She stopped on the last step. "Have a care, niece."
I was too tired, and the shock was beginning to wear off, and my arm was beginning to hurt. I wanted to be somewhere where I could pass out when I could feel my arm completely again. The first twinges promised much, none of it good.
I looked down at Miniver. "Do you wish true death? Or would you go alive into the pots of the goblins?"
I watched thoughts slide through those blue eyes, some good, some bad. Some I couldn't even begin to understand. "What will they do to me?" she asked, at last.
I leaned in against Doyle's chest, and didn't want to answer the question. I wanted to be done with this. I did not want to be sitting here talking to someone who should have been dead. Someone who was, in a way, already dead. Miniver still held hope in her eyes, and she should not have.
"At the rate you are healing, the goblins will most likely use you for sex before they begin to cut off pieces of you for food."
She stared up at me, and I saw the denial in her eyes. She didn't believe me. She was rebuilding herself, not just her body, but her sense of self. I was watching that arrogance begin to take hold again. She did not believe that such horrors would befall her. She believed that she would somehow survive, as she'd survived my attack.
"You will wish for death long before it comes, Miniver."
"Where there is life, there are always possibilities," she said. The skin of her chest showed white and whole through the blood, as if this was new skin, freshly made, that the blood had not touched.
Doyle put two guards on her and carried me back to Nerys. She was not healing as quickly, because I'd been more thorough, but she was healing.
I gave her the same choice that I'd given Miniver, but Nerys said, "Kill me." Her eyes had flicked up to the circle of Red Caps, and Holly and Ash. Seeing them stare down at her had convinced her she did not want to be alive when they took her.
"Ash." I had to repeat his name twice more, before he turned his green eyes to me. "Take the Red Caps and stand around Miniver. Let her see what fate awaits her if you take her living into the mound."
"We will be staying here with you, so we will not be touching her."
I sighed. "Please, do not split hairs with me, just do what needs doing."
"How convincing do you want us to be?" he asked, and there was something in his face of anger. I'd spoken dismissively to him, and that is not a good tone to take with a goblin warrior, especially one who will share your body soon.
Saying I was sorry would be seen as weakness, and would make it worse. I did the only thing I could do: I grabbed his arm - not as hard as I would have liked, but as hard as I was able with the inside of my head feeling so fragile. "You and Holly are not to be convincing at all. You are mine, and I will not share you. Let the Red Caps be convincing."
Ash gave me a smile that managed to be fierce and lusty at the same time, a look you wore if slaughter was your idea of sex. "You played the first sidhe well, Princess." He leaned in close and almost whispered, "Helpless little noises. Will you make helpless little noises for us?"
I felt Doyle's body go very still, as if he didn't like the question, or what it meant. But truth was truth. "Helpless little ones, and probably great big screams."
He chuckled, and it was that masculine sound that all men make when they think of such things. It was almost reassuring that he made that laugh. Male was male, some of the time.
"Your screams will be the sweetest of music." He took my hand from his arm and laid a kiss upon the back of it. Then he motioned, and all the Red Caps, save Jonty, followed him away.
Jonty looked at me. "My king ordered me to guard your body, not hers. I got distracted by this one's blood, and let you get too close to that other one just now. If she'd killed you, I'd have never heard the end of it."
He was well spoken for a Red Cap, but I didn't say so out loud, because that would imply I was surprised that any Red Cap was well spoken.
"You must strike the death blow from your own two feet, Meredith," Andais said, "or Nerys goes to the goblins as she is."
Real fear flared in Nerys's eyes, and she mouthed, Please.
Doyle pressed his mouth against my ear. "Can you stand?"
I laid my face against his and gave the only answer I had. "I don't know."
He set me on my feet, and steadied me that moment I needed. I looked at her chest. I was short enough that I could rest the tip of the blade over her heart. My legs began to tremble, but that was all right. I gripped the hilt with my good hand, took a deep steadying breath, and let my body fall upon the hilt of the sword, driving the point through her chest and into that still-beating heart. The blade rested against bone for a second, then slid home. I collapsed to my knees beside the body, my one good hand still wrapped around the hilt.
Nerys's eyes, almost a twin of the queen's, were open and unseeing. I'd done what I could for her.
Screams came from behind us.
I leaned my forehead against my good arm. I wasn't sure I could stand on my own. If the queen insisted on me walking to Miniver, then I could not do it.
Galen knelt beside me. "Take off the high heels, Merry."
I turned my head just enough to see his face, and managed a smile. "Smart you."
He slid the shoes off my feet while I stayed kneeling. I realized that I was swaying on my knees. Shoes or no shoes, that didn't bode well for walking. "What are they doing to her?"
"Playing," Doyle answered.
I raised my head enough to meet his eyes. "Playing?"
Doyle and Galen exchanged a look. That was enough. "Take me to her." Doyle lifted me as gently as he could, and the sword trailed from my hand. It felt so heavy. Apparently being dead once today, and nearly having my arm ripped out, was taking its toll. I was beginning to look forward to passing out, the way you look forward to sleep after a long, hard day.