness of his hip to steady myself as I rose off the bed to take more of him inside me