A Stroke Of Midnight

CHAPTER 24

“DID THE RING CHOOSE A COUPLE AMONG THE GUARDS?” her voice was very neutral when she asked.

I was glad I was staring at the floor because so much had happened that I’d almost forgotten about Nicca and Biddy. Murders, metaphysics, the Goddess, the chalice, Amatheon vanishing, the attack on Galen, Cel’s prophecy about the green men, the lords who waited just outside, so much, and this was what she began with. Why?

“Yes, Queen Andais, the ring did choose a couple.”

There were murmurings from the nobles in their seats on either side of the floor. “Describe what happened.”

I did as she ordered. I talked of the phantom child, and what I had seen and felt.

Someone said, “The ring lives again.”

Andais looked at the man who had spoken. “Do you have something to add to this discussion, Lord Leri?”

“Only that this is surely good news, my queen.”

“I will decide what is good news, Leri.”

He bowed. “As my queen wills.”

She turned her attention back to me. “The ring lives again after centuries. It chooses a possibly fertile pair, and you don’t think this is important enough to tell me.”

“Much has happened since the ring chose them, Queen Andais. I thought finding the murderer, or murderers, took precedence.”

“I decide what takes precedence here, not you.” She stood. “I am still queen.”

I lowered myself to both knees, and Galen moved with me. “I have never questioned that.”

“Liar,” she hissed, and the room echoed with that one word.

Okay, this was bad, really bad. “What have I done to anger you, Queen Andais? Tell me and I will do my best to remedy it.” I kept my face down so that I was staring at the well-worn stone floor. I did not trust my expression. Fear might excite her, and puzzlement might anger her. I had no expression that I could give her.

“Mistral. Come to me, captain of my guard.” He got up off his knees and answered her command.

I watched him as he mounted the steps to her. He made a sound of startlement more than pain, as she grabbed a handful of his rich, deep grey hair and used it to jerk him to his knees before her. “Did you fuck him?”

I tried to see the trap in the question but failed. I answered truthfully, “Yes, my queen.”

She let him go so abruptly that he nearly fell down the steps, catching himself with one hand. He stayed kneeling awkwardly, most of his face hidden by the glory of his hair. He lowered his eyes, but not before a rumble of thunder echoed through the throne room.

The nobles moved restlessly, looking up and around. Andais’s voice purred as she knelt beside Mistral, stroking his hair. He shivered like a skittish horse when she touched him. “Was that you, Mistral?”

“Forgive me, my queen, I have not had such power in years. My control is not what it was, my apologies, my queen.”

“Two ‘my queens’ in one sentence—you must feel guilty indeed.”

“I have done nothing to feel guilty over, my queen.”

She kept stroking his hair, but she looked out at me. “Have you not?”

He kept his face carefully down. Mistral had never been that good at hiding his emotions. “What have I done to anger you, my queen?” His voice was almost neutral, the distant rumble of thunder was not. His powers were newly reborn, and he was struggling.

“Did the princess bring you back into your power?” She kept petting him idly like a dog. I’d seen her do that with a guard now and then. She’d stroke and pet them all night in front of everyone, then leave them with only those caresses, and nothing more. I’d seen her reduce some of our greatest warriors to silent tears. She petted Mistral, but the anger in her face was all for me. Why was she angry that I’d had sex with Mistral? What had we done wrong?

She walked down the steps, her black dress slithering behind her. “Could you bring any of us, all of us, back to our power? Is one good fuck from you all it takes?” Anger was making her skin pale, starting that first hint of moonlight glow. Her triple-grey eyes were begi

I put my hands on the floor and lowered my face on top of them. I abased myself before her, because I had no idea why she was this angry with me. I had no idea what someone had been whispering in her ear.

She stood so close that the trailing edge of her skirt brushed along my body as she moved past me. “Answer me, Meredith.”

I thought of several answers, discarded them all, and finally said, “I move as the Goddess wills it.”

She came fast, her heels clicking on the stones. She knelt, put her gloved hand under my chin, and raised me up to meet her eyes. “That is not an answer.”

My voice was breathy around my pulse. “I have no other answer.” If I even hinted that I might be able to bring others back with sex, she might order one of her sex shows, and I wasn’t sure that I would survive it. And there were nobles here with whom I could barely have a casual conversation, let alone share my body. There were those who were my enemies, and I wasn’t certain having them come back into their full powers was a good idea.

She slid her other hand into my hair, grabbed a handful of it, and jerked me to my feet. I fought not to let the anger show in my eyes, and knew that I failed.

“It is not just my powers that are returning,” Mistral said from the steps.

She turned to look at him, and I knew that he had deliberately distracted her from me, offering himself to her anger.

She kept her painful grip on my hair, her other hand stroking along the side of my face, much as she had touched his hair. “What are you babbling about, Mistral?”

“Most of the guards that experienced the magic of the ring have regained at least some small magic that had been lost.”

Her grip tightened in my hair until I fought not to make a sound of pain. Andais liked that, and I did not want to encourage her. “Are you saying that she has brought others of my guard back to their power?”

“Yes, my queen.”

She turned back to me, and I didn’t like anything I saw in her eyes. She loosened her hold on my hair just a little as the silk of her gloved hand stroked my cheek and continued down along my neck. Under other circumstances it might have been exciting. Now it just scared me more.

“How many of my guards have you had sex with, Meredith?” She moved her face in close to me, as if she meant to kiss me. “How many of my guard have you given release?” She spoke the last word above my lips, and I knew she was going to kiss me before her lips touched mine.

I felt movement all around me, and knew that the guards were standing. Everyone with me had been in the hallway when Mistral and I had sex, so they all stood to answer her question. They stood to draw her attention from me to them. My bodyguards, my men and women. Some of them had spent centuries like well-armed mice. Quiet, hiding, trying to be invisible. Now they stood and purposefully made a spectacle of themselves.

She had moved back from me when they stood, leaving the taste of her lipstick on my mouth. “She fucked all of you?” She sounded as if she didn’t believe it.

“You asked only who has had release,” Frost said. “When the power filled the hallway, it touched all who stood there.”

“You mean the power when Mistral and Meredith came together made all the guard in the hallway orgasm?”

“Yes,” Frost said.

She laughed and let me go. “How many fertility deities are in your lineage?”

“Five,” I said.

“Five,” she repeated, as she paced away from us. “Now you don’t even have to touch them to bring them power, is that what you’re telling me?”

“I thought you would be pleased that magic returns to the sidhe,” I said carefully.

Afagdu, one of the nobles, spoke from his chair, his eyes the only color in the white of his face and the black of his hair and beard. “Our magic returns, is that not what we have all wished for, Queen Andais?” His voice was mild, careful. Afagdu and his entire house belonged to no one. They were one of the four or five truly neutral houses.