[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
when they watched me cross into the hall. I enjoyed their fear, their surprise, their worry. What had
happened? What had changed? What did this mean? They were some of the best court politicians in the
world, but now all their plans were thrown into the air simply because I walked into the throne room
covered in blood.
Queen Andais sat on her throne, her white skin clean and pure where she'd scrubbed the blood away.
Her dress was black and bared her shoulders and arms. Diamonds gleamed in her hair, hiding the metal
of the tiara behind the dazzle of their light. A line of diamonds graced her neck and spilled across her
chest as if the necklace were a rope, or a serpent, caught in midmotion. The diamonds were the only
color to her simple black dress and the long gloves that covered her arms and hands. Though perhaps
color wasn't the right word for the effect. It was more as if the jewels bent the light around her head and
neck like a halo sliding down her body.
Mistral stood behind and to one side of her throne in his armor, with his spear resting against the dais.
Mistral as her new captain did not surprise me, but her new second in command did. Silence was hidden
behind his armor, only his long braid of pale brown hair showed from underneath his helmet. He was
called Silence because he never spoke except to whisper in the queen's ear, or Doyle's. How can you
command if you will not speak?
Tyler curled at her feet on the end of a bejeweled chain, his only clothing the shining of the collar. Eamon
Page 222
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
sat in the smaller throne just below hers, the consort's throne. He was dressed all in black except for a
silver circlet at his pale brow.
We passed the empty table and throne where the sluagh sat, because the sluagh were behind the queen.
Nightflyers like a cross among giant bats, tentacled horrors, and airborne manta rays clung to the stones
at her back, going up and up like a living curtain of dark flesh. Things with more tentacles than flesh stood
behind the throne. The hags, Black Agnes and Segna the Gold, were cloaked and waiting behind the
queen, taller than the guards at her back. The hags normally stood at their own king's back, but Sholto
had a new place to sit.
An empty throne that had once been reserved for the heir, but had become known as the prince's
throne, awaited me. Sholto's throne had been placed on the dais, just below mine. For tonight, it was to
be a consort's throne as well. My consorts, though, not the queen's. For me, it would be whomever I
was going to sleep with that night.
Sholto, King of the Sluagh, Lord of That Which Passes Between, Lord of Shadows, sat on the dais for
the first time, tall and pale, with moonlit skin to make any Unseelie sidhe proud. His hair was white as
snow, long and silken, and, as was his wont, tied back in a loose ponytail. His eyes were tricolored; a
circle of metallic gold like mine, then a circle of amber, and last a line the color of leaves in the autumn.
He was as fair efface and body as any sidhe who graced the court, sitting there in black-and-gold tunic,
black pants tucked into knee-high boots of softest black leather, with more gold edging the turned-down
tops. His cloak was fastened with a gold brooch carved with the device of his house.
He looked every inch the sidhe prince, but I knew, better than most, that looks could be deceiving.
Sholto was wasting magic to hide what lay under his clothes. Almost all his stomach, down to his lower
abdomen, was a mass of tentacles. Without his glamour, it would have bulged under even the generous
cloth of a tunic. Modern clothing was nearly unwearable without his magic to make everything lie
smoothly. His mother had been Seelie sidhe. His father had been a nightflyer.
As King of the Sluagh he could have any female of his court in his bed. As a member of the queen's
guard, no one at Andais's court could sleep with him but the queen herself. I don't think it would ever
have occurred to her to take him to her bed. She called him my perverse creature, or sometimes simply
my creature. Sholto hated the nickname, but you didn't complain to Queen Andais about nicknames, not
even if you were the king of another court. If Sholto had been content with the females of his court, then I
would have had nothing to bargain with, but he was not content. He wanted sidhe skin against his body.
So our bargain was struck, and if not tonight, then tomorrow I would find out if I could stomach all the
extra pieces he had growing from his body. I hoped I could, because like it or not, I would have to bed
him for tonight's help.
Afagdu stood to one side of the dais. He'd been on his knees before the throne when the doors opened.
He, too, was dressed in black, as most of the court was. Courtiers often dressed in their sovereign's
favorite color, and black had been Andais's signature color for centuries. Afagdu's hair was so black it
seemed to melt into his cloak, and the beard on his face made it seem as if his tricolored eyes floated in
his face, lost in all that blackness. His voice carried through the hall, cutting across the whispers and
gasps. "Princess Meredith, is that your blood, or someone else's?"
I ignored him and went to stand before the dais, directly below the queen. I bowed, but only from the
neck. "Queen Andais, Queen of Air and Darkness, I come before you covered in the blood of my
enemies, and my friends."
"Meredith, Princess of Flesh and Blood, join us."
Page 223
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]