Swallowing Darkness

"I think some of them would," Rhys said.

"I agree with Rhys," Galen said, "I think Cel would rather see all of faerie destroyed than lose his chance to follow his mother onto the throne."

Gran touched his arm. "Ya have grown cynical, boy."

He smiled at her but it left his green eyes cautious, almost hurt. "I've grown wise."

She turned to me. "I hate to think that any sidhe noble is so hateful, even that one."

"The last I heard from my aunt, my cousin, Cel, had plans to get me with child, and we'd rule together."

A look of disgust showed on Gran's face. "You'd die first."

"But now, I'm already pregnant, and it can't be his. Rhys and Galen are right; he'll kill me now if he can."

"He'll kill you before the babes are born, if he can," Sholto said.

"What concern is my Merry to ya, King Sholto of the sluagh?" Gran didn't even try to keep the suspicion out of her voice.

He moved closer to the bed, standing at the foot of it. He had let the other three men do most of the touching. I appreciated that since we were still more acquaintances than friends. "I am one of the fathers of Merry's children."

Gran looked at me. It was an unhappy, almost angry look. "I heard the rumor that the sluagh's king would be a father, but I didnae credit it."

I nodded. "It's true."

"He ca

Normally, I would have been more diplomatic, but the time for diplomacy was past, at least among my i

"Why are you angry about Sholto being one of the fathers?"

It was a very blunt question, rude by any standard among the sidhe. The rules were a little less subtle among the lesser fey.

"One day of being the next queen and you would be rude to your ol' gra

"I'm hoping to see a lot of you while I'm pregnant, but I'm not going to mess with bad will between you and my lovers. Tell me why you don't like Sholto."

The look in her lovely brown eyes was not friendly, not at all. "Did you nae wonder who struck the blow that killed your great-grandmother, my mother?"

"She died in one of the last great wars between the courts."

"Aye, but who killed her?"

I looked at Sholto. His face was its arrogant mask, but his eyes were thinking too hard. I didn't know his face as well as Rhys's or Galen's, but I was almost certain that he was thinking furiously.

"Did you kill my great-grandmother?"

"I slew many in the wars. The brownies were on the side of the Seelie Court, and I was not. I, and my people, did kill brownies and other lesser fey of the Seelie Court in the wars, but whether one of them was your blood, I do not know."

"Worse then," Gran said. "You killed her and it meant nothin' to ya."

"I killed many. It becomes difficult after a time to separate the dead one from another."

"I saw her die at his hand, Merry. He slew her and moved on, as if she were nothing." There was such pain in her voice, a raw hurt that I had never heard from my grandmother.

"Which war was this?" Doyle asked, his deep voice falling into the sudden tension like a stone thrown down a well.

"It was the third call to arms," Gran said.

"The one that started because Andais boasted that her hounds could out-hunt Taranis's," Doyle said.

"So that's why it's called the War of Dogs," I said.

He nodded.

"I do nae know why it began. The king ne'r told us why we were to fight, only that to refuse was treason and death."

"Think about why the first one is called the Marriage War," Rhys said.

"That one I know," I said. "Andais offered to marry Taranis and combine the two courts, after her king died in a duel."

"I can't remember anymore which of them took insult first," Doyle said.

"That war was more than three thousand years ago," Rhys said. "The details tend to get fuzzy after that much time."

"So all the great fey wars have been over stupid reasons?" I asked.

"Most of them," Doyle said.

"The sin of pride," Gran said.

No one argued with her. I wasn't certain that pride was a sin — we weren't Christian — but pride could be a terrible thing in a society where the rulers had absolute sway over their people. There was no way to say no, no way to say "isn't this a stupid reason to get our people killed?" Not without being imprisoned, or worse. That went for both courts, by the by, though the Seelie Court was more circumspect over the centuries, so that its reputation among the media had always been better. Andais liked her tortures and executions more public.

I looked from Gran to Sholto. His handsome face was uncertain. He tried for arrogance, but there was a flinching in his tri-yellow eyes. Was it fear? Perhaps. I think he believed in that moment that I might cast him away, because three thousand years ago he had slain my ancestor.

"He waded through our people as if they were so much meat, something to be cut down, so that he could get to the main fightin'," Gran said, with rage in her voice that I'd never heard even for the abusive bastard who had been her husband at the Seelie Court.

"Sholto is the father of one of your great-grandchildren. Sex with him awakened the wild magic. Sex with him is what has given back the dogs and faerie animals that are appearing in the courts and among the lesser fey."

She gave me a look — such bitterness in that one look. It frightened me a little. My gentle Gran, so full of hate. "Rumor said that, too, but I didnae believe it."

"I swear by the Darkness that Eats all Things that it is true."

She looked startled. "Ya did nae ha' to make that oath to me, Merry-girl. I would believe ya."

"I want this clear between us, Gran. I love you, and I am sorry that Sholto slew your mother, my great-grandmother, in front of you, but he is not only the father of one of my children, he is also the consort who helped me bring back much of the magic that has returned. He is too valuable to me and to faerie to be accidentally poisoned."

"The sidhe ca

"Not with anything occurring in nature, no, but you've lived in the human world for decades. You know very well that there are man-made poisons now. The sidhe are not proof against artificial creations. My father taught me that."

"Prince Essus was a very wise man, and for a sidhe royal, he was a great, great man." There was a ferociousness to her words. She meant them, for she had loved my father as a son, for he, more than my mother, had loved me, and had allowed Gran to help him raise me. But the rage in those words didn't match what she was saying, as if there were other words in her mind than those on her tongue.

"He was, but his greatness is not what is in your mind, grandmother. I see a rage in you that frightens me. The kind of rage that all the fey seem capable of, so that they will trade their lives and the lives of those who depend on them for vengeance and pride."

"Do nae compare me to the lords and ladies of the court, Merry. I have a right to my anger, and my thoughts on it."

"Until I can trust that you are more my ally and grandmother than a revenge-seeking daughter, I ca

She looked startled. "I will be with you and the babes as I helped raise you."

I shook my head. "Sholto is my lover and the father of one of the children. More than that, Gran, sex with him brought back the most magic to faerie. I will not risk him to your vengeance, unless you make our most sacred oath that you will not harm him in any way."

She searched my face as if thinking that I must be joking. "Merry-girl, you ca

"Monster," I said softly.

"He has used sidhe magic to hide that he is more a monster than any a' the rest."

"What do you mean, 'the rest'?" I asked.

She motioned to Doyle. "The Darkness kills withou' mercy. His mother was a hell hound, his father a phouka who bedded the bitch when in dog form. You could ha' puppies inside ya. They act as if the high lords are perfect, but they are jus' as deformed as we are. They can just hide it behind their magic better than us lesser folk."

I looked at the woman who had helped raise me as if she were a stranger, because in a way she was. I'd known that she resented the courts — most of the lesser fey did — but I had not known that she had this prejudice inside her.

"Do you have a special grudge against Doyle too?" I asked.

"When ya came to me, Merry, you had Galen with ya, and Barinthus. Them I ha' nothin' agin', but I didnae dream you would go to the Darkness. Ya feared him as a child."

"I remember," I said.

"Do ya not understand, girl, that if the queen had had your father killed, who she would ha' sent to do the deed?"

Ah. "Doyle did not kill my father."

"How do ya know, Merry? Did he tell ya he did nae?"

"Doyle would not have acted without the queen's express orders, and Andais is not a good enough actress. She did not order my father, Andais's brother's, death. I saw her anger over it. It was real."

"She didnae love Essus."

"Maybe she loves only her son, but her brother meant something to her, and she did not like that he died at someone's hand. Maybe it was anger that she had not done the ordering of it. I do not know, but I do know that Andais did not order the deed done, and that Doyle would not have acted without that order."

"But he would ha' done it, if ordered. You do believe that," Gran said.

"Of course," I said, and my voice was as calm as hers was growing strident.

"He would ha' killed your father at the queen's orders. He would ha' killed you."

"He was the Queen's Darkness. I know that, Gran."

"How can ya sleep with him, then? Knowing the blood that must be on his hands."

I tried to think how to say it so she would understand. Her reaction had caught me completely off guard. I didn't like that, and not just for the normal reasons that a granddaughter might not like her grandmother hating her husband-to-be. I didn't like that she had been able to hide this level of hatred from me all these years. It made me wonder what else I'd missed, what else she'd hidden.