"Is that true, Barris?" I asked.
Barris was staring in horror at the huge white hounds as they crept forward. There was something in the way they moved that reminded me of images of lions stalking on a savannah. Barris didn't look as if he enjoyed playing the part of the gazelle.
"Father," he said, and looked at Finbar.
Finbar's face was no longer arrogant. If he'd been human, I'd have said that he looked tired, but there weren't enough lines and circles under those pretty eyes for that.
The hounds began to herd Barris with snaps of teeth and presses of huge bodies. He made a small frightened noise.
"You always were an idiot," Finbar said. I was pretty sure he wasn't talking to us.
"I know what you hoped to gain, Cair, but what did Finbar hope to gain by the deaths of my men?"
"He wanted to strip you of your most dangerous consorts."
"Why?" I asked, and I felt strangely calm.
"So that the Seelie nobles could control you once you were queen."
"You thought that if Doyle and I were dead you could control Meredith?" Sholto asked.
"Of course," she said.
Sholto laughed, and it was both a good laugh and a bad one, the kind of laugh that you might describe as evil. "They do not know you, Meredith."
"They never did," I said.
"Did you really think that Rhys, Galen, and Mistral
would let you control Meredith?"
"Rhys and Galen, yes, but not the Storm Lord," she said.
"Quiet, girl," Finbar said at last. It wasn't a lie or an oath. He could order her about or insult her in safety.
"You have betrayed me, Finbar, and proved your word as worthless. I owe you nothing." She turned to me, those long, graceful hands reaching out to me, past the crowding dogs. "I will tell you all, please, Meredith, please. Faerie itself has taken care of the Killing Frost, but the Darkness and the Lord of Shadows needed to go."
"Why did you spare Rhys, Galen, and Mistral?" I asked.
"Rhys was once a lord of this court. He was reasonable, and we thought he would be reasonable again if he could come back to the Golden Court."
It wasn't just me that they didn't understand. "How long has it been since Rhys was a member of this court?"
Cair looked at Rhys. "Eight hundred years, maybe a little more."
"Did it occur to you that he might have changed in that many years?" I asked.
The look on her face was enough; it hadn't. "Everyone wants to be a noble in the Golden Court," she said, and she believed it. The proof was in her eyes, her face, so earnest.
"And Galen?" I asked.
"He is not a threat, and we cannot deprive you of all your mates."
"Glad to hear it," I said. I don't think she picked up on the sarcasm. I'd found that many of the nobles missed it.
"What of Mistral?" Sholto asked.
There was a flicker of eyes, as Cair and Barris looked at each other, then at Finbar. He did not look at anyone. He kept his face and every inch of himself to himself.
"Have you set a trap for him too?" Sholto asked.
The younger ones did the nervous look. Finbar remained impassive. I didn't like either reaction. I urged the mare forward until she nudged my cousin and Barris with the width of her chest. The dogs had herded him to stand beside his would-be bride.
"Have you sent someone to kill Mistral?"
"You are going to kill me either way," Cair said.
"You are right, but we are not here for Barris tonight. I called kin slayer, and he is not our kin." I looked at the young lord. "Do you want to survive this night, Barris?"
He looked up at me, and I saw in his blue eyes the weakness that must have made a political animal like Finbar despair. He wasn't just weak, he also wasn't bright. I'd offered him a chance to survive tonight, but there would be other nights. That I vowed.
Finbar said, "Do not speak."
"The king will save you, Father, but he has no use for me."
"The Darkness is injured badly enough that he is not at her side. It must be grave. We have missed the Shadow Lord, but if the Storm Lord dies this night, then we will be rewarded."
"If Mistral dies this night, Barris, you will follow him, and soon. This I promise you." The mare shifted underneath me, uneasy.
"Even you, Barris, must know what a promise like that means when the princess sits a horse of the wild hunt," Sholto said.
Barris swallowed hard, then said, "If she breaks the promise, the hunt will destroy her."
"Yes," Sholto said, "so you had better talk while there is still time to save the Storm Lord."
His eyes with their circles of blue showed too much white like a frightened horse. One of the hounds nudged his leg, and he made a small sound that in anyone else would have been a scream. But the nobles of the Seelie Court did not scream just because a dog nudged them.
Finbar said, "Remember who you are, Barris."
He looked back at his father. "I remember who I am, Father, but you taught me that all are equal before the hunt. Did you not call it the great leveler?" Barris's voice held sorrow, or perhaps disappointment. The fear was beginning to fade under the weight of years. Years of never quite being what his father wanted in a son. Years of knowing that though he looked every inch a Seelie noble, he was pretending as hard as he could.