Mistral's Kiss

Sholto spoke again. “Merry makes us beautiful, yes, my queen. But the beauty is stranger than anything the Seelie Court would allow within their doors.”

Andais gazed at Sholto, and for a moment I thought I saw regret. Sholto’s magic rode him, and power breathed off him into the night.

“You had him,” she said to me, simply.

“Yes,” I said.

“How was it?”

“It was our coming together that raised the wild hunt.”

She shivered, and there was a hunger on her face that frightened me. “Amazing. Perhaps I will try him some night.”

Sholto spoke again. “There was a time, my queen, when the thought of a chance at your bed would have filled me with joy. But I truly know now that I am King Sholto of the Sluagh, the Lord of That Which Passes Between, Lord of Shadows. I will no longer take crumbs from the table of any sidhe.”

She made a sharp sound, almost a hiss. “You must be an amazing bit of ass, Meredith. One fuck with you and they all turn against me.”

To that, there was no safe answer, so I said nothing. I stood in the midst of my men, with the weight and press of the hounds milling around us. Would she have been more aggressive if the dogs — war dogs, most of them — had not been there? Was she afraid of the magic — or the more solid form the magic had taken?

One of the small terriers growled, and it was like a signal to the others. The night was suddenly thick with growls, a low chorus that shivered down my spine. I petted the heads of those I could touch, hushing them. The Goddess had sent me guardians, I understood that now. I thanked her for it.

“Cel’s guards who did not take oath to him — you promised they could go with me,” I said.

“I will not strip him of all signs of my favor,” she answered, and her anger seemed to crackle on the cold air.

“You gave your word,” I insisted.

The dogs gave another low chorus of growls. The terriers began to bark, as terriers will. I realized in that moment that the wild hunt was not gone, only changed. These were the hounds of the wild hunt. These were the hounds of legend that hunted oathbreakers through the winter wood.

“Do not dare to threaten!” said Andais. Eamon touched her arm. She jerked away from him, but seemed chastened. The wild hunt had been a great leveler of the mighty. Once you became their prey, the hunt did not end until the quarry was dead.

“I do not believe I am the huntsman,” I said.

“It would be a bad night, Queen Andais, to be an oathbreaker.” Doyle’s deep molasses voice seemed to hang on the night, as if his words had more weight on the still, winter air than they should have.

“Are you the huntsman, Darkness? Would you punish me for breaking faith?”

“It is wild magic, Your Majesty; there is sometimes little choice when it fills you. You become an instrument of the magic, and it uses you for its own ends.”

“Magic is a tool to be wielded, not some force one allows oneself to be overcome by.”

“As you will, Queen Andais, but I ask that you do not test these hounds tonight.” Somehow it seemed Doyle wasn’t talking about just the dogs.

“I will honor my word,” she said in a voice that made it clear that she did so only because she had no choice. She had never been a gracious loser, not in anything, large or small. “But you must leave now, Meredith, this moment.”

“We need time to send for the other guards,” I said.

“I will bring all those who wish to come to you, Meredith,” Sholto said.

I turned, and there was an assurance in him, a strength that had not been there before. He stood there with his “deformity” plain to see. He now made it seem just another part of him, though, a part that would have been as surely missed as an arm, or a leg if it were gone. Had being stripped of his extra bits made him realize he valued them? Maybe. It was his revelation, not mine.

“You would side with her,” Andais said.

“I am King of the Sluagh; I will see that an oath given and accepted is honored. Remember, Queen Andais, that the sluagh was the only wild hunt left in faerie until tonight. And I am the huntsman of the sluagh.”

She took a step toward him, as if in threat, but Eamon pulled her back. He whispered urgently against her cheek. I could not hear what he said, but the tension left her body, until she allowed herself to lean back against him. She let him hold her; in the face of those who were not her friends, she let Eamon’s arms hold her.

“Go, Meredith, take all that is yours, and go.” Her voice was almost neutral, almost free of that rage that always seemed to bubble just underneath her skin.

“Your Majesty,” Rhys said, “we ca

Sholto spoke again. “I will take you to the edge of the Western Sea, just as I took the sluagh when we hunted Meredith in Los Angeles.”

I looked at him and shook my head. “I thought you came by plane.”

He laughed, and it was a joyous sound. “Did you picture the dark host of the sluagh on some human airplane sipping wine and ogling the flight attendants?”

I laughed with him. “I hadn’t thought about it that clearly. You are the sluagh — I didn’t question how you got to me.”

“I will walk the edge of the field where it touches the woods. It is an in-between place, neither field nor forest. I will walk, you will all follow, and we will be at the edge of the Western Sea, where it touches the shore. I am the lord of the between places, Meredith.”

“I didn’t think any royals could still travel so far,” Rhys said.

“I am the King of the Sluagh, Cromm Cruach, master of the last wild hunt of faerie. I have certain gifts.”

“Indeed,” the queen said, drily, “use those gifts, Shadowspawn, and take these rabble from my sight.” She’d used the nickname that the sidhe called him behind his back, but that even she had never used to his face before.

“Your disdain ca

If I’d been closer to him I would have embraced him. Probably just as well that I wasn’t, as it might have ruined the power of the moment, but I promised myself to give him a hug the moment we had some privacy. I loved seeing that he valued himself at last.

I heard a sound like the breaking of ice. “Frost,” I said. “We can’t leave him behind.”

“Didn’t the FBI take him to the hospital?” Doyle asked.

I shook my head. “I don’t think so.” I looked out across the snow. I couldn’t see anything, but…I started moving, and the hounds followed at my side. I started to run across the snow, and felt the first sharp pain in my cut feet. I ignored it, and ran faster. Time and distance shortened — as they never before had outside the sithen. One minute I was with the others, the next I was miles away, in the fields beside the road. My twin hounds had stayed with me, and half a dozen of the black mastiffs were there, too.

Frost lay in the snow, unmoving, as if he couldn’t feel the dogs snuffling at him or my hands turning him over. The drifts underneath him were soaked with blood, and his eyes were closed. His face was so cold. I lowered my lips to his and whispered his name: “Frost, please, please, don’t leave me.”

His body convulsed, and his breath rattled back into his chest. Death seemed to be reversed. His eyes fluttered open, and he tried to reach for me, but his hand fell back into the snow, too weak. I lifted his hand to my face and held it there. I held his hand there while it grew warm against my skin.

I cried, and he found his voice, hoarse. He whispered, “The cold ca

“Oh, Frost.”

He raised his other hand and touched the tears on my face. “Do not weep for me, Merry. You love me, I heard it. I was leaving, but I heard your voice, and I couldn’t leave, not if you loved me.”

I cradled his head in my lap and wept. His other hand, the one that I wasn’t clutching, brushed the fur of one of the huge black dogs. The dog stretched and grew tall and white. A shining white stag stood over us. It had a collar of holly, and looked like some Yule card brought to life. It pranced in the snow, then ran in a white blur across the snow until it was lost to sight.

“What magic is abroad this night?” Frost whispered.

“The magic that will take you home.” Doyle spoke from behind us. He fell to his knees in the snow beside Frost, and took his hand. “The next time I send you to a hospital, you are to go.”

Frost managed a wan smile. “I could not leave her.”

Doyle nodded as if that made perfect sense.

“I don’t think the magic will last until morning,” Rhys said. They were all there, trailing behind, except Mistral. He was with the queen, I supposed. I hadn’t even gotten to say good-bye.

“But for tonight,” Rhys said, “I am Cromm Cruach, and I can help.” He knelt on the other side of Frost and laid hands on him, above where his clothing was black with blood.

Rhys was suddenly formed of white light, not just his hands, but all of him glowing. His hair moved in the wind of his own magic. Frost’s body jerked upward, leaving my lap and our hands. He fell back against Doyle and me, and said in a voice that was almost his own, “That hurt.”

“Sorry about that,” said Rhys, “but I’m not a healer, not really. There is too much of death in my power to make it painless.”

Frost touched his own shoulder and chest, taking his hands from out of Doyle’s and mine. “If you are not a healer, then why do I feel healed?”

“Old magic,” Rhys said. “The morning light will find this magic gone.”

“How can you be certain?” Doyle asked.

“The voice of the God in my head tells me so.”

No one questioned after that. We just accepted it as true.

Sholto led us to the edge of the field and forest. The dogs moved around us, some choosing their masters, others making it plain that they did not belong to anyone here. The ones that chose among us followed as Sholto walked, but the other black dogs began to fall back and vanish into the night, as if we had imagined them. The hound at my side bumped my hand for a pat, as if to remind me that it was real.

I wasn’t certain the hounds would stay, but they seemed magically to give each of us what we needed tonight. Galen walked surrounded by dogs, circled by sleek-looking greyhounds and a trio of small dogs dancing at his feet. They made him smile, and helped chase the shadows from his face. Doyle moved in a circle of black dogs; they fawned and capered about him like puppies. The terriers followed Rhys like a small army of fur. Frost held my hand over the back of the smallest of the greyhounds. He had no dog at his side — only the white stag that had run into the night. But he seemed perfectly content with my hand in his.