He turned from me then, and went dancing barefoot upon the snow. Where he passed, the snow remained pure and untouched, as if he weighed nothing. I understood now why we were here in the silent night. He was frost, truly frost. The hoarfrost that rimes the world, but only if it's still. Such delicate work cannot survive a stout wind.
I watched him dance away across the shining snow until he melded with a patch of blue moonshadow and vanished.
I came to myself one more time. Frost was still holding me, but this time there was no snow in his eyes; they were just grey, the grey of a winter's sky. His voice came strained, a whisper, as if he was afraid to speak. "You grew so cold. I was afraid..." He let whatever he was going to say trail away, then he pushed himself off me, abruptly, and walked away. He walked across the room, through the door, and left it swinging open behind him.
Galen crawled across the bed to sit beside me. He didn't touch me, though, which seemed odd. "Are you all right?" He wasn't smiling when he asked.
I had to think about the question, which usually meant no, I wasn't all right. Something had happened, but for my life, I wasn't sure what. It took me two tries to speak, and even then my voice sounded hoarse and strange. "What happened—" I swallowed, coughed, tried to clear my voice, "— just now?"
Maeve spoke from the far edge of the bed. "We're not entirely sure."
I looked at her. She was still the goddess Conchenn with her lightning-kissed eyes, long white-blond hair, and golden skin, but she didn't glow. She was gorgeous but her power had left her, for now.
She looked embarrassed, which you don't see in goddesses that often. "It's my fault. I wanted the comfort of another sidhe's touch. I tried to seduce Nicca and it didn't work." She gave me an arrogant face, but it left her eyes uncertain. "I'm not accustomed to being turned down by anyone I really want. I thought you might share one of your men." She looked down again, then up, and she seemed more determined than arrogant now. I didn't know if all actresses did this, but Maeve Reed could go from one emotion to another at the blink of an eye, and they all seemed real. I didn't know if she'd always been this moody, or if it had been the job that had made her that way. "I know it was stupid and thoughtless. You gave Gordon and me the chance to have a child. Your magic, and Galen's, did that, Merry. I am an ungrateful wretch, and I am sorry."
"It's okay," I said, and still my voice sounded strained. My throat was actually sore. I frowned up at Galen. "Why is my throat sore?"
He glanced back, and Maeve met his eyes. They had one of those moments that said, more clearly than any words, something had happened, something I didn't remember, and it had been bad.
"Just tell me." I raised a hand and touched his arm.
He jerked as if I'd bit him and moved out of reach. "Don't touch me, Merry, not just yet."
"Why?" I asked.
"Look at the coverlet," he said, "near your head."
I turned my head and found a wide wet spot on the off-white bedspread. I frowned, and didn't understand, until I touched the wetness and found ice crystals in the water. I frowned up at Galen. "Why is there melting ice on the bed?"
"Because you threw it up."
I stared at him, and wanted to ask if he was kidding, but one look at his face and I knew he wasn't. "How, why?"
"That's the part we're not entirely sure of," Maeve said.
"Tell me the parts you are sure of."
She walked around the edge of the bed until she stood opposite me, but she made no move to get on the bed, or come closer. "I tried to seduce you, and it worked, a great deal better than I'd planned. I forget sometimes that you're part human. I used the power I'd use for another sidhe, another deity."
I nodded, and even that hurt my throat. "I remember that part, but then it changed, became something else. I saw you sitting under a tree, and it hurt my eyes to look at you."
"No mortal can look full upon the face of a god and survive," Galen said.
"What?" I asked.
Maeve leaned against the bed. "I was Conchenn for a moment. I was what I had been. I think I'd almost made myself forget. The loss of faerie is a new wound, Merry, compared to having lost my godhead."
I was getting a headache. "I'm not following this."
"Let me." Galen looked serious, determined, very un-Galen. "Maeve used her powers, or what was left of them, as the goddess Conchenn to try to seduce you. But you brought on more power. You brought her into her godhead again."
I gave him wide eyes. "I thought that once you gave up being a god you couldn't get it back."
"So did I, until today," Maeve said.
I frowned at her. "Besides, only the Goddess can make you a god."
"I believe that is still true," Maeve said. "But perhaps anyone can be a vessel for Her power."
"Not just anyone," Galen said. "If just anyone could have done it, it would have happened centuries ago." He looked at Maeve as if she'd been rude.
"You're right. You are right. I will not belittle the gift. I know the touch of the Goddess when I feel it."
"What goddess?" I asked.
"Danu." She said the word in a whisper that seemed to echo through the room.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, let it out, counted slow, took another breath. I opened my eyes. "I'm hearing things," I said. "I thought you said, Danu."
"I did."
I shook my head, and didn't even care that it hurt my throat. "Danu is the Goddess whom the Tuatha De Danaan, the children of Dana, are named after. She's the Goddess. She was never personified."
"I never said she was a person," Maeve said. "I said that she gave me my godhead, and she did."
I frowned at her, the headache starting to pound between my eyes. "I don't understand."
"In the first treaty we ever signed with the Formorii, both sides worked the first weirding magic. We lessened ourselves lest our two races destroy the land that we now shared. Danu, or Dana, agreed to distance Herself from us for the great spell to be done." Maeve's eyes shimmered, and it was tears, not magic. "I don't think that any of us understood what we were giving up. Except perhaps Danu Herself." She sat on the edge of the bed and let the tears fall. This time I didn't think it was a bad day at work and baby hormones. I think she sat in the Southlands, on the edge of the Western Sea, and wept for a Goddess who had never seen America.
CHAPTER 7
Doyle entered the room at a run, still wearing nothing but the thong, his shoulder holster flapping loose over his bare chest, gun naked in his hand, and his power riding before him like a storm. Rhys was at his back, wearing white dress slacks and an unbuttoned shirt, a gun in his hand, no holster in sight. Rhys's power marched into the room on whispers, half heard.
They both stopped in the doorway, looking for something to shoot, I think. Nicca nearly ran into Rhys as he came through the door. He was more out of breath than either of the other two; of course, he'd had to run back and forth from the guest house to the main house, twice. He panted as he leaned against the doorjamb. "Not assassins. Magic... gone bad."
Doyle and Rhys visibly relaxed. Doyle holstered his gun, though he had to use his other hand to steady the holster because the straps weren't buckled on as they were supposed to be. Rhys just stood there, the gun slowly lowering beside his thigh. Both their powers receded like the ocean pulling back from the shore, like feeling it go down from def-con 1 to def-con 3.
I just lay on the bed and watched them, because trying to sit up had hurt my chest. It felt as if I'd swallowed something down the wrong way. Something very big and very solid, so that I ached all around my ribs. Other than that I didn't feel bad. It seemed like I should feel tired if I'd actually done what Maeve and Galen had said I'd done. Shouldn't you be tired when you make a god? If that's what had happened. Since that was impossible, I was still waiting for an alternate theory that I could buy. If anyone could come up with one, it would be Doyle. For a high royal of the court of faerie, he was a very practical man.
He came to stand beside
the bed. I realized that he was wet from the waist down as if he'd waded in the swimming pool, but there was no smell of chlorine. I remembered Kitto, then. He'd been helping the little goblin clean up. I'd forgotten about him coming into his hand of power today. A future queen shouldn't forget things like that, should she? Maybe I wasn't thinking as clearly as I thought I was.
"Kitto, how is he?" I asked.
Doyle smiled. "He's fine. A little confused, but he'll be fine." The smile faded around the edges. "How are you?"
I frowned. "Not sure." My voice still sounded harsh, but it was getting better, sounding more like me. "I thought I was fine, but I'm not sure I'm thinking as clearly as I think I am. Does that make sense?"
He nodded and turned to Maeve and Galen. "What happened?"
They both started to talk at once, and he held up a hand. "Ladies first." He motioned her away from the bed, and they went to the far side of the bedroom to talk. The bedroom was almost bigger than my old apartment, so there was plenty of room for privacy. Rhys gave me a smile, then trailed them so he could hear.
That left Galen with me. He still hadn't touched me. I badly needed to be touched, to have that reassurance. "Why won't you touch me?"
He smiled down at me, but his hands were clasped in his lap. "Believe me, it's hard not to, but you touched Maeve and this major goddess energy came down, then Frost grabbed you to stop Maeve from using you, and it happened again, with him."
"Maeve using me?"
"We thought she'd called out her major-goddess-seductive powers on you. It wasn't until Frost used his power to break what we thought was her hold on you that we realized something else was happening." He started to reach out to, touch my arm, then put his hand back in his lap. "I can feel how badly you need comforting, and Consort knows I want to hold you right now, but I'm afraid that if I touch you, it'll happen again."
"I don't buy that I brought on anyone's godhead," I said.
He nodded. "I know, but Maeve says she's had it done to her before. She should know what it feels like."
"I'm mortal, Galen. I'm the first sidhe ever to be born mortal, no matter how much mixed blood they had. Mortal hand cannot bring on immortal power. It's not logical."
He shrugged. "If you have a better explanation for what just happened, Merry, I will be happy to hear it." His green eyes, the color of summer grass, grew anxious. "I thought for a moment, Merry—" He shook his head, and bit his lip, before he could finish. "— I thought we'd lost you." He leaned over me, as if he'd kiss me, but was careful not to touch. "I thought I'd lost you."
I raised my hand to touch his face, and Doyle called from across the room. "Not yet, Princess. Let's be cautious until I've heard Galen's half of the story."
I lowered my hand reluctantly. I didn't like it, but it wasn't worth the risk, not yet. "Fine."
Galen smiled at me as he slid off the bed. "Just for now, Merry, just for now." He walked across the room toward the huddled group. He had a way of walking as if he danced, danced to some music that only he could hear. Sometimes when he held me, I could almost hear it; almost.
Nicca came to stand at the foot of the bed. He'd regained his breath, but he still looked scared. Intellectually, I knew he was centuries older than Galen, but he seemed younger than the other guards. Age in years doesn't always tell the tale. He looked very young, and very worried as he leaned his six-foot frame against the edge of the bed. His hair fell in a shining brown curtain nearly to his knees. He'd left it loose, and his deep brown dress slacks and suit jacket peeked through the richer brown of his hair. The hair framed the moss green of his T-shirt, so that I was more aware than normal of how nice his chest was. The T-shirt was silk, a gift from Maeve. She'd given all the men silk tees in varying colors to complement their skin tone. She'd given me a shopping spree at her favorite stores, on the theory that as a woman I'd be happier picking out my own clothes, and the men would rather have the choices made for them. She was half right. Though everyone had taken the gifts, they then traded the colors around among themselves until everyone was happy.
The moss-green shirt had originally been Galen's, but it looked better on Nicca, brought out the rich brown of his skin. It had just made Galen look green. That rich brown body in its tailored suit sat down on the far edge of the bed. He flipped his hair out of the way without thinking about it, the way a woman would. "You look better than you did a few minutes ago." His voice held an edge of shakiness.
"How did I look?"
He blinked at me and turned away as if he knew how easily his thoughts played across his face. "Pale, very, very pale." He looked back at me with what I think was supposed to be a poker face, but wasn't. There was too much tightness around his eyes, too much worry in their perfectly brown depths. He glanced toward the far side of the room. The huddle had broken up, and everyone was walking this way.
Doyle looked down at me, his face inscrutable darkness. I'd have played poker with Nicca or Galen any day, but never Doyle. When he didn't want me to read his face, I couldn't.
"Meredith, Princess, we need to understand what is happening, but I cannot think of a way to guarantee your safety and still explore this problem."
I tried to read something from his dark face, and couldn't. "What does that mean, exactly, Doyle?"
"It means that we must experiment, and I do not know what will come of those experiments."
"Experiment how?" I asked.
"Maeve believes that you have reawakened the true magic within her— her godhead, for lack of a better term. She was once a goddess in truth, so you have only returned what was lost. But Frost was not a deity, and to him you have given powers that never flowed within his body." He managed to look grim without ever having changed expression.
"She told me the theory. She even mentioned a goddess name to go along with it, but Doyle, I am not Danu. I am so not a deity. How could it possibly be true?"
"When we fought the Nameless and it spilled wild magic on all of us, I believe there were powers that needed a goddess-shaped vessel to hold them. Maeve had been taken to safety by the time the fight ended. You were the only goddess-shaped vessel, Meredith. You were the closest the power could find to what it needed."
I blinked up at him. I was tired of lying on the bed. If I was going to have to listen to tricky philosophical theories, the least I could do was not be flat on my back. I tried to sit up, winced, but kept at it. Nicca started to help me, but Doyle waved him back, then seemed to think better of it and motioned him to help me.
Nicca touched my arm, helped steady me, and it was just a warm touch. There was no magic to it, except the touch of skin to skin. Nicca fluffed pillows behind me so that I could sit propped up. When nothing happened at that first touch, he touched me where he needed to, until I was comfortable, or as comfortable as I was going to get.
"If Nicca's touch had caused another gathering of power, I don't know what we would have done, but if Nicca can touch you with impunity, then I think we should see how safe the rest of us are." He motioned, and Maeve stepped up beside him.
"Touch her."
Maeve looked at him as if she weren't accustomed to being ordered around. Then she took a deep breath and had to crawl on the edge of the bed to reach me. Maeve was not a short woman, and that spoke to how truly large the bed was.
She hesitated, a moment, searching my face.
"Do it," I said.
She did. The palm of her hand was warm and dry and soft, but nothing more. There was no pull of magic to it. We both looked at Doyle, with her hand still pressed to my shoulder. "Nothing's happening," she said.
"Try a little flare of power," Doyle said.
"Do you think that's safe?" Rhys asked.
"We need to know," Doyle said.
"She's been through a lot today. As long as we can all touch her, I think we can wait on experimenting with power."
Doyle turned so that they were facing each other beside the bed. "It is your night with the princess tonight, Rhys. Do you reall
y believe you can be with her and it not be a thing of power?"
Rhys glared up at him, the hand without the gun forming a fist. He was quiet for almost a full minute, then finally, reluctantly, he said, "No."
"None of us can be with her without it being a thing of power, Rhys. We must know now, while there are more of us to help, if our magic will bring this on again. Whatever it is."
"I have told you what it is, Doyle," Maeve said. "Why will none of you believe me?"
"I do not doubt you, Maeve, but godhead was always given as a gift, something earned. It was not accidental. Meredith did not bring this upon you and Frost deliberately." He looked at me, and raised an eyebrow. "You didn't, did you?"
"It would never have occurred to me to try," I said.
He turned back to Maeve, as if that satisfied him. "We must understand what brought this on, because we cannot afford to lose Meredith, even if it made the rest of us gods on high."
"Well then, you're going about it wrong," Maeve said.
Doyle looked at her, and I'd seen many a court noble wilt under that gaze. Maeve didn't even flinch. She put her arm around my shoulders and snuggled closer to me, a smile playing on her lips. "Danu's power wasn't called until we were kissing."
"Please stop saying that name," I said. I just couldn't keep hearing that the magic of the Goddess was inside me, even a little bit. I know in theory that we are all the Goddess, or rather images of Her divine perfection. Theory is one thing, though; actually having that kind of power and being able to use it is entirely different.
"Why?" Maeve asked, and she looked genuinely puzzled.
Galen raised his hand. "Ooh, I can answer this one."
Maeve turned puzzled eyes to him.
"Merry's creeped out that the Goddess climbed inside her."
"That's not it," I said.
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