Kurag turned to the circle of goblins and began to move through them, following the small arms of his twin. I couldn't see who he finally stopped at. He walked back out of the tightly packed knot of goblins and it wasn't until the small goblin stepped out from behind him that I could see him at all.
He was only four feet tall with pale skin like gleaming mother-of-pearl. I knew sidhe skin when I saw it. His hair curled over his neck, black and thick, but cut short of his shoulders. His face was strangely triangular with huge almond-shaped eyes that were a solid sapphire blue with a line of black pupil like a stripe in the center of all that blue. He was wearing nothing but a silver edged loincloth, which in a goblin meant that there was something of a deformity on the bare spots. They did not hide deformities, but saw them as a sign of honor.
He walked toward me over the stone like a tiny perfect male doll. If there was a deformity I couldn't see it. Except for his size and the eyes, he could have been of the court.
"This is Kitto," Kurag said. "His mother was a sidhe lady raped in the last goblin war." Which made Kitto nearly two thousand years old. He certainly didn't look it.
"Greetings, Kitto," I said.
"Greetings, Princess." There was a strange sibilance to his words, as if he had trouble forming the words. His lips were full and pink and shaped like a perfect cupid's bow, but those pretty lips barely moved when he spoke, as if there was something in his mouth that he didn't want me to see.
"Before you agree," Kurag said, "see the whole show."
Kitto turned his back and showed why he was wearing the loincloth. There was a spread of shining iridescent scales starting at the base of his hairline and descending down his back to the base of his spine. His butt was small and tight and perfect, but the glittering scales told me why his eyes had elliptical pupils and why he had trouble with his "sss."
"Snake goblin," I said.
Kitto turned back to face me. He nodded.
"Open your mouth, Kitto. Let me see it all," I said.
He looked at the floor for a moment, then rolled his strange eyes up at me. He opened his mouth in a wide yawn, flashing dainty fangs. His tongue flicked out like a red ribbon with a dab of black on the end of each point. "Ssatissfffied?" he asked.
I nodded. "Yes."
"You can't," Rhys said. He'd been so quiet I'd almost forgotten he was with us.
"It's my choice," I said.
Rhys touched my shoulder, took me to one side. "Take a good look at the scar across my face. I know I've told you a thousand heroic stories about how I got this, but the truth is the queen punished me. She gave me to the goblins for a night of sport. I thought, why not, free sex even if it is with goblins." He blinked his one good eye. "A goblin's idea of sex is more violent than you can imagine, Merry." He traced the length of the scar with his fingertip, and the look in his eye was distant, remembering.
I touched the scar where it ended on his cheek, catching his hand in mine. "A goblin did this to you during sex?"
He nodded.
"Oh, Rhys," I said, voice soft.
He patted my hand and shook his head. "No pity. I just want you to understand what you're agreeing to."
"I understand, Rhys. Thank you for telling me." I patted his cheek, squeezed his hand, and walked past him back to the waiting goblins. I was walking straight and upright, but there was a little turning inside my head that made me want badly to hold on to something. But when you're negotiating a war treaty, you need to look strong, or at least not like you're about to faint dead away.
"Kitto's flesh in my body, right?" I asked.
Kurag nodded, and he looked pleased with himself, as if he knew he'd already won.
"I agree to take Kitto's flesh into my body."
"Agreed?" Kurag said, surprise dripping from his voice. "You would agree to share flesh with a goblin?"
I nodded. "I agree, on one condition."
His eyes narrowed. "What condition?"
"If the alliance between us is a season long," I said.
I felt Doyle step closer to me. The ripple of surprise spread through the room in whispers and small movements.
"A season," Kurag said. "No, too long."
"Eleven moons from now," I said.
Kurag turned back to me. "My queen has saved us the trouble of opening my vein."
"Then let's get on with it. I'm wasting blood," I said.
Galen still had his hands over my wrists, and I realized he was holding pressure on my wounds.
I looked up at him. "Galen, it's all right." He kept his hands tight around my wrists. "Galen, please, let me go."
He stared down at me, opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it and slowly moved his hands back from my wrists. His hands came away stained with my blood. But the pressure he'd applied had slowed the bleeding, or maybe it was just Galen's touch. Maybe it wasn't just my imagination that made his hands a cool, soothing presence.
He helped me to my feet. I had to push his hands away so I could stand alone. I spread my legs to get as good a balance on the heels as I could, and faced Kurag.
Standing, I came almost up to his sternum. His shoulders were nearly as wide as I was tall. Most of the sidhe were tall, but the larger goblins were truly bulky.
Fflur had moved to one side of me to join Galen, Doyle, and Rhys at my back. Frost stood to one side, with the little goblin dangling from his hands. There was a press of bodies all around us: sidhe, goblin, and others. But I had eyes only for the goblin king.
"Though I do offer you my apologies for my man's rudeness," Kurag said, "I cannot offer you my blood without gaining in return."