"Stop this," Doyle said, and he actually moved to stand between them.
I realized that it was Barinthus's magic making the air thick, and I remembered stories of him being able to make humans fall down dead with water flowing out of their mouths, drowned on dry land miles from water.
"And will you finally be king?" Barinthus asked.
"If you are angry with me, then be angry with me, old friend, but Frost had no say in the choices we made on his behalf. Merry and I chose freely."
"Even now you stand guard over him," Barinthus said.
I stood up, still holding Frost's hand. "Are you bothered that we gave up the crown for just one man, or are you bothered that we gave it up for Frost?"
"I have no quarrel with Frost as a man, or a warrior."
"Then is it really that he's not sidhe enough for you?"
Rhys stepped just enough around Doyle so he could meet Barinthus's eyes. "Or do you see in Doyle and Frost what you wanted with Prince Essus but were always afraid to ask for?"
We all froze, as if his words were a bomb that we could all see falling toward us, but there was no way to stop it. There was no way to catch it, and no way to run. We just all stood there, and I had moments for my childhood memories of my father and Barinthus to run through my head. It was quick flashes. A hand on someone's arm, a hand held a little too long, an embrace, a look, and I suddenly realized that my father's best friend might have been more than just his friend.
There was nothing wrong with love in our court no matter what sex you chose, but the queen didn't let any of her guard have sex with anyone but her, and one of the terms for Barinthus joining her court had been that he had joined her guard. It had been a way to control him, and a way to say that she had the great Mannan Mac Lir as her lackey and hers in every way, only hers.
I'd always wondered about her insisting that Barinthus join her guard. It hadn't been standard at the time for exiles from the Seelie Court Most of the other sidhe who had come from that time had just joined the court. I'd always thought it was because the queen feared Barinthus's power, but now I saw another motive. She had loved her brother, my father, but she had also been jealous of his power. Essus was a name that people still spoke as a god, at least in the recent past, if you counted the Roman Empire as recent, but her own name, Andais, had been lost so completely that no one remembered what she had once been. Had she forced Barinthus to be her celibate guard to keep him out of her brother's bed?
I had a moment to think about Essus and Mannan Mac Lir joined as a couple both politically and magically, and though I didn't agree with what she'd done, I understood the fear. They were two of the most powerful of us. Combined, they could have owned both courts, if they'd been willing to, because Barinthus had joined us before we were cast out of Europe. Our internal wars had been our own business and no matter for human law, so they could have taken first the Unseelie and then the Seelie Court.
I spoke into that weighted silence. "Or was it Andais who made it impossible for you to have his love? She would never have risked the two of you joining your power together."
"And now there is a queen of faerie who would have let you have all you desired, but it is too late," Rhys said quietly.
"Are you jealous of the closeness you see between Frost and Doyle?" I asked it with a careful, quiet voice.
"I am jealous of the power I see in the other men. That I will admit to, and the thought that without your touch I will never come back to my power is a hard thing." He made certain to give me eye contact, but his face was a mask of arrogance, beautiful and alien. It was a look that I'd seen him give Andais. It was his unreadable face, and he'd never had to use it on me before.
"You flooded every river around St. Louis when Merry and you had sex only in vision," Rhys said. "How much more power do you want?"
This time Barinthus looked away, and would not meet anyone's eyes. That was answer enough, I supposed.
It was Doyle who stepped forward a step or two, and said, "I understand wanting to have all the old power back, my friend."
"You have regained yours!" Barinthus yelled. "Don't try to soothe me when you stand there full to bursting with your own power."
"But it is not my old power, not completely. I still cannot heal as I did. I cannot do many things that I once could do."
Barinthus looked at Doyle then, and the anger in his eyes had turned them from happy blue to a black where the water runs deep and there are rocks just under the surface, ready to tear the hull of your boat and sink you.
There was a sudden splash against the side of the house. We were too far above the sea for the tide to find us, and it was the wrong time of day for it anyway. There was another slap of water, and this time I heard it smack into the huge windows of the master bathroom attached to this bedroom.
It was Galen who slid from the doorway and walked farther into the bathroom to check on the sound. There was another burst of water on the glass, and he came back, his face serious. "The sea is rising, but the water is like someone picked it up and threw it at the windows. It is actually separating from the sea, and seems to float for a moment before it hits."
"You must control your power, my friend," Doyle said, his deep voice going deeper with some strong emotion.
"Once I could have called the sea and washed this house into the water."
"Is that what you want to do?" I asked. I squeezed Frost's hand and then moved forward to stand with Doyle.
He looked at me then, and his face showed great anguish. His hands ground into fists at his side. "No, I would not wash away into the sea all we have gained, and I would never harm you, Merry. I would never dishonor Essus and all he tried to do by saving your life. You carry his grandchildren. I want to be here to see the babes born."