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Someone moved at the far end of the hallway. The person who sat up was female, decidedly female even under the armor. She took off her helmet and gasped at the air. Her curly black hair was cut very short, which was different from last I’d seen her, but the face was still Biddy. She was one of Cel’s guards, half-human and half—Unseelie sidhe, even though she’d never been a fan of Cel. She’d once belonged to my father’s guard, and when Cel co-opted many of my father’s guards, she was trapped in the turnover. What was she doing here?
A shadow formed over her face and flowed down the bright silver of her armor. The shadow held a figure, a tiny figure. A baby like some dark ghost coiled in front of her.
The ring on my finger was suddenly warm against my hand, as if someone had breathed across the metal.
I gazed down the hallway, still trapped under Mistral’s body. Biddy sat at the turn of the hall that was farther than the hallway to the kitchen. I shouldn’t have been able to see her this clearly from this angle. But she stood out to my gaze as if she was outlined in something more real than the rest of the figures in the hallway.
Mistral whispered above me, “Do you see it?”
I whispered back, “I was going to ask you the same thing.”
“A child,” he said.
“A baby,” I said.
“Go to her quickly, for the vision will not last. Somewhere in this hallway is her match. The father of that shadow child.”
“What is that in front of Biddy?” Galen asked. He’d raised up on his elbows.
Mistral raised himself off of me. “Go to her, Meredith, go to her before the magic of the ring fades.” He pulled me to my feet with his pants still undone. “Hurry.” The tone in his voice made me start down the hall, unsteady on my feet in the high heels. The sex had been too good for my legs to be steady. I stumbled and had to catch myself against the wall. Hands steadied me, and I looked down to find Hawthorne’s hands on my hips. “Are you all right, Princess?”
I nodded. “Yes.” I gazed down the hallway at that solid shadow in front of Biddy. I felt as if that phantom child was whispering to me. Whispering, “I’m here.” Other hands touched me as I stumbled and hurried. A handful of the others could see the shadow child. Their hands seemed to push and hurry me as much as catch me. The ring was like a warm weight on my hand, heavy with pressure. The pressure of a spell building, building to a great conclusion. I had to be touching Biddy before the spell burst. I wasn’t sure how I knew that, but I was absolutely certain that the ring needed to be against her skin before the spell finished. Something would be lost if I failed.
Biddy had struggled to her feet, though her tri-grey eyes were a little unfocused, and she leaned heavily against the wall. I found my legs could move as the pressure built in the ring, like some warm living thing against my skin. I was ru
I reached for her hand, and she reached automatically out to me. Her hand wrapped around mine just as the spell burst over us. It was as if the world held its breath, as if time and magic stopped, and there was a moment where Biddy and I stood outside of all of it. There was no sound, not even the hush of my own pulse. She stared at me, eyes huge with fear, or something I couldn’t feel. The spell wasn’t for me. I was merely the vessel for it. I had no idea what was happening to Biddy. I knew it didn’t hurt, and that it was good, but what she heard in that moment must have been for her ears alone. The Goddess spoke to her, and I held her hand, let the magic take her while I was in silence, because I simply didn’t need to know.
Sound came back with an audible pop. The change in pressure was real enough that we staggered when the magic released us. Our hands convulsed around each other as if the touch of flesh was all that kept us from falling. Her eyes were wide, her skin pale with shock. Biddy was tall, broad-shouldered, and wearing the remnants of her armor. Her gauntlets and her helmet, and other pieces lay scattered around her, as if she’d begun to shed the outer covering long before I reached her. She was dressed in bits of armor and the padding that even the sidhe must wear under such things. Her short hair was in disarray from the helmet and the magic that had put her against the wall. She was still lovely—nothing could take that away from her—but I’d seen her look better. Still, the way the men in the hallway looked at her, you’d have thought no woman had ever been more desirable than Biddy was in that moment.
Their faces held a soft wonderment, as if they saw something I did not. Some vision of female loveliness that left them speechless and immobile, literally stu
For a moment I thought it was Doyle, and the thought squeezed my heart tight, but it was simply that his face did not hold the stu
He paused by Doyle and Frost, and looked back at me, as if to make certain I saw them. I wasn’t certain why it was important to him, but he nodded as if satisfied when he saw me see them.
Rhys stood at the end of the hallway. His face was sad but not enthralled. I looked at each of the men in turn with that same hyper-focus that I had seen in Biddy earlier. The magic was looking for something.
Kitto crouched at Rhys’s feet as if he had been struck down by the magic, but his face held the same wonderment that the other men’s did. I thought I was looking for someone who wasn’t affected, but it was Mistral who showed me that I was looking for the man who was most affected, not least.
Mistral stopped before the colored glow of Nicca’s wings. He held his hand out to the still-kneeling man. Nicca took his hand, but his face, now that I could see it, looked blind to Mistral, to anything but what he saw in Biddy.
His face had never looked more beautiful than it did in that moment, a delicate, almost feminine beauty that was usually disguised behind broad shoulders and a six-foot warrior’s frame. In his sleep he could be soft and as gentle as he truly was, but awake he always had to be more.
Mistral drew him to his feet, and Nicca was suddenly himself, awake and moving with the smooth strength of his bare chest, and the huge wings like a shining colored frame for all that gentle beauty.
I admit that, for a moment or two, I felt regret. Regret that I would lose him, that he would never again grace my bed. But that selfish impulse was drowned in a feeling of such warmth, such peace, that I couldn’t regret it, not truly. What I saw on his face as Mistral led him toward us was what I’d felt in the bed with him. He was too gentle for my tastes, and far too gentle for the queen’s. The only thing he would ever have done as king was die.
I looked at Biddy’s face, and saw in her eyes what I saw in Nicca’s. Each of them saw the whole world in the eyes of the other, and it was a nice, safe, beautiful world.
The four of us stood at the end of the hallway, women on one side, men on the other. I expected Biddy or Nicca to reach out to the other, but they were immobile. Mistral and I clasped their hands together. That shadow child that I had seen at first was back, but it wasn’t a phantom now. I saw a smiling face with Nicca’s warm brown eyes and Biddy’s black curls. I saw their child laughing and real, as if I could have touched the round baby curve of his face. I pressed my hand, and the warmth of the ring, into their flesh, and Mistral’s big hand covered mine. We bound their hands together with magic, and the tears that I shed. I saw their child, and knew that he was real, and all we had to do to make that vision flesh was let them be together.