Now, I was reminded that without my human movement to hold him back, he could simply move. Like wind, rain, something elemental and more than flesh. I had a moment such as I had not had in months. A moment to watch him and marvel that all that potential would love me. I was, in the end, so terribly human.
Sholto followed behind him like a pale shadow. For a moment I could only see my Frost. He was the one who was supposed to be at Doyle's side. My light and dark; my men. Sholto was handsome and moved well at Doyle's side, but he couldn't keep up. He was a little behind, a little... more human.
Mistral said, "Ask the wall to stay open."
"What?" I asked, and was almost startled to find myself still in his arms, still in Sholto's bedroom.
He sat me down on the floor. "Stop staring at Doyle like a lovesick girl and tell the wall to stop closing."
I wasn't certain that the sluagh's sithen would obey me, but I had nothing to lose. "Wall, please stop closing."
The wall seemed to hesitate, as if thinking about obeying, then it went back to closing the opening. It was slower, but it had not stopped.
Doyle dived through the opening, doing a wonderful roll across the carpet, ending on his feet in a whirl of black hair and dark muscle.
Sholto dived through too, but ended up flat on the carpet in a spill of pale hair and breathlessness. Doyle was breathing heavily too, but he seemed ready to find a weapon and defend. Sholto seemed content to lie on the carpet for a time.
He gasped out, "Did the path get longer as we ran?"
Doyle nodded. "Yes."
"Why would it get longer?" I asked.
Sholto got to his feet, and looked up at the ceiling of his bedroom. I gazed upward, but saw nothing but the stone.
"Someone, or something, is here." He went to a wardrobe on the far side of the room, and got out a robe. It was gold and white, and didn't match the room at all, but it did match his eyes and hair to perfection. He suddenly looked all Seelie Court, and if not for one bit of genetics that had given him those extra bits he'd have been terribly welcome at the Unseelie Court. In the far past, even the Seelie Court would have been happy to have him. But Sholto, like me, could not hide his mixed blood. There was no illusion deep enough to make us one of them.
Doyle gazed up and around. Did he see something too? What was I not sensing? "What is it?"
"Magic, sluagh magic, but not... mine," Sholto said. He started for the door.
"My King," Henry said, and we all looked at him. It wasn't that I had forgotten he was there, but I guess in a way I had. "You were locked in the magical sleep for several days. There are those among the sluagh who feared you might be enchanted for centuries."
"Like Sleeping Beauty, you mean," I said.
Henry nodded. His handsome face was very worried, and I didn't know him long enough to read him that well. "They came and saw the garden, and it was very Seelie, my lord. More than that, none of us could pass its gate or walls. It held us back, and protected you from all who would come close."
"What has happened while we slept, Henry?" Sholto asked. He went to the man, gripping his shoulder.
"My King, the Seelie are encamped outside our sithen. They asked for parlay, and we had no king to speak for us. You know the rules — without a ruler, we cease to be sluagh, cease to be free people. We would be absorbed into the Unseelie Court, but before that happens, we would have to deal with the Seelie on our own without a king."
"They've chosen another king," Sholto said.
"A proxy ruler only."
"But it has divided the power of kingship, and whoever has part of the power did not want us — me — to escape the wall."
"Why are the Seelie outside?" Doyle asked.
Henry looked to Sholto, who nodded. "They say that the sluagh have stolen Princess Meredith away, and are holding her against her will."
"I am not their princess. Why should they be at the gates to rescue me?"
"They want both you and the chalice. They say both have been stolen," Henry said.
Ah, I thought. "They want my magic, not me. But under what right do they make siege upon the sluagh?"
"By right of kinship, your mother came to demand the return of her sweet daughter, and the grandchildren that she carries." Henry looked even more uncomfortable.
"One of the children I carry is Sholto's own. The right of the father supersedes that of a grandmother."
"The Seelie claim that the children belong to King Taranis."
Sholto went for the door. "Wait here. I must talk to my people before we confront the insanity of the Seelie."
"Might I suggest that you wear something else, Sholto?" I called.
He hesitated, then frowned at me. "Why?"
"You look too Seelie in the robe, and one of the things that seems to panic your people is the idea that you and I together will change them from the dark and terrible sluagh to a light and airy beauty."
He looked as if he would argue, then he went back to the wardrobe. He drew out black pants and boots, but he didn't bother with a shirt. And with a wavering of air in front of him, the tentacles came to life again.
"I will remind them that I am part nightflyer and not just sidhe."
"Would me by your side hurt you or help you?" I asked.
"Hurt, I think. I will talk to my people, then return for you all. Taranis has gone mad to besiege us."
"Why has not the Unseelie Court aided the sluagh?" Doyle asked.
"I will find out," Sholto said, and had his hand on the door when Mistral called out.
"My congratulations to you, King Sholto, on being king to Meredith's queen." His voice was almost neutral when he said it — almost.
"Congratulations to you, too, Storm Lord, though with so many kings around, I am not certain what kingdom you will share." With that Sholto was gone, with Henry at his side.
"What did he mean, wishing me congratulations?" Mistral asked. "I know that the princess carries Sholto's child and yours, Doyle. I heard that from the conversation in the bed when we woke."
"Mistral, didn't the queen tell you?" I asked.
"I was told that you had finally gotten with child by some of the others. I have had little news of anything but pain." He would not look at me as he said the next. "She was so angry when you left, Princess. Your green knight destroyed her hall of torture, so she took me as a guest to her room to be chained against her wall. There I have been at her mercy since you left."
I touched his arm, but he pulled away.
"I feared she would hurt you for being with me," I said. "I am so sorry."
"I knew it was the price I would pay." He almost looked at me, but finally let his long gray hair fall between us like a curtain to hide behind.