"My brother, Essus, once told me that Meredith would make a better queen than my own son, Cel, would make a king. I did not believe it then."
"At least Cel is not mortal," Miniver said.
"But Cel has not brought back a single drop of the power we have lost. Nor have I," Andais said, and there was no teasing to her now. There was no showmanship.
"And you would have us believe that this half-breed mortal has done what pure sidhe blood has not?" Miniver pointed at me in what I thought was an overly dramatic gesture, but it did show the sleeve of her dress to perfection, flashing the slits of cloth open so that the blue cloth of the underdress showed through. Sometimes if you've lived nearly forever, you think overly long about how things appear. "This abomination cannot be allowed on the throne, Queen Andais."
I thought abomination was a little harsh, but I said nothing, for in a way it wasn't me she'd challenged, it was the queen.
"I say who will and who will not sit on the throne of this court, Miniver."
"Your obsession with a hereditary monarchy of your own bloodline will be the death of us all. We have all seen what happens on the dueling ground when one of us shares blood with that thing. They become mortal through the disease that her blood carries."
"Mortality is not a disease," Andais said, quietly.
"But it kills like one." Miniver looked out over the court, and there were a lot of faces turned to her. Many showed by either silence or nodding that they agreed with at least this much. They, too, had worried about my blood. "If this mortal becomes queen, then we are honor-bound to take blood oath from her, to bind us to her. To take blood oath, very much as we take on the dueling ground." Miniver looked up at Andais, and there was something close to pleading on her face. "Don't you see, my queen, if we take her blood into us and bind ourselves to her mortal peril, then we could lose our own immortality? We would cease to be sidhe."
It was Nerys who stood up and said, "We would cease to be anything."
Three, then four others of the noble houses of the Unseelie stood. They stood and showed their support for what Miniver had said. Six houses out of sixteen stood against me. That was something we had not foreseen. Or I had not.
Doyle had gone very still under my hand. All my men had gone very still, except the goblins at my feet and the Red Cap at my back. Either immortality didn't mean the same thing to them as it did to the sidhe, or other things were happening with the goblins. Things I had not quite grasped.
"I say who will be my heir," Andais said, "unless you wish to challenge me to personal combat, Miniver, Nerys, all of you. I will gladly fight you each in turn, and this arguing will cease."
Miniver shook her head. "Your answer to everything is death and violence, Andais. It has led us to be childless and near powerless, but our immortality, you cannot have that."
"Then challenge me, Miniver. Make yourself queen, if you can."
If Miniver's anger could have flown across the room and struck Andais, the queen would have died where she sat, but Miniver's anger did not have that kind of power. The day when the fey, any fey, could have killed with simply an angry thought was centuries past.
Andais looked at Nerys. "You, Nerys, do you wish to be queen? Do you wish it enough to challenge me to a duel? Defeat me and you can be queen."
Nerys just stood there, staring at her with tri-grey eyes that nearly mirrored the queen's own. Nerys's long black hair was done in a series of complicated braids that hung like a heavy cloak at her back. Her dress was white with touches of black in the trim, the belt, the lace at her wrists. She looked cool and collected. There was no sense of outrage that Miniver vibrated with.
"I would never presume to challenge the Queen of Air and Darkness to a duel. It would be suicide." Her voice was quiet, and somehow dark. But there was no anger in it, nothing that could give true offense.
"But attacking me from secret, an assassination attempt, that would not be suicide, would it?" Andais's smile was not pleasant. "Not if you didn't get caught."
Nerys just stood there, looking up at the throne, with no hint of fear, no panic, no anything. If Andais thought she could frighten Nerys into a confession, she was wrong. Nerys was going to force Andais to produce proof. Did she not understand that we had proof? Did she think that with Nuline's death, she was safe?
"Assassination is a pretty business, so long as you are not discovered." Andais looked down the line of standing nobles, I think so that she did not single Nerys out, but it was like many things tonight, in trying to do one thing, another thing was accomplished.
Miniver began to move through her people to the space between her table and the next. Some of her people touched her arm; she shook her head, and they let her go. She walked out from between the tables, her back ramrod-straight, like something carved of gold and amber.
"Do you have something to say, Miniver?" Andais asked.
"I challenge the princess Meredith to a duel." For someone who had seemed so angry, she was strangely calm as she said it.
People at her table cried, No, do not do this. She ignored them, and kept her Seelie face pointed toward the dais. She never looked at me, only at Andais. She asked for my life, but it was not me she asked it of.
"No, Miniver, it will not be so easy as all that. The princess has had one assassination attempt tonight. We do not need two."
"I would have preferred my spells to work earlier tonight, but if she will not die from a distance, then I will do it here, now."
My face gave nothing away, because it took a few seconds for me to realize what she'd said. Andais looked amused, her eyes glittering.