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He raised his head just enough so he could roll his eyes at me. “If I had dreamt that you would take one look from me so seriously, I would have been more careful of you, Princess. My oath on that.”
I knew what he meant then, for it had been the look of contempt on Mistral’s face the night before that had helped me be brave enough to confront Andais when she was in the grip of an evil spell. A spell that had made her slaughter her own men, and be a danger to anyone near her. It had been a very clever assassination ploy. Mistral had told me with his eyes alone that I was just another useless royal, and he hated us all. It wasn’t the hatred, but the uselessness that had moved me to action. Because I agreed with him. In that moment I had decided that I would rather die than see them slaughtered.
“Are you so certain one glance from you was what moved me forward?” I meant it to be a joke, but I’d forgotten how long it had been for some of the Queen’s Ravens since they’d had a woman joke with them.
He lowered his face quickly, his voice uncertain and uncomfortable. “I am sorry, Princess, I presumed too much.”
My kidding had not only fallen flat but embarrassed him. I’d had no idea my words had such power over Mistral. I touched his bowed head, the queen’s ring on my right hand. Mark of her rulership, her first gift to me, and an artifact of power.
My fingers brushed his face a breath before the metal of the ring did. He turned those storm-grey eyes up to me. His lips parted as if he meant to speak, but the metal touched his skin, and there was no time for words.
I knew that our bodies still stood and knelt in the hallway inside the Unseelie Court. I knew it, because I’d had this happen before when the magic of the chalice and the ring combined. But to Mistral and me, we were on the top of a hill that was crowned by a large dead tree. I had seen this hill, this tree in one form or another in dreams and visions. Mistral knelt before me with my hand cupping his cheek. He put his hand over mine, holding my touch against his face, as he gazed around at the plain that spread out as far as the eye could see. It was green and lovely, but strangely empty.
“What have you done, Princess?”
“Not me,” I said.
He gazed up at me, and there was puzzlement in his eyes. “I don’t understand.”
“Look at the tree.”
He turned, with his hand holding mine now, rather than pressing it to his face. The tree was a huge, blackened thing, its bark crumbling in the growing wind. The first time I’d seen the tree so dead it had had a large cleft in the center. This tree did not. It had taken me a while to understand that the tree wasn’t real, or the hill. Neither were any place a map could get you. The tree represented the Goddess, and the power of faerie; the hill was The Hill. We stood at the center of the world, but the center of the world changed at the thought of the gods. In this moment, this was the center, and Mistral and I stood at that center. We stood hand in hand, while the wind blew across the sky.
The wind smelled of apple blossoms and roses—sweet and clean and good. I heard a voice on the flower-scented wind. Or perhaps it was merely a thought. Mistral did not seem to hear it, so perhaps the voice was only for me.
“Kiss him,” the wind said, “kiss him. Let him taste the chalice.” But the chalice is not here, I thought. The wind said, “You are the chalice.” Oh, of course. It made perfect sense in that moment, though I knew that later it might not make any sense at all.
“Mistral,” I said, and the wind grew stronger, sweeter, at the sound of his name.
He looked at me, and there was a hint of fear in his eyes. Had it really been that long since he was touched by the Goddess? Yes, the voice in my head said, it had.
“Kiss me, Mistral,” I said.
His gaze searched my face. “Who are you?”
“I am Merry.”
He shook his head, even as he let me draw him in against my body. I realized that my arm was not injured in this place of dream and vision. I slid my arms around the smooth strength of his back, over the leather of his armor. His hands slid around my waist, but he was still shaking his head.
“No, you are not the princess.”
“I am, but I am more, that is true.” My voice had taken on that echoing softness that I’d heard before, like listening to someone else’s voice in your own ears.
“What are you?” he whispered.
“Drink of the chalice, Mistral.” The flower-scented wind wrapped around us like invisible arms, binding us until our bodies were pressed as close together as we could manage with clothes on. He held me, but he was afraid, and fear is not a good aphrodisiac for most people. The queen has never understood that.
His face bent toward me, but his body was tense, and he tried not to bend closer. The wind pushed at him, forced his head downward. I understood in that moment that he was once the master of the winds, bringer of storms. Once he had controlled it all as a man controls a horse, but now Mistral was the horse, who was being ridden, and he didn’t like it.
Mistral fought against the push of the sweet wind. He fought to move his body away from mine, but the wind was like chains, and the best he could do with all that strength was keep his mouth just above mine. Keep himself just out of reach.
“Why do you fight when this is what you want?” the voice said, using my lips.
“You ca
“If I am not real, then you ca
“You ca
“You were always my doubting Thomas, Mistral. Kiss me, kiss me, and discover the truth. Whether your doubts are real, or whether I am real.” The wind pressed so tightly that it was hard to breathe. “Kiss me!” The voice came from my mouth, and echoed through the wind, and the drowning scent of blossoms.
His mouth touched mine, and the moment it did, he stopped fighting. He gave himself to the kiss with his lips, his mouth, his arms, his body. The wind was only wind again, but Mistral did not notice. He picked me up in his strong arms, his hands pressing me against his body. One hand gripped my ass, an almost crushing grip that brought a small sound from my mouth. That sound seemed to urge him on. The kiss had been thorough before, but it had had a certain gentleness to it; now he kissed me as if he would climb into my body through the opening of my lips. He kissed and ate with teeth at my mouth, biting and holding my lower lip until I cried out for him.
The smell of flowers was gone, and the wind smelled like ozone. Every hair on my body raised in goose bumps. Mistral drove us to the ground with him on top. I wasn’t certain if it was to protect me, or to press the swollen front of him against my body. But we were on the ground a second before a jagged white blast of lightning fell from the clear sky and struck the dead tree.
Bolt after bolt fell from the sky hammering the tree, and with each strike the dead bark fell, revealing fresh pale bark underneath.
Mistral covered my body with his, shielding me as the lightning furrowed the earth on either side of the tree, even as it shook the dead away. Until at last the tree stood naked and new and alive. The broken, snaggled branches began to grow longer, fuller, and buds formed on the end of those branches. Blossoms spilled out, white and pink, and the scent of apples was thick and sweet. Her voice came to us at the end of the vision. “Go now, my doubting Thomas, and shake the dead away from the quick.”
We came back to the hallway with Mistral still kneeling before me, my hand on his face, my hurt arm in a sling.
There were more of Mistral’s men on the other side of us, but Doyle and Barinthus were keeping them back. I doubted much time had passed, but I heard Barinthus say, “The princess brought me back into some of my power with only a touch. Would you take that chance away from your captain, simply because you do not understand what is happening?”