Mistral's Kiss

Something bumped my hip, and I realized he was holding the horn cup. He was the cup, and the cup was him, in some mystical way, but when he touched it, he became more. More…reasonable. Or rather his suggestions did.

I wasn’t sure I liked that he could do that to me, but I let it go. We had enough problems without getting sidetracked. I whispered, “What is on Rhys’s arm?”

But Abeloec and I stood in the dark, and the Queen of Air and Darkness could hear anything that was spoken into the air in the dark. She answered me, “Show her, Rhys. Show her what has made you bold.”

Rhys didn’t turn his back on her, but moved sort of sideways toward us. The soft, white sourceless light moved with him, outlining his upper body. In a battle it would have been worse than useless; it would have made him a target. But the immortal don’t sweat things like that — if you can’t die, I guess you can make as obvious a target of yourself as you like.

The light touched us first, like that first white breath of dawn that slides across the sky, so white, so pure, when dawn is nothing more than the fading of darkness. As Rhys got closer to us, the white light seemed to expand, sliding down his body, showing that he was still nude.

He held his arm out toward me. There was a pale blue outline of a fish that stretched from just above his wrist almost to his elbow. The fish was head-down toward his hand and seemed oddly curved, like a half circle waiting for its other half.

Abeloec touched it much as the queen had done, lightly, with just his fingertips. “I have not seen that on your arm since I stopped being a pub keeper.”

“I know Rhys’s body,” I said. “It’s never been there before.”

“Not in your lifetime,” Abeloec said.

I glanced from him to Rhys. To him, I said, “It’s a fish, why…”

“A salmon,” he said, “to be exact.”

I closed my mouth so I wouldn’t say something stupid. I tried to do what my father had always taught me to do, think. I thought out loud…“A salmon means knowledge. One of our legends says that because the salmon is the oldest living creature, it has all the knowledge since the world began. It means longevity, because of the same legend.”

“Legend, is it?” Rhys said with a smile.

“I have a degree in biology, Rhys; nothing you say will convince me that a salmon predated the trilobites, or even the dinosaurs. Modern fish is just that, modern, on a geological scale.”

Abeloec was looking at me curiously. “I’d forgotten Prince Essus insisted on you being educated among the humans.” He smiled. “When you’re reasoning things out, you aren’t as easy to distract.” He tightened his other hand, with the cup still gripped in it.

I frowned, and finally stepped away from him. “Stop that.”

“You drank from his cup,” Rhys said. “He should be able to persuade you of almost anything.” He gri

“I guess she’s not human enough,” Abeloec said.

“You’re all acting as if that pale tattoo is important. I don’t understand why.”

“Didn’t Essus ever tell you about it?” asked Rhys.

I frowned. “My father didn’t mention anything about a tattoo on your arm.”

The queen made a derisive noise. “Essus didn’t think you were important enough to be told.”

“He didn’t tell her,” Doyle said, “for the same reason that Galen doesn’t know.”

Galen was still lying in the dead garden. All the other men who had fallen to the ground were still kneeling or sitting in the dead vegetation. A soft greenish white glow began to form above Galen’s head. Not a nimbus like that of Rhys, but more of a small ball of light above his head.

Galen found his voice, hoarse, and had to clear it sharply before he said, “I don’t know about any tattoos on Rhys, either.”

“None of us has told the younger ones, Queen Andais,” Doyle said. “Everyone knows that our followers painted themselves with symbols and went into battle with only those symbols to shield them.”

“They eventually learned to wear armor,” Andais said. Her arm had lowered enough for Mistral to be comfortable on his knees again.

“Yes, and only the last few fanatical tribes kept trying to seek our favor and blessing. They died for that devotion,” Doyle said.

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Once we, the sidhe, their gods, were painted with symbols that were our sign of blessing from the Goddess and the God. But as our power faded, so did the marks upon our bodies.” Doyle said it all in his thick-as-molasses voice.

Rhys picked up the story. “Once, if our followers painted their bodies to mimic us, they gained some of the protection, the magic, that we had. It was a sign of devotion, yes, but once long, long ago, it literally could call us to their aid.” He looked at the faint blue fish on his arm. “I have not held this mark for nearly four thousand years.”

“It is faint and incomplete,” the queen said from the far wall.

“Yes.” Rhys nodded and looked at her. “But it is a begi

Nicca’s voice came soft, and I’d almost forgotten him, standing so still to one side. His wings began to gleam in the dark, as if their veins had begun to pulse with light instead of blood. He fa

He held out his right hand, and showed us a mark on the outer part of the wrist, almost on the hand itself. The light was too uncertain for me to be sure of what it was, but Doyle said, “A butterfly.”

“I have never held a mark of favor from the Goddess,” Nicca said in his soft voice.

The queen lowered her blade completely, so that it went back to being invisible in the full black skirt of her robe. “What of the rest of you?”

“You’ll be able to feel it, if you think about it,” Rhys said to the others.

Frost called a ball of light that was a dim silver-grey. It held above his head much as Galen’s greenish light had. Frost began unbuttoning his shirt. He rarely went nude if he could avoid it, so I knew before he bared the perfect curve of his right shoulder that there would be something there.

He turned his arm so he could see it. The queen said, “Show us.”

He let her see first, then turned in a slow half circle to us. It was as pale and blue as Rhys’s had been, a small dead tree, leafless, naked, and the ground underneath it seemed to hint at a snowbank. Like Rhys’s salmon it was dim, and not drawn in completely, as if someone had begun the job but not finished.

“Killing Frost has never held a sign of favor,” the queen said, and her voice was strangely unhappy.

“No,” Frost said, “I have not. I was not fully sidhe when last the sidhe held such favors.” He shrugged back into his shirt and began to button it into place. He wasn’t just dressed, he was armed. Most of the others held a sword and dagger, but only Doyle and Frost had guns. Rhys had left his gun behind with his clothes in the bedroom.

I noticed a bulge here and there under Frost’s shirt, which meant he held more weapons than could be easily seen. He liked being armed, but this many weapons meant something had made him nervous. The assassination attempts, maybe, or maybe something else. His handsome face was closed to me, hidden behind the arrogance that he used as a mask. Perhaps he was just hiding his thoughts and feelings from the queen, but then again…Frost tended to be moody.

Rhys said, “Let Abeloec and Merry finish what they began. Let us all finish it.”

Queen Andais took in a deep breath, so that even across the dimly lit chamber I could see the rise and fall of the V of white flesh in her robe. “Very well, finish it. Then come to me, for we have much to discuss.” She held out her hand to Mistral. “Come, my captain, let us leave them to their pleasures.”

Mistral did not question. He stood and took her pale hand.

“We need him,” Rhys said.

“No,” Andais said, “no, I have given Meredith my green men. She does not need the whole world.”

“Does grass grow without wind and rain?” Doyle asked.

“No,” she said, and her voice was unfriendly again, as if she would like to be angry but couldn’t afford to be right now. Andais was a creature of her temper; she always indulged it. This much self-restraint from her was rare.

“To make spring, you need many things, my queen,” said Doyle. “Without warmth and water, plants wither and die.” They stared at each other, the queen and her Darkness. It was the queen who looked away first.

“Mistral may stay.” She released his hand, then looked across the cavern at me. “But let this be understood between us, niece. He is not yours. He is mine. He is yours only for this space of time. Is that clear to all of you?”

We all nodded.

“And you, Mistral,” the queen said. “Do you understand?”

“My geas is lifted for this space of time with the princess alone.”

“Clearly put, as always,” she said. She turned her back as if she would walk through the wall, then turned and looked over her shoulder. “I will finish what I was doing when I noticed your absence, Mistral.”

He dropped to his knees. “My queen, please do not do this…”

She turned back with a smile that was almost pleasant — except for the look in her eyes, which even from here was frightening. “You mean, do not leave you with the princess?”

“No, my queen, you know that is not what I mean.”

“Do I?” she said, danger in her voice. She glided over the dead brush and placed the point of Mortal Dread under his chin. “You didn’t come to ask the advice of my Darkness. You came to bid the princess to intercede for Nerys’s clan.”

Mistral’s shoulders moved as if he’d breathed deeply, or swallowed hard.

“Answer me, Mistral,” she said, a whine of rage like a razor’s edge in her voice.

“Nerys gave her life on your word that you would not kill her people. You — ” He stopped talking abruptly, as if she’d nudged the point close enough that he couldn’t speak without cutting himself.

“Aunt Andais,” I said, “what have you done to Nerys’s people?”

“They tried to kill you and me last night, or have you forgotten?”

“I remember, but I also remember that Nerys asked you to take her life, so that you might spare her house. You gave your word that you would let them live if she died in their place.”