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Chapter 35

I WAS LEFT STARING DOWN AT ROYAL&039;S BODY HE WAS ALIVE, BUT only because a stoone so far into his sto his spine by a hairsbreadth I pressed the cloth on either side of that wound Hafwyn cautioned me to be careful, and notthan she had left in her hands

Royal&039;s sister, Penny, was at his side, her dress covered in blood Her hands were too s enough to rub the guilt like sandpaper across iven us death" She threw herself onto her brother, yelling at ht us anything but huue with her, not with Royal&039;s body pressed against rab him up onto her lap, and that made him cry out in pain Hafwyn interfered "Penny, Penny, if you rief and fear s her There was no reasoning with her It was one of the other uninjured deled, and the cr��me-colored rat that had pulled their chariot followed her like a frightened dog It had kept its distance from Royal, as if it didn&039;t know quite what to do But to her, it came, as if to help the other fey take her away

Royal touchedmy knuckle with his entire hand He was one of the tallest of the fey in the room, but tall is relative when your world is full of people who look like children&039;s toys

He gazed up at host-like But his chest still rose and fell against ertips, his stoht, with a spasle not to writhe as that pain lanced through him

I said the only thing I had left to offer "I&039;m sorry" I didn&039;t ardless, he was dead unless a fresh healer arrived within ain "I am sorry, Royal, I am so sorry"

He actually smiled at me, and that made my heart hurt "I have had a sidhe princess say sorry to ainst "

He gave me a look, and it was eloquent "There will be no help for me" His voice fell to a whisper, so low that I had to lean in to catch his words "Queen Niceven ate Let me taste your lips and blood just once Before" Another spasm took him, and this time he couldn&039;t quite make himself hold still He writhed with the pain, and that caused him more pain, until he screas He was going to die into prevent it

I tasted the salt of

His eyes fluttered open, but they had that glazed look to the do not see

His lips ain, and heard hih I had never kissed lips so delicate It wasn&039;t until his lips brushed htly curled flower, that I felt his glamour I had let my pity blindYou don&039;t think of the dying wasting energy on sex It was the ic made it more

His lamour poured over my skin like water froh it, could not think, could not do anything but feel

It was like an hour of foreplay in one small kiss His hand touched my bare breast, and he bit my lip The touch was so much more than that tiny hand should have been able to deliver, as if he caressed the front of e as any man&039;s That small, sharp shock of pain was like the last thrust, the last lick, the last caress, for it spilled e and made me screaer He were bigger In that instant I would have sworn that I lay atop a full-sized lover, that the hands that touched me were another huainst was not only full-sized, but well-sized

I forgot everything but the feel of his body underatto find lamour undo ic I ca atop him, as much as our differences in size would allow The pain did not stop with his broken glamour I tried to raise my body and the pain sharpened I stared down the line of our bodies and found the tip of the wood in his middle had piercedto lift me up I was about to tell them to stop when the wood came out The wound was shallow, thank the Goddess, but I&039;d have to talk to the before theywith someone who injured as easily as I did

Galen called, "Hafwyn, Merry is hurt"

"No," I said, "it looks worse than it is There are others who need her more than I"

"You are the princess, and they are only demi-fey," Ivi said

I shookets back," I said

"At least let Hafwyn look at it," Galen said

I nodded "If she has time"

Of course, she came immediately She knelt and cleaned the blood aith the cloth and bowl of water that Kitto had fetched for her She explored the wound, which hurt, and removed some splinters, which hurt more

Galen let me squeeze his hand while she took the splinters out with her fingers Where were sterile tweezers when you needed them? Galen smiled down atWhat a grip"

It ht a glimpse of Royal behind Hafwyn and Galen The demi-fey lay utterly still, eyes closed The hands that had caressed my body were limp on either side of him I chased Hafwyn&039;s hands away "See to Royal"

She looked puzzled I realized she didn&039;t re"

Hafent to Royal&039;s body as I&039;d ordered She started to lay hands on him, and his spine bowed upward, as if drawn by soreat gasping rush It left his body in a shriek that reverberated through the room His scream was echoed by the other wounded It was as if they were all having a fit

"What&039;s happening?" Frost asked

Hafwyn shook her head I don&039;t think she knew either Not good

The small knot of uninjured demi-fey started forward, as if to try to help Then they all fell to their knees and began to screaround

"Is it poison?" Adair raised his voice to be heard over them

Hafwyn said, "I do not know, Goddess help me, but I do not know"

The wounds spurted blood upward like a dozen crimson fountains The demi-fey without wounds still writhed, and called out in pain, but they had no wounds for the blood to be called from For that hat it looked like It looked like so it, and no one else had the power to do it

Then blood burst out of all of theh their wounds The wood pieces were pushed out in a last burst of blood and screa the wood

The piece that had nearly bisected Royal was one of the last to coest andthe his voice heard above the demi-fey&039;s screams

"I a that, it was hard to watch Then I discovered so else Hafwyn had not found all the splinters in an to push their way out of my flesh

Galen looked down at ain He looked a question atto help ease pain, it wasn&039;t un in one hand, and a sword in the other Adair stood a little away from him, weapon out, as well Ivi had moved to the other side of the room away from them, and he, too, stood with bared sword He had a look so serious on hi the rooht be an attack I didn&039;t think it was that kind of a probleuards and I was not Besides, I was too busy gripping Galen&039;s hand and trying not to scream

Two tiny splinters had worked their way out, blood spurting out of the wound into punch its way out I fought not to scream, to simply hold on to Galen&039;s hand, but I couldn&039;t hold h"Merry!"

Someone yelled for Hafwyn

My other hand reached into the air, and Nicca grabbed it I had ato Galen and Nicca&039;s hands, a moment when the pain pulled back, and it was as if the world drew a breath The three of us knelt in a well of silence Galen asked, "What is this?" Hiic," Nicca said Frost stood above us, looking for an ene down at Nicca, but her sas in her hand, too They would guardto do with swords We needed better icians, not better swordsmen

The silence that held us seemed to swell out like a bubble until it burst Then ca to shove thehting to tear itself free ofripped apart I screamed, and fell back onto the floor Other screahtly around h pain-narrowed eyes I saw Galen and Nicca collapsing with me, their mouths ith screaround, their tiny bodies bursting into a rain of blood as I watched Then my own pain ushed from the wound in my stomach Blood sprayed out of Galen&039;s arm Nicca&039;s shoulder turned into a fountain of blood Then everything stopped, and it was so sudden, I thought I&039;d gone deaf But then I heard s, "Mother help us"

Galen had collapsed on top of me, our hands still clasped I still held Nicca&039;s hand, but I couldn&039;t see him past Galen&039;s body

Frost appeared above me "Merry, can you hear me?"

It took me two tries to say yes, but the voice was someone else&039;s, distant and dry

Hands lifted Galen off me, but I wouldn&039;t let theue, but simply laid him down besideup at the ceiling It was a woman&039;s voice that said, "The little ones, look at the little ones" There was soh I was so tired

Royal was closest to us He had rolled over onto his side, curled around his sto on his back I had to blink hard to understand what I was seeing Tiny cru on his back They ith blood, but they grew larger as I watched, expanding with every beat of Royal&039;s heart

"They have wings," Hafwyn said, "they all have wings"

Ivi was kneeling at our feet "Look at your stomach"

I was almost afraid to look, afraid of what I would find But it was just atheir way out of Royal&039;s back It was only when Ivi moved to touch it that I realized it wasn&039;t on me, but in me The moth was embedded in my skin

I didn&039;t have ti The world went away in a swirl of di vision, and finally darkness There were no visions, nobut blessed oblivion

Chapter 36

I WOKE, BLINKING UP INTO A CANOPY AS BLACK AS THE DARKNESS that had sucked raceful folds on dyed black wood I thought, almost idly, that it looked like the queen&039;s bed Fear speared through ood to wake up here

I ht because I brushed someone&039;s arm It made me jump and look to the center of the bed

Galen lay, eyes still closed, face peaceful He was still nude, as e all For Nicca lay on the other side of Galen That the three of us were naked in her bed did not make me feel one bit better

I looked out at her rooe metal brassier in the center of the rooht of the sithen?

So it to be the queen, but there was no flash of her white skin I kneho it was before he stepped into the aht Doyle in a cloak as black as the rest of hilide toward the bed

"Doyle" I didn&039;t even try to keep the relief from my voice

"How do you feel?" His deep voice rumbled and the very sound of it lessened the panic that still fluttered in my pulse

"Fine Why are we here?"

"Because the queen willed it," he said

I did not like that answer It sped hed in the dark I choked on the panic of my own heartbeat I felt Galen tense beside me, and kneake, but he did not move He very carefully did not let anyone else know he had woken I did not give hi sleep would not help hiain, and I kneasn&039;t the queen My pulse slowed enough that I could breathe around it "Who else is here?"

There was liure was so pale, the rooure h I kneas not

The glint of firelight made me certain of who it was "Ivi," I said, and was not happy He had scared me

"Why unhappy to see uard your body"

"Why sit in the corner? And as funny?"

"To see the fear on your face at waking here I sat in the dark, because I aone by the time he caainst the big carved bedpost, huddling the cloak around him as if he was cold His pale hair with its decoration of vines and leaves was trapped inside the cloak, so that it made a sort of hood around his face of his own hair

"Where is everyone else?" I asked

"Recruiting," Ivi said

Galen raised enough to look at the so closemouthed and just tell us what has happened while we slept" He sounded angry where I had sounded afraid

I heard the door to the queen&039;s bathroolow that it was Rhys in the doorway He, too, earing a cloak around his body so that only his face and hair were bare to the diht "You&039;ve missed lots," Rhys said He looked tired

He came to stand beside the bed a little ahead of Ivi at his corner

"So in"

"Why doesn&039;t that make me feel better?" Galen asked

"He didn&039;tthe Darkness, all dour and frightening"

I started to sit up, and so moved on my stomach I jumped, and looked down, and found that I hadn&039;t dreamed it There was a moth on me, exactly where the wound had been I stayed propped on one elbow, and reached cautiously to touch its upper wings, all charcoal grey and black It flicked its wings at ht red and black underwings, like blood and darkness turned to glitter Its wings brushed againstain, for the head with its feathery antennae It didn&039;t react until I touched it, then it flicked its wings again, but it also struggled a little I felt it move inside me because the lower half of the body was eers back, and I had the color of its wings on ertips, as if I&039;d touched a real moth "What in the name of Danu is that?"

"It will not last, Merry," Doyle said "It will beco on your skin"

"Youlike that," he said

"How long will it keeplike that?" I asked

"A few hours," he said

"You say that like you&039;ve seen this happen before"

"He has" Nicca propped hi his body to face me He had a white flower in the holloeen his shoulder and chest, startling against his deep brown skin The flower had a yellow center and five petals raised above his skin, but the stem was lost in his flesh Like the moth in me, the floas alive, but embedded in his skin

Galen rolled over onto his side and let ht are it took up all the width of his ars folded back around his arentle and unhurried, as if it were feeding from some sweet-nectared flower

"It doesn&039;t seem to be afraid that it&039;s trapped," he said

I stared down at theto free themselves Why aren&039;t they?"

"They are not real," Doyle said

"They are real," Nicca said

Doyle frowned, but gave a quick nod "Perhaps &039;real&039; is not the correct word They are not free animals that would ain, and it flicked the as clearly as it could The sensation of having so inside s, the ainst the pillows, closingaround the sensation of it

"Can you feel its legs inside you?" Galen&039;s voice didn&039;t sound any happier than ood feeling," he said

I opened reener than usual

"Stop trying to pet thele," Rhys said

I stared at the black, red, grey, and even white that was ss?"

"They are the beginning of tattoos," Doyle said, "marks of power"

I stared up at him "You mean the tattoos that the sidhe once had? They were more like birthmarks, weren&039;t they?"

"Some are born with the marks upon them, but many are not"

"Most of us acquire the marks as we enter our power in adolescence, or even adulthood," Rhys said

"I re me that our tattoos hy our people painted themselves for battle The o," Doyle said, "the marks on their bodies did protect our followers Protected them better than any armor, for it was a conduit to the power of the sidhe they invoked"

I realized that Doyle was talking to me like he used to, distant and formal Was it Ivi&039;s presence that hadelse happened?

"We were their gods," Rhys said

"We were not gods," Doyle said, and his voice went loith anger "We thought ere gods, but when the gods themselves departed, we learned otherwise" He stared out into the darkness, as if he saw things long ago and far away "They stripped for battle, painted thehtered because we no longer had the power to save them"

"A stubborn lot, the Celts," Ivi said "They kept painting the" He sounded wistful

"They thought they had done so to make themselves unworthy," Doyle said, "so they strove to becoave me only the braid that trailed down his dark cloak "We were the ones ere unworthy"