He stared down at me with those black eyes. His hair was a wild mass of thick blackness with the hint of silver rings peeking like stars from the blackness of his hair. He looked like the Doyle who came to my bedroom, not the braided and buttoned-up Doyle who guarded me. But the expression on his face was all about the guard, and something else. Something I hadn't expected to see, though I should have. There was a man's feelings for his love, who had been violated by another man. It was, dare I say, a very human emotion.
"Please, Doyle, please, let us tell the media what he has done. Let us bring him down using the human law he sought to use against us."
"It has a certain poetic justice," Hugh said.
Doyle stared down at me for a breath, then gave one small nod. "As my queen wishes, so shall it be."
It felt as if the world took a breath, as if it had been waiting for him to say those words to me. I had no idea why those words now were so important, but I knew the sensation of reality changing. Those words, spoken here, had changed something large. Some event had stopped, or begun, because of this moment. I felt it, knew it, but not what it meant, or what the end would be.
"So mote it be," the healer said.
The other nobles echoed her. "So mote it be, so mote it be." Down the corridor, and just like that I understood. They had acknowledged me queen. Once you only needed so many nobles and the blessing of the gods to rule in faerie. Once, even longer ago, you had only needed the blessing. Now I had both.
"I would carry you to the ends of the earth and beyond," Doyle said, "but I must trust my most precious burden to others." He reached out as if he would touch the spreading bruise where Taranis had struck me, then he bent over and laid his mouth against mine. His hair slid over me like a warm cloak to help hide me.
He whispered, "More than life, more than honor, I love thee."
What do you say when a man whose entire existence had been his honor offers to give it up for you? You say the only thing you can. "More than any crown or throne or title, I love thee," I said. "More than any power in faerie, I love thee."
The scent of roses and deep forest was suddenly present, as if we'd stepped into a forest glade where wild roses had managed to grow.
"I smell flowers again," the blond guard said.
"The Goddess moves around this one," a woman said.
"Let us take her to the humans and see if they can do what we cannot," Lady Elasaid said. "Get her far away from here." She turned tricolored eyes shiny with unshed tears away as Hugh helped her stand.
Doyle stood up, carefully, holding me close, and trying not to move my head. He succeeded. I clung to him, not wanting him to let me go, even as I knew we had to separate.
Doyle and Hugh looked at each other. "Know that you carry the future of all of faerie in your arms, Sir Hugh."
"If I did not believe that, I would not be here now, Darkness."
Doyle lifted me away from his body, and Hugh's arms slid under me. My hands trailed over Doyle's bare flesh, so warm, so real, so... mine.
Hugh settled me as gently as he could in the curve of his arms, and the strength of his body. It wasn't his power as a warrior that I doubted, not really. It was simply that his arms were not the ones I wanted.
"I will be close by, my Merry," Doyle said.
"I know," I said.
Then he was the black dog again. He came to nudge my foot with the fur of his head. I touched him with my fingers, and the eyes were still Doyle's eyes.
"Let us go," Hugh said.
The rest formed a group around us. They closed in front as they opened the door, so that if there was an attack waiting, it would hit them first and not me. They were risking their lives, their honor, their future. They were immortal, which meant they had a lot of future to risk.
I prayed, "Mother, help them, keep them safe. Do not let them pay a hard price for what we are about to do."
The scent of roses was fresh, and so real that I thought I felt a petal brush my cheek. Then I felt another. I opened my eyes to find that it was raining rose petals.
There were gasps of joy and wonder from the nobles of the Seelie Court. The dogs capered and danced in the fall of petals. The petals looked very pink against the blackness of Doyle's fur.
Lady Elasaid said, "Once the queen of our court walked everywhere in a shower of flowers." Her voice was soft with wonder.
"Thank you, Goddess," Hugh said. Tears glittered on his face as he looked at me, tears that sparkled like water reflecting fire. He whispered, "Thank you, my queen."
He walked forward with me in his arms, tears of fire glittering on his face. We walked into the next room with pink rose petals floating down from nowhere like sweet rain.
Chapter 28
WE MOVED THROUGH ROOMS OF MARBLE AND GOLD. ROOMS with cold pink walls with veins of silver and pillars of gold. Rooms of white marble with veins of pink and lavender and pillars of silver. Rooms of gold and silver marble with pillars of ivory. We moved always in a circle of falling petals, pink petals pale as dawn's first blush, dark as day's last salmon blaze, and a color deep enough to be purple. They fell around us, and I realized that the petals were the only living thing we passed. There was nothing organic in this place of marble and metal. It was a palace, but it was not a home for beings who had begun life as nature spirits. We were meant to be a people of warmth, life, and love, and there was none of that here.
I don't know what the other nobles would have done if we hadn't moved in the circle of that flowered blessing. They matched the rooms, dressed in stiff clothing of gold and silver and subdued color. They stared, open-mouthed. Some began to follow us, like a parade that grows from sheer joy and wonder.