Mistral's Kiss

Agnes called from the shore, “You have freed us from the light, King Sholto. You have given us back the Lost Lake and the Island of Bones. Will you stop there, or will you give us back our power? Will you remake the sluagh while the magic of creation still burns through you, or will you hesitate and lose this chance to bring us back into ourselves?”

“The hag is right, Your Highness,” Fyfe said. “You have brought us back the magic of making, wild magic, creation magic. Will you use it for us?”

In the dying light I watched Sholto lick his lips. “What would you have of me?” he asked carefully. I heard in his voice what was begi

“Call the wild magic,” Ivar said.

“It is here already,” Doyle said, “can you not feel it?” His heart sped under my cheek. I wasn’t sure I understood exactly what was happening, but Doyle seemed both frightened and excited. Even his body was begi

The two kneeling figures looked at Doyle. “Do not look to Darkness,” Sholto said. “I am king here.”

They looked back at him, and bowed again. “You are our king,” said Ivar. “But there are places we ca

“Darkness is right,” Fyfe said. “I can feel it like a growing weight inside me. You can change us into what she wants us to be” — he pointed at me — “or you can give us back what we have lost.”

Sholto then asked something that made me think even better of him than I already did. “What would you have of me, Uncles, what would you have me do?”

They glanced first at him, then at each other, then carefully down at the ground again. “We want to be what we once were. We want to hunt as we once did. Give us back what has been lost, Sholto.” Ivar held out his hand toward his king.

“Do not remake us in the sidhe bitch’s image,” Agnes yelled from the shore. It was a mistake.

Sholto yelled back at her, “I am king here. I rule here. I thought you loved me once. But I know now that you only raised me to take the throne because you wished to sit upon it. You ca

A wail came from Agnes, but it was too dark to see what was happening on the shore. She screamed, a horrible sound — a sound of loss, and pain, as if whatever was happening to her hurt.

I heard Sholto say, softly, “Agnes.” The sound in that one word let me know that he wasn’t so terribly certain of what he wanted, or what he had done.

What had he done?

His uncles abased themselves, faces pressed to the herbs. “Please, King Sholto, we beg you, do not remake us into sidhe. Do not make us only lesser versions of the Unseelie. We are sluagh, and that is a proud thing. Would you strip us of all that we have kept over the years?”

“No,” Sholto said, and there was no anger in his voice now. The screams from the shore had taken away his anger. He understood now how dangerous he was in this moment. “I want the sluagh to be powerful again. I want us to be a force to be reckoned with, negotiated with. I want us to be a fearsome thing.”

I spoke before I could think: “Not just fearsome, surely.”

“I want us to have a terrible beauty then,” he said, and it was as if the world held its breath, as if the whole of faerie had been waiting for him to say those words. I felt it in the pit of my stomach like the chime of a great bell. It was a beautiful sound, but so large, so heavy, that it could crush you with the music of its voice.

“What have you done?” Doyle asked, and I wasn’t sure whom he had asked it of.

Sholto answered him. “What I had to do.” He stood there, stark and pale in the growing dark. The tattoo of his tentacles glowed as if outlined with phosphorus. The flowers of his crown looked ghostly pale, and I thought they would have attracted honeybees, if it had not been dark. Bees are not nighttime creatures.

The darkness began to lighten. “What did you just think of?” Doyle asked.

“That if the sunlight had remained, there would have been bees to feed on the flowers.”

“No, it will be night here,” Sholto said, and the darkness began to thicken again.

I tried for a more neutral thought. What could come to his flowers in the dark? Moths appeared among the flowers, small ones, ones to match the moth on my stomach. Small flashes of light showed above the island, as if jewels had been thrown into the air. Fireflies, dozens of them, so that they actually glowed enough to drive back some of the dark.

“Did you call them?” Sholto said.

“Yes,” I said.

“You raised the wild magic together,” Ivar said.

“She is not sluagh,” Fyfe said.

“But she is queen to his king for tonight; the magic is hers, as well,” Ivar said.

“Will you fight me for the heart of my people, Meredith?” Sholto said.

“I will try not to,” I said softly.

“I rule here, Meredith, not you.”

“I do not want to take your throne, Sholto. But I can’t help being what I am.”

“What are you?”

“I am sidhe.”

“Then if you are sidhe and not sluagh, run.”

“What?” I asked, trying to move a little away from Doyle and closer to Sholto. Doyle held me tight and wouldn’t let me do it.

“Run,” Sholto said again.

“Why?” I asked.

“I am going to call the wild hunt, Meredith. If you are not sluagh, then you will be prey.”

“No, Sholto! Let us take the princess to safety first, I beg this of you,” Doyle said urgently.

“The Darkness does not usually beg. I am flattered, but if she can call back the sun to drive away the night, I must call the hunt now. She must be the prey. You know that.”

I was startled. Was this the same man who had refused to sacrifice me just moments ago? Who had looked on me with such tenderness? The magic was indeed working powerfully in him, to make this change.

Rhys’s voice came, cautious: “You wear a crown of flowers, King Sholto. Are you so certain that the wild hunt will recognize you as sluagh?”

“I am their king.”

“You look sidhe enough to be welcome in the queen’s bed right now,” Rhys said.

Sholto touched his flat stomach with its healed flesh and tattoo. He hesitated, then shook his head. “I will call the wild magic. I will call the hunt. If they see me as prey and not as sluagh, then so be it.” He smiled, and even in the uncertain light it didn’t look particularly happy. He laughed, and the night echoed with it. There was the call of some sweet-voiced bird, sleepy from the distant shore.

Sholto spoke again. “It is a long tradition among us, Lord Rhys, to slay our kings to bring back life to the land. If by my life, or my death, I can bring my people back to their power, I will do it.”

“Sholto,” I said, “don’t. Don’t say that.”

“It is done,” he said.

Doyle started moving us toward the other side of the island. “Short of killing him, we ca

“We need to leave then,” Rhys said.

Abeloec was finally pulling himself up on the shore. He still had his cup in his hand, and it seemed as if the weight of it had kept him from coming sooner. “Don’t tell me I have to get back in the lake,” he said. “If she’s touched with the magic of creation, let her create a bridge.”

I didn’t wait. I said, “I want a bridge to the shore.” A graceful white bridge appeared, just like that.

“Cool,” Rhys said. “Let’s go.”

Sholto spoke in a ringing voice. “I call the wild hunt, by Herne and huntsman, by horn and hound, by wind and storm, and wreck of winter, I call us home.”

The dark near the roof of the cavern split open as if someone had cut it with a knife. It split open and things boiled out of it.

Doyle turned my face away and said, “Do not look back.” He began to run, dragging me with him. We all began to run. Only Sholto and his uncles stayed on the island as the night itself ripped open and poured nightmares behind us.