A Stroke Of Midnight

“A queen does not marry for love.” Doyle’s deep voice held the edge of tears.

“But wait, I thought the ring found your true love, your perfect match.”

“It does,” Frost said.

“Nicca and Biddy are completely gone on each other,” I said. “They look at each other as if there is no one else in the world.”

They both nodded. Frost said, “It was always thus with the ones the ring chose.”

“But Mistral and I are not looking at each other that way.”

“You did not see his face afterwards,” Doyle said. “I did.”

“As did I,” Frost said.

I waved it away. “I was the first sex he’s had in centuries. And it was magical sex, power-driven sex. That is heady stuff. Any man would look at me that way, but it was lust, not love.”

Frost frowned at me. Doyle just stared as if his emotions had emptied him.

“I certainly don’t feel that way about Mistral.”

Frost looked positively suspicious. “You do not, truly?”

I shook my head. “If the ring had chosen him, then I’d be in love with him, right?”

Frost nodded.

“I do not feel that way about Mistral.”

“How can you not want what we saw in the hallway?” Doyle asked, in a voice that had gone almost empty of emotion, as if it had all been too much for him.

“It was great, but has it occurred to either of you that maybe the sex was that magical because it is the first time I have had sex inside faerie while wearing the ring?”

Doyle blinked and tried to focus. I watched him fighting off the despair that was trying to numb him. Frost spoke for them both. “You have had sex inside faerie with one of us, surely.”

I shook my head. “I do not believe so, and if I have, I wasn’t wearing the ring. Even in Los Angeles, I often didn’t wear the ring during sex.”

“Because the power was too unpredictable,” Doyle said. He looked up at me. “Were we fools to lock it away?”

The ring on my finger pulsed once, as if squeezing my hand. I swallowed hard and nodded. “The ring thinks so.”

Doyle rubbed at the tear tracks on his skin. “You truly do not love Mistral?”

“No.”

“You could still be pregnant,” he said.

“The ring does fertility, but it does more than that,” Frost said. “If Meredith does not love Mistral, then perhaps he is not the match for her.”

“Does he think he is?”

I watched Doyle collect himself, gathering all that dark reserve. “Most likely.”

“I know that Rhys does, for he said so,” Frost said.

“Does Galen?”

“He was much besotted with the ring’s power. The men that were besotted will most likely not be thinking that clearly.”

“Only you, Rhys, Doyle, and Mistral himself did not seem drunk with power.”

“Mistral was a part of the magic. Rhys did not appear in time.”

“But why the two of you?”

They looked at each other, and it was Frost who spoke, and Doyle who would not look at me. “The ring has no power over you if you are already in love.”

“If it is true love,” Doyle said, and then he did look at me, and I almost wished he had not. His eyes held the pain that he had let me glimpse. The pain that must have begun to grow when none of them had made me pregnant in Los Angeles.

I looked at the two of them, and for the first time I realized that if it was a choice between the throne or losing these two men, I wasn’t certain what I would choose. I wasn’t certain I was queen enough to sacrifice that much. But as long as Cel lived, he would see me dead. And I could not give the rest of faerie to him, even if he swore to leave me and the ones I loved alive. I could not give my people over to him. He made Andais look sane, and kindhearted. I could not give us over to Cel’s sadism. I was too much my father’s daughter to do it. But I stood there and felt the world sink down to nothing at the thought of losing Doyle and Frost.

I thought of something, and said, “So the fact that Galen was besotted means that he is not in love, not true love?”

They looked startled, glanced at each other, then both nodded. “I think the youngling would argue,” Frost said, “but yes, that is what it means.”

I tried the thought that my sweet, gentle Galen would be in someone else’s arms, and the thought did not fill me with regret. In fact, it filled me with a certain peace to know that somewhere out there the ring would find him someone so that he would not mourn me.

I smiled.

“Why do you smile?” Doyle asked.

“Because the thought does not hurt.” I went to them, and touched fingertips to both their faces. “The thought of losing the two of you… that is like a wound through my heart.” I cupped their cheeks but was careful not to touch Frost’s face with the ring. I wanted to touch them without the magic interfering. Doyle’s skin was actually warmer than normal for humans, had been since the night he’d rediscovered he could shapeshift into animal form. Frost’s skin was a little cooler than normal for humans. It wasn’t always so, but often he felt cool to the touch. I’d first noticed it in Los Angeles after he, too, had found some of his godhead through the chalice’s power.

I held them, hot and cold, light and dark, and wondered if there truly was a man in faerie who would make me forget them, and turn love-blinded eyes to someone else. I valued this love that we had built slowly over weeks and months. It had taken effort and trust, and I knew that even if all the magic in the world died, I would still love them. And after what they had shown me tonight, I thought they would still love me as well.

I moved their faces until they touched, so I could lay a kiss half on one and half on the other. I bent over them with my face between theirs. I whispered the truth against the silk of Frost’s hair, and the warmth of Doyle’s skin. “To have you in my bed for the rest of my life, I would give up faerie, the throne, all that I am, or all that I might be.”

Doyle’s arm found me first, but Frost followed, and they pulled me to my knees, enveloped me against their bodies, pressed me hard and safe against them. Doyle spoke with his face pressed to the top of my head. “If there were anyone else worthy of the throne, I would let you.” He laid his cheek against my hair. His grip was almost painful in its fierceness. “For the scent of your hair on my pillow I would trade my life, but I have served this court too long to give it into the hands of Cel.”

Frost’s hands trailed down my body, idly tracing the edge of my hip under the pants I’d put on. “The stories the prince’s guards have told…” He shivered, hands convulsing against my body.

I pushed away enough to see their faces. “I thought the guards were too terrified of Cel to tattle on him.”

Doyle pulled me in against them again, but turned me so that I half sat and half lay against their laps. “Some of the prince’s guard have access to human newspapers and magazines,” Doyle said. “They have noticed that your guards seem to be having a much better time than either the Queen’s Ravens or the Prince’s Cranes.”

“I still can’t get used to hearing them called Cranes. That was my father’s bird, his guard.”

“Many of them belonged to Essus’s guard,” Frost said. He held my hand in his. “They were simply given to Cel after Essus’s death.”

“Were they given a choice?” I asked. At the time, the least of my worries had been my father’s guard, for had they not failed him? Had they not allowed him to be killed? Now I wondered how many of them would have dropped their vows as royal guard if they’d been given a chance.

Doyle cupped the side of my face, brought my attention to his face. “It was your sending for the other men last night that has sent some of Cel’s birds to speak to us about life under him.”

“Why did that loosen their tongues?”

“It showed that you cared for all your guard, not just the ones you like. Such caring is not something the Cranes have seen in many a year.”