SHE LAY JUST ABOVE THE LOW WATER, IMPALED ON A SERIES OF spiked bones jutting out of her from throat to stomach. She hung there, caught, bleeding, like a fish caught on some terrible hook.
I think Sholto's guards expected her to simply draw herself off the spined ridge of the boned creature. Agnes, especially, seemed to be waiting, patient, unworried. "Come on, Segna, get up." Her voice was impatient.
Segna lay there and bled, her legs flailing, exposing her most intimate parts as she struggled. The hags wore a leather belt from which hung a sword and a pouch, but that, and their cloaks, were all. Her body was both larger than a human's and more wizened, as if she were a shrunken giant.
I saw the wide eyes, the fright on her face. She wasn't going to just get up. Sometimes, being mortal, I recognized real damage faster, because on a visceral level, I knew it was a possibility. Creatures who are immortal, or nearly so, don't understand the disasters that could befall them.
"Ivar, Fyfe, go to her."
"With due respect, King Sholto," Fyfe said, "I would stay here, and send Agnes down."
Sholto started to argue, but Ivar joined the argument. "We do not dare leave Agnes up here with you alone. The princess will have guards, but you will be unprotected."
"Agnes would not hurt me," Sholto said, but he was staring at Segna as if he were finally realizing just how bad it might be.
"We are your guards, and your uncles. We would be poor at both duties if we left you alone with Agnes now," Ivar said in his bird-like voice. People always expected the nightflyers to have hissing, ugly voices, but Ivar sounded like a songbird - or how a songbird might sound if it could speak as humans do. Most of the nightflyers sounded like that.
"Segna is a night-hag," Agnes said. "A mere bone will not bring her down."
"I tripped on such a bone coming into your garden," Abe said, and raised his cloth-wrapped arm at her. Blood had soaked through much of the cloth.
"The bones hold old magic," Doyle said. "Some of them are things that hunted the sidhe and the other sluagh before they were tamed by your early kings."
"Do not lecture me about my own people," Agnes said.
"I remember a time when Black Agnes was not a part of the sluagh," Rhys said, softly.
She glared at him. "And I remember a time when you had other names, white knight." She spat in his direction. "We have both fallen far from what we once were."
"Go with Ivar, Agnes. Go see to your sister," Sholto said.
She glared at him. "Do you not trust me?"
"I once trusted the three of you more than any other, but you bloodied me before the Seelie got hold of me. You cut me up first."
"Because you sought to betray us with some white-fleshed slut."
"I am king here, or I am not, Agnes. You either obey me, or you do not. You will go down with Ivar to help Segna, or I will see it as a direct challenge to my authority."
"You are gravely wounded, Sholto," said the hag. "You cannot win against me in this weakened state."
"It is not about winning, Agnes. It is about being king. Either I am your king, or I am not. If I am your king, then you will do as I say."
"Do not do this, Sholto," she whispered.
"You raised me to be king, Agnes. You told me that if the sluagh do not respect my threat, then I will not be king for long."
"I did not mean - "
"Go with Ivar, now, or it ends between us."
She reached out to him, as if to touch his hair.
He jerked back and yelled, "Now, Agnes, go now, or it will end badly between us."
Fyfe threw back his cloak, revealing his weapons, and each of his hands touched a sword hilt, ready for a cross-draw.
Agnes gave Sholto one last look that was more despair than anger. Then she followed Ivar down the steep slope of the lake, using her claws to dig into the soil, so she wouldn't slide into the bones that spiked the earth.
Ivar was already wading through the still water. It came above his waist, which meant the water was deeper than it had looked. He had to strain to lay a hand over Segna's heart between the hanging weight of her breasts. He turned that lipless, unfinished face to look at Sholto, and the look did not communicate good news.
Agnes was taller than Ivar, and had an easier time in the water - it came only to her thighs. She waded to the other hag, and when she reached her let out a wail of despair.
Sholto collapsed to his knees on the side of the lake. "Segna," he said, and there was real grief in his voice.
I knelt beside him, touched his arm. He jerked away. "Every time I am with you, someone I care about dies, Meredith."
Ivar called up, "I am not certain she is dying. Gravely injured. She may yet live."
Agnes was petting her sister's face. But I could see the gaping mouth, the labored breathing. Blood bubbled from the chest wound when she breathed, poured down her mouth. It would have been death to most.
"Can she survive it?" I asked, softly.
"I do not know," Sholto said. "Once it would not have been a killing blow, but we have lost much of what we were."
"Abeloec's wound from the bones is still bleeding," Doyle said.
Sholto's head drooped, hiding his face in a curtain of that white hair. I was close enough to hear him crying, though so softly that I doubted anyone else would hear it. I pretended not to notice, as was only respectful for a king.
Segna reached out to him. She spoke in a voice thick and bubbling with her own blood, "My lord, mercy."
He raised his face, but kept his hair like a shield on either side, so only I, kneeling beside him, could see the tracks of tears on his face. His voice came clear and unemotional; you would never have known the pain in his eyes from that voice. "Do you ask for healing, or for death, Segna?"
"Healing," she managed to say.
He shook his head. "Get her off the bones." He looked at Fyfe. "Go help them."
Fyfe hesitated for a moment then slid, carefully, down the slope to join his brother in the still, thick water. The three of them managed to slide Segna free of most of the bones. One of them seemed caught on Segna's own ribs, and Agnes snapped that spine so that they could lower her into their arms. She was writhing in pain, and coughing blood.
Agnes raised a tearstained face. "We are not the people we once were, King Sholto. She dies."
Segna reached a shaking hand out to him. "Mercy."
"We cannot save you, Segna. I am sorry," said Sholto, for it now seemed clear that this was the case.
"Mercy," she said again.
Agnes said, "There is more than one kind of mercy, Sholto. Would you leave her to a slow death?" Her voice managed to be both tear-choked and hot with hatred. Such words should burn coming out.
Sholto shook his head.
Ivar's high-pitched voice came. "It is your kill, Sholto."
"Their kill - the king's and the princess's," Agnes said, giving me a look of such venom that I fought not to flinch. If a look could still kill among us, I would have died from that look in her eyes. She spat into the water.
"She did not strike the blow, I did," Sholto said as he came to his feet. He actually stumbled, and I caught him, helped him stand. He didn't jerk away, which let me know he was badly hurt. I could see the bleeding wound that Segna had made, but I didn't think it was that wound that made me him stumble. Nor was it the amputation that weakened him now. There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds.
"My apologies, Sholto, but the hag is right," Ivar's high voice said reluctantly, "Segna bled you both. If the princess was not a warrior, then she would be free of this, but she is a sidhe of the Unseelie Court, and all who claim that are warriors."
"The princess has killed more than once in challenge," Fyfe said.
"If she will not help finish Segna, then she will never be acknowledged as queen of the sluagh," Agnes said. She stroked Segna's face, a surprisingly gentle gesture given her dagger-like talons.
I heard Doyle sigh. He moved close enough to whisper to me, "If you do not help make this kill, Agnes will spread the rumor that you are not a warrior."
"And that would mean what?" I whispered back.
"It could mean that when you sit on the throne of the Unseelie Court, the sluagh will not come to your call, for they are a warrior people. They will not be led by someone who is unbloodied in battle."
"I've been bloodied," I said. The numbness was sliding away, and now the pain was sharp and tearing. The wound was bleeding freely. What I needed was to get medical attention, not to wade around in slimy water. "I'll need a dose of antibiotics after this."
"What?" Doyle and Sholto both asked.
"I'm mortal. Unlike the rest of you, I can get an infection, blood poisoning. So after we crawl around in that water, I'll need antibiotics."
"You can truly catch all that?" Sholto asked.
"I've had the flu, and my father made sure I had all my childhood immunizations - he wasn't sure how much I could withstand or heal."
Sholto gazed at me, studying my face. "You are fragile."
I nodded. "Yes, I am, by the standards of faerie." I looked up at Doyle. "You know, there are times when I'm not sure I want to be in charge here."
"Do you mean that?"
"If there was a better alternative than my cousin, yes, I mean it. I'm tired, Doyle, tired. As much as I wanted to come back home to faerie, I'm beginning to miss L.A. almost as much. To put some distance between me and all this killing."
"I told you once, Meredith, that if I could bear to give the court to Cel, I would leave with you."
"Darkness," Mistral said, "you cannot mean that."
"You have not been outside faerie except for small trips. You have not seen that there are wonders outside our hills." He touched my face. "There are some wonders that will not fade when we leave here."
He had told me that he would give up everything and follow me into exile. Frost and he, both. When they first thought that the queen's ring, a relic of power, had chosen Mistral as my king Doyle had broken down and said he could not bear it, to watch me with another. He had pulled himself together and remembered his duty, as I'd remembered mine. Would-be queens and kings did not run away and hide, and give their countries over to insane tyrants like my cousin Cel. He was crazier than his mother, Andais.
I stared up into Doyle's face and I wanted him. Wanted to run away with him. Frost came up beside us. I gazed at my two men. I wanted to wrap them around me like a blanket. I did not want to climb down into that stinking hole and wade through razor-sharp bones and dirty water to kill someone I hadn't meant to even hurt.
"I don't want this kill."
"It must be your choice," Doyle said softly.
Rhys joined us. "If we're talking about running away to L.A. permanently, can I come, too?"
I smiled at him, touched his face. "Yes, you come, too."
"Good, because once Cel's on the throne, the Unseelie Court won't be safe for anyone."
I closed my eyes, rested my forehead against Doyle's bare chest for a minute. I pressed my cheek against him, held him tight, so I could listen to the slow, steady beat of his heart.
Abeloec, who had been quiet, spoke next to my face: "You have drunk deep of the cup, of both cups, Meredith. Wherever you go, faerie will follow you."
I looked at him, trying to hear all the double meanings in what he'd said. "I don't want this kill."
"You must choose," Abeloec said.
I clung to Doyle for a moment more, then tore myself away. I forced myself to stand straight, shoulders back, though the shoulder Segna had torn ached and stung. If my body didn't heal itself, I'd need stitches. If we could ever get back to the Unseelie Court, there were healers who could fix me up. But it was as if something, or someone, didn't want me getting back there. I didn't think it was political enemies, either - I was beginning to feel the hand of deity pushing firmly in my back.
I'd wanted the Goddess and the God to move among us again - all of us had wanted that. But I was beginning to realize that when the gods move, you either get out of the way or get swept along for the ride. I wasn't sure getting out of the way was an option for me.
I caught the faintest scent of apple blossoms, a small...what? Warning, reassurance? The fact that I wasn't sure if it was a warning of danger or a spiritual embrace pretty much summed up my feelings about being the Goddess's instrument: Be careful what you wish for.
I looked at Sholto, with his wound seeping blood onto his bandages. He and I had both wanted to belong, truly belong, to the sidhe. To be honored and accepted among them. Look where it had gotten us.
I held my hand out to him, and he took it. He took it, and squeezed it tight. Even in all this horror and death, I felt in that one touch how much it meant to him to touch me at all. Somehow, the fact that he still wanted me so much made it all the worse.
"I tried to share life with you, Meredith, but I am King of the Sluagh, and death is all I have to offer."
I squeezed his hand. "We are both sidhe, Sholto, and that is a thing of life. We are Unseelie sidhe, and that is a thing of death, but Rhys reminded me what I'd forgotten."
"What had you forgotten?"
"That the deities among us who brought death also once brought life. We are not meant to be split apart like this. We are not light and dark, evil and good; we are both and neither. We have all forgotten what we are."
"What I am in this moment," said Sholto, "is a man who is about to slay a woman who was my lover, and my friend. I can think of nothing beyond this moment - as if when she dies at my hand, I will die with her."
I shook my head. "You won't die, but you may wish you could, for a moment."
"Only for a moment?" he asked.
"Life is a selfish thing," I said. "If you pass through the sorrow, outrun the horror, you will begin to want to live again. You will be glad you didn't die."
He swallowed hard enough for me to hear it. "I don't want to pass through this."
"I'll help you."
He almost smiled, and it was like a ghost flitting across his face. "I think you've helped enough." With that he let go of my hand and eased himself over the edge, using his good hand to keep himself from sliding through the bones.
I didn't look back at anyone. I just eased myself over the edge and followed. Looking back wouldn't make me feel better. Looking back would simply make me want to ask for help. Some things you have to do yourself. Sometimes what it means to lead is simply that you can't ask for help.
I found that the bones weren't sharp on every point - it was mostly the spines on the tops that were vicious. I grasped softer, rounder-looking bones, using them as handholds. It took all my concentration to get down to the water without losing my grip or cutting my hand.
The water was surprisingly warm, like bathwater. The soil underneath it was soft, and mushy, silt rather than mud. The footing was uncertain, and again I let myself sink into concentration on the task at hand. I focused on finding footing, avoiding anything that felt like a bone. I did not want to think about what I was about to do.
Segna had tried to kill me twice now, but I couldn't hate her. It would have been so much easier if I could have hated her.
