The vines shuddered, trembling against my skin. The room was suddenly thick with falling leaves. A dry brown snow filled the air. There was a crisp sharp smell like autumn leaves, and under that, like a second wave of scent, was the rich smell of fresh earth.
The thorns lowered me toward the ground. Galen cradled me, picking me up in his arms as the vines let me down, slowly. Both Galen's arms and the vines themselves seemed strangely gentle, if teeth could be gentle while they tried to bite your arm off.
The sound of the door banging back against the wall was the first hint I had that the vines had pulled back from the door.
Galen was holding me in his arms with the vines still pulling my wrists above my head when we all turned to the spill of light from the open doors.
The light seemed brilliant, dazzling, with an edge of soft mist. I knew the light only appeared bright after the dimness, and I thought the edge of mist was just my ruined vision -until a woman stepped out of that light with smoke rising from her fingertips as if each pale yellow finger were a snuffed-out candle.
Fflur moved into the room dressed in a gown of unrelieved black that made her yellow skin the bright color of daffodils. Her yellow hair fanned around her dress like a shining cloak twisting in a wind of her own power.
The guards spilled out to either side of her. A handful had weapons; the rest came into the room bare-handed. There were twenty-seven men in the Queen's Guard and the same number of women in the King's Guard, which now answered to Cel because there was no king. Fifty-four warriors, and less than thirty came through the doors.
Even through the faintness I tried to memorize each face, tried to remember who came to our aid and who stayed behind in safety. Any guard that hadn't come through those doors had lost any chance they had at my body. But I couldn't focus on all the faces. A flood of new forms swept in behind the Guard, most of them shorter and much less human.
The goblins had come.
The goblins were not Cel's creatures. That was my last thought before darkness spilled over my vision and ate the mist across my eyes. I sank into that blissful darkness like a stone thrown in deep water that could only fall and fall because there was no bottom.
Chapter 31
THERE WAS A LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS. A PINPOINT OF WHITENESS THAT floated toward me, growing larger and larger. And I could see that it wasn't light but white flames. A ball of white fire swept through the darkness, swept toward me, and I could not escape it because I had no body. I was just something floating in the cool dark. The fire washed over me and I had a body. I had bones and muscles and skin and a voice. The heat ate over my skin, and I felt my muscles cooking, popping from the heat. The fire ate into my bones, filled my veins with molten metal, and began to peel me apart from the inside out.
I woke shrieking.
Galen was bending over me. His face was all that kept me from total panic. He was cradling my head and upper body against his thighs, stroking my forehead, smoothing my hair back from my face. "It's all right, Merry. It's all right." His eyes glittered with unshed tears, gleaming like green glass.
Fflur leaned over me. "Poor greeting I bring, Princess Meredith, but answer to our queen, I must." Translated, that meant she had called me out of the darkness, forced me awake, and at the queen's bidding. Fflur was one of those who tried very hard to live as if the year had never gone to four digits. Her tapestries had been displayed in the St. Louis Art Museum. They'd been photographed and written up in at least two major magazines. Fflur had refused to look at the articles, and under no circumstances could she be persuaded to go to the museum. She'd turned down interviews from television, newspaper, and the aforementioned magazines.
It took two tries to get my voice to work in something other than a scream. "Did you clear the door of roses?"
"I did," she said.
I tried to smile at her and didn't quite make it. "You risked much to aid me, Fflur. You have no apologies to make."
She glanced up and around at the crowding faces. She placed a fingertip on my forehead, and thought one word: "Later." She wanted to speak to me later, but wanted no one to know. She was a healer, among other talents. She could have checked my health with the same gesture, so no one was the wiser.
I didn't even dare risk a nod. The best I could do was stare into her black eyes, a startling contrast to all that yellow, so that they looked like the eyes of a doll. I looked into her eyes and tried to tell her with a glance that I'd understood. I hadn't even seen the throne room yet and I was already neck deep and rising in court intrigue. Typical.
My aunt knelt beside me in a cloud of leather and vinyl. She took my right hand in hers, petting it, getting blood all over her leather gloves. "Doyle tells me that you pricked your finger on a thorn, and the roses sprang to life."
I looked up at her, tried to read her face, and failed. My wrists ached with a sharp burning that seemed to go all the way down to the bone. Her fingers kept playing over the fresh wounds, and every time the leather passed over it, it made me twitch. "I pricked my finger, yes. What caused the roses to come to life is anyone's guess."
She cradled my hand in both of hers, gently now, gazing down at the wounds with a look of... wonderment on her face. "I had given up hope of our roses. One more loss in a sea of loss." She smiled, and it seemed genuine, but I'd seen her use the same smile while torturing someone in her bedchamber. Just because the smile was real didn't mean you could trust it.
"I'm glad you're pleased," I said, my voice as empty as I could make it.
She laughed then, pressing her hands together over the wounds. I was suddenly very aware of every seam in the leather gloves as they pressed into my flesh. She pressed with a slow steady pressure until I made a small pain sound. That seemed to make her happy, and she let me go. She stood with a swish of skirts.