Chapter 30
I stood on a mountain looking out over the land. I could see the land spreading green and rich until it merged with the misty blue of the horizon, like looking out at an emerald ocean of land. I stood for a glorious moment alone on the crest of that great hill, and then I knew that I wasn't alone. Not a sound, or a movement, just the certain knowledge that when I next looked behind me, someone would be there. I expected it to be the Goddess, but it was not. A man stood in the bright sunlight. He wore a cloak that covered his face in shadows and swirled in the sweet wind, hiding his body. One moment I thought I saw broad shoulders, the next not so broad, but slender of waist. It was as if the body the cloak covered changed even as I watched.
The wind streamed my hair back from my face and billowed his cloak around him. It brought with it a scent of forest and field. He smelled of wilderness untamed and of fresh-tilled earth; but over all the rich scent of him was a perfume that was impossible to describe. It smelled, for lack of a better term, masculine. But it was more than that. It was the way a man's neck smells when you are deeply in love and lust. That sweet scent that makes your body tighten and your heart fill. If the cologne manufacturers could have bottled it, they'd have made a fortune, because he smelled like being in love.
He held out his hand to me, and like his body the hand changed even as I walked toward him. The tone of the skin, the size of the hand; it was as if his form swam through many forms, until the hand that took mine was Doyle's dark skin, but when I looked up it was not Doyle's face that I saw in the hood. It was shadows and glimpses of all my men. All who had known my body flew across the face of the God, but the arms that pulled me close were very solid, very real. He pulled me in tight to his body, the cloak streaming around both of us, almost like wings. I laid my face against his chest, wrapped my arms around his waist, and felt utterly safe, as if nothing else would ever hurt me again. It was like being home, the way home is supposed to be but never really is. Peaceful, content, exactly what you need, and everything you ever wanted. It was a moment of perfect peace. Perfect happiness, as if this feeling could go on forever.
The moment I thought it, I knew it could. I could stay here, held in the arms of the God, and I could move on to a place where it was perfectly peaceful, perfectly happy. I could move forward into the waiting peace, but I thought about Doyle, and Frost, and Galen, Nicca, Kitto, Rhys, oh, Goddess save us, Rhys. Had the queen taken his eye and left him blind? That perfect peace hit the shoals of my tears, and could not stand against them.
The arms that held me were just as strong, the chest with its strong heartbeat just as steady, and that pulsing joyfulness still sang through Him. He had not changed, but I had. If I died, what would become of my people? Andais wasn't dead, she couldn't be, and when she woke her wrath would be a terrible thing.
I hugged the feel of this peace and joy to me, I clung to it the way a child clings to a parent when she fears the dark, but I was not a child. I was Princess Meredith NicEssus, wielder of the hands of flesh and blood, and I could not rest yet. I could not leave my people to face the queen's anger without me.
I leaned back enough to look into the face of the God. And I could still not see it. Some say that God has no face, some say He is the face of whomever you love the most, some say He is the face of whoever you need Him to be. I do not know, only that for me, in that moment, He was shadows and a smile. For He kissed me, and His lips tasted of honey and apples. A voice sounded in my head, and it held both the rumbling deep of Doyle and Galen's laughter: "Share this with them."
I woke, gasping, my chest on fire. I tried to sit up, and the pain threw me back to the floor, to writhe, and the writhing hurt so badly I tried to scream, and there wasn't enough air for it.
Kitto's face loomed over me. He whispered, "Mother of God." He was thick with blood from the waist down, and more of it covered his upper body. I didn't remember the queen hurting him. I tried to ask, but just breathing hurt so badly that I couldn't. Every breath felt as if knives were stabbing into me from both sides. It hurt so badly, I wanted to writhe again, but I knew that moving hurt worse, so I fought, my hands scrambling against the floor, fighting to hold myself as still as I could.
The floor was wet, and I knew it was blood. But I didn't remember being this close to all the blood. It was almost as if Kitto read my mind, because he leaned in close and said, "I dragged you into the sidhe blood. The hand of blood can feed on blood." He had to lean in close because there was so much shouting. Men's voices raised. I could only catch fragments from the noise, "Mortal Dread is here... She will kill us all... madness..."
Kitto leaned in close. "Merry, can you hear me?"
I managed the barest of whispers, "Yes." I didn't understand what the fight was about, but I thought I understood what Kitto had meant about the blood. He'd dragged me into the blood to try to heal me. Maybe it had helped, but something was very wrong inside me. It hurt to breathe; it was obscene when I tried to move. The God had given me back my life, but I wasn't healed. Even as I thought it, though, I felt the kiss upon my lips. It tingled as if He'd only that second drawn away. I smelled fresh apples, and when I licked my lips, I could still taste honey.
Galen pulled himself into view, using his hands and arms to drag himself forward so he could look down into my face. He smiled, though his eyes held a shadow of the pain he was feeling. I remembered him writhing beside me, because he'd taken the first rush of Andais's spell. I think she'd broken most of my ribs, and probably done the same to him. I tried to raise a hand to touch him, and found I did have breath enough to scream. My scream cut through the fighting better than any sword. When the echoes of my scream died, a silence as thick and heavy as any I'd ever heard filled the room. Kitto tried to push Galen away, but I fought the pain and reached out enough for Galen to put his hand in mine, and that one touch flowed through me like a soothing balm. Helped me settle back against the floor. Helped me relearn how to breathe, carefully around the pain.