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Chapter 16
I SCREAMED, "DON'T! SHOLTO, DOYLE, DON'T HURT EACH OTHER!" I HEARD flesh hitting flesh, the sliding footsteps as someone glided through the dark, someone drew a hard breath, then small noises.
"Dammit, listen to me, neither of you is here to harm me. You both want me alive." I don't know if they didn't hear me, or didn't care. There was at least one sword being used in the dark, so I didn't get up and walk toward the light switch—I crawled. I kept the weight of the sinks to my right and searched the darkness just ahead with my left hand.
The fight continued in almost utter silence. I could hear them straining against each other. Someone cried out, and I said a silent prayer that no one was dead. I almost crawled into the wall, touching it at the last second. I worked my way up until I found the light switch. I hit the lights, and the room was suddenly blindingly bright. I was left blinking in the brilliance.
The two sidhe were locked together, bodies straining against one another. Doyle was on his knees, a tentacle wrapped around his neck. Sholto was covered in blood, and it took my eyes a second to realize that one of his stomach tentacles had been severed and lay twitching next to Doyle's knee. Doyle still held the sword, but Sholto's hand and two tentacles held it away from the other sidhe. Their other hands were locked against each other as if they were engaged in a game of finger wrestling. Except this was no game. I was actually surprised that Sholto seemed to be holding his own. Doyle was the acknowledged champion of the Unseelie Court. There were very few who could stand against him and almost none who would win. Sholto wasn't on that short list, or so I'd thought. Then I caught something out of the corner of my eye: a small glow. When I looked straight at it, nothing was there. Magic is like that sometimes—only visible through peripheral vision. There was something glowing on Sholto's hand: a ring.
As I watched, the sword slipped from Doyle's grip and he started to go limp in Sholto's grasp. Sholto grabbed the sword in his hand before it could hit the ground. The tentacles stayed around Doyle's arm. I was moving forward before I had time to think of what I'd do when I got there.
Sholto held Doyle's limp body in his tentacles and raised the sword in a two-handed overhead plunge, like you'd use to drive a knife into someone's chest. I was behind Doyle as the sword started down. I curled my body over his, one hand upraised, my gaze never leaving that glittering blade. I had a heartbeat to wonder if Sholto would stop in time, then he reversed the sword and held it pointed at the ceiling.
"What are you doing, Meredith?"
"He's here to save me, not kill me."
"He is the queen's Darkness. If she desires your death, he will be her instrument."
"But he has Mortal Dread, one of her personal weapons. He carried her mark in his body to give to me. If you'll calm down long enough to look with more than just your eyes, you'll see it."
Sholto blinked at me, then frowned. "Then why would she send me to kill you? Even for Andais that makes no sense."
"If you'll stop strangling him, maybe we can figure it out."
He looked down at Doyle's limp body, still hanging from the tentacles, and said, "Oh," as if he'd forgotten he was still squeezing the life from the other man. Technically, you couldn't strangle a sidhe to death, but I'd never been comfortable testing the limits of immortality. You never knew when you'd find a chink in the armor big enough to die through.
Sholto uncurled his limbs from Doyle, and the other man fell into my arms, his weight driving me to my knees. I wasn't losing enough blood for this much weakness. It was either shock or something to do with using a hand of power for the first time. Whatever was causing it, I wanted to close my eyes and rest, and that just wasn't going to be happening.
I sat on the floor, cradling Doyle's head in my lap. The pulse in his neck was strong, steady, but he did not wake. He took two quick breaths, then his head threw back, eyes wide, and he took a great gasp of air. He sat up coughing. I saw him tense, and Sholto must have, too, because the sword was suddenly pointed at Doyle's face.
Doyle froze, staring up at the other man. "Finish it."
"No one is finishing anything," I said.
Neither man looked at me. I couldn't see Doyle's expression, but I could see Sholto's, and I did not like what I saw. Anger, satisfaction—he wanted to kill Doyle, it was there on his face plain to see.
"Doyle saved me, Sholto. He saved me from your sluagh."
"If you had not warded the door, I would have been here in time," Sholto said.
"If I had not warded the door, you would have been in time to mourn over my dead body, but not in time to save me."
Sholto still wouldn't take his gaze from Doyle. "How did he get inside when I could not?"
"I am sidhe," Doyle said.
"So am I," Sholto said. The anger in his face hardened just a bit.
I slapped Doyle's shoulder, hard enough to sting. He didn't turn, but he winced. "Don't bait him, Doyle."
"I was not baiting, merely stating a fact."
This entire fight was begi
"She's right," Doyle said, softly.
"The great Darkness, bowing out of a fight? Inconceivable. Or is it that I'm the one with the sword now?" Sholto moved the sword a fraction forward, touching the tip to the indentation in Doyle's upper lip. "A sword that can kill any fey, even a sidhe nobleman. Oh, I forget, you're not afraid of anything." There was a bitterness, a mockery, to Sholto's voice that said without doubt that I'd stepped into an old grudge.
"I fear many things," Doyle said, his voice calm, neutral. "Death is not one of them. But the ring on your finger is something that I am wary of. How did you get Beathalachd? I have not seen it used in centuries."
Sholto raised his hand so the dark bronze of the ring glimmered dully in the lights. It was a heavy piece of jewelry, and I would have noticed it on his hand if it had been there earlier. "It was the queen's gift to show her blessing on this hunt."
"The queen did not give you Beathalachd, not personally." Doyle sounded very sure of that.
"What is Beathalachd?" I asked.
"Vitality," Doyle said. "It steals the very life and skill of your opponent, which is the only way that he bested me in a fight."
Sholto flushed. It was considered a sign of weakness to need more magic than you had in your own body to defeat another sidhe. Basically, Doyle had said that Sholto couldn't win a fair fight, and had had to cheat. But it wasn't cheating—just less than chivalrous. Fuck chivalry, come back alive. It was what I'd told any man I'd ever loved, including my father, before every duel.
"The ring proves that I have the queen's favor," Sholto said, his face still colored by his anger.
"The ring did not come from the queen's own hand to yours," Doyle said, "any more than your order to kill the princess came from her mouth."
"I know who speaks for the queen and who does not," Sholto said, and it was his turn to sound certain.
"Really," Doyle said. "And if I had come to you and given you the queen's orders, would you have believed me?"
Sholto frowned, but nodded. "You are the queen's Darkness. When your mouth moves, her words come out of it."
"Then hear these words: The queen wants Princess Meredith alive, and back home."
I couldn't read all the thoughts moving across Sholto's face, but there were a lot of them. I tried to ask the question he would not answer for Doyle. "Did the queen herself tell you to come to Los Angeles and kill me?"
Sholto looked at me. It was a long, considering look, but finally he shook his head. "No," he said.
"Who told you to come to Los Angeles and slay the princess?" Doyle asked.
Sholto opened his mouth to answer, then closed it. The tension flowed out of him, and he stepped back from Doyle, lowering the sword to his side. "No, I will keep the name of the traitor to myself for now."
"Why?" I asked.
"Because Doyle's presence here can mean only one thing. The queen wants you to return to court." He looked at Doyle. "I'm right, aren't I?"
"Yes," Doyle said.
"She wants me to return to court?"
Doyle moved so he could see both Sholto and me, his back to the empty bathroom stalls. "Yes, Princess."
I shook my head. "I left because people were trying to kill me, Doyle. The queen wasn't stopping them."
"They were legal duels," he said.
"They were court-sanctioned assassination attempts," I said.
"I did mention this to her," Doyle said.
"And she said what?"
"She gave me her mark to give to you. If anyone kills you now, even in a duel, they will have to face our queen's vengeance. Trust in this, Princess: even those who desire your death greatly will not want to pay that high a price for it."
I looked up at Sholto, the movement made me slightly dizzy. Shock, definitely shock. "Fine, I'm going back to court, if the queen can guarantee my safety. What does that have to do with you not giving us the name of the traitor? Who used the queen's name to send you to execute me, when she didn't want me dead?"
"I will keep that information to myself for now," Sholto said again. His face was that arrogant mask that he wore so often at court.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because if the queen allows you back to court, you don't need to bargain with me. You will be able to return to faerie, to the Unseelie Court, and I would bet my kingdom that she'll find you another sidhe lover. So, you see, Meredith, you don't need me. You'll have everything I could have offered you, and you won't be tied for a lifetime to a deformed monster."
"You're not deformed, Sholto. If your hags hadn't interrupted, I'd have proved that to you."