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did she keep from being driven mad by the singing of the sithen?
I sent a tiny tendril of my own power through my shields. Many would have had to drop shields to do
magic, but they were sidhe who did not have to weave their protection so close to their skin, as I did.
With every loss there is some gain; with every gain, some loss.
I could feel his magic close above us, like an invisible pressure around us. We moved in a circle of his
magic. I tested that magic, and it felt warm and vaguely liquid. I closed my eyes and tried to see his shield
inside my head. I had an image of water rolling turquoise and lovely, warm as blood from a shore that
was far from here, and always warm.
I could have done something similar by calling the heat of the sun, or the memory of warm bodies under
blankets, but I would have had to fight to maintain the spell while I moved. Standing still, I was good at
all kinds of shielding; moving, not so good.
"The water is very warm," I said.
He said, "Yes," without looking at me.
Galen came up to stride beside us. He was shivering in his wet clothes. Ice had formed in strands of his
shorter hair, and there was a tiny cut on his cheek. His hair was just long enough to touch his face with
the frozen strands. "If I hop on your back, will you keep me warm, too?"
"The sidhe are impervious to the cold," Barinthus said.
"Speak for yourself," Galen said, teeth nearly chattering.
Nicca waded through the snow on our other side. He was shivering, too. "I have never felt the cold as I
do this day." His wings were held tightly together, rimmed with frost, like a stained-glass window in the
snow.
"It is the wings," Sage called from behind us. Rhys had actually allowed the smaller man to ride on his
back. Rhys seemed totally unaffected by the cold. But Sage huddled against Rhys, and I wondered why
Rhys didn't help the demi-fey keep warm, as Barinthus helped me. "We are butterflies, and that is not a
creature meant for winter snow."
"I am sidhe," Nicca said.
"As, apparently, am I," Sage called, "but I am still freezing my nuts off."
Galen laughed and nearly stumbled in the snow.
Doyle called back from the front of our little group. "If you will stop gossiping, we can all get inside more
quickly, and all will be warm."
"Why aren't you shivering?" Galen asked.
Amatheon answered over to the far right, shivering with his own newly shortened hair icy and cutting his
cheeks every time the wind blew it against his skin. "The Darkness is never cold."
Onilwyn called from the far left. He was shivering, too, but at least his long hair kept the ice in his hair
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from lashing his face. "And you cannot freeze the Killing Frost."
The mention of him made me glance back to see him bringing up the rear. It wasn't that he couldn't have
walked faster, because he could have the cold truly meant nothing to him  but Doyle had ordered
him to be our rear guard. There had been one attempt on my life, they were taking no chances.
I realized we were missing one of our number. I had to raise up to find Kitto struggling behind us in the
drifts. I think I would have asked someone to help him, but Frost fished him out of the snow and tossed
him up on his shoulders. He did it without asking. He did it without a word of any kind.
Kitto didn't say thank you, for both Frost and he were old, and among the oldest of us, thank you was
an insult. You had to be younger than three hundred to be comfortable with modern niceties. Which
meant that only Galen and I would have thanked someone for a thank you. Everyone else was too old.
I settled back into Barinthus's arms and magic. "Why am I suddenly Princess to you, Barinthus, and not
Meredith? You've called me Meredith or Merry-girl since I was a child."
"You are no longer a child." He stared studiously ahead as if the way were treacherous and he had to be
careful. I did not think it was the snow that he feared.
"You're trying to distance yourself from me?"
"No." Then a small smile curled his lips. "Well, perhaps, but not a-purpose."
"Then why?" I asked.
He glanced down at me again, and that flicker of eyelid came and went again. "Because you are
princess, and heir to the throne. And I have too many enemies among the sidhe to be allowed in your
bed."
"Once they learn you have come back into your godhead . . ."
"No, Meredith, if they discover that, then they will try to slay me before I have returned to my full
powers."
I started to say, They will not dare, but I knew better. "How much danger have you been in, staying
here and trying to drum up support for my claim to the throne?"
He would not look at me again. "Some," he said.
"Barinthus," I said, "truth between us."
"I do not lie, Princess. Some is an honest answer."
"Is it a complete answer?" I asked.
That made him smile again. "No."
"Would you give me a complete answer?"
"No," he said.
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"Why not?"
"Because it would make you worry when you leave again, and I remain behind."
"Everyone else the ring has recognized my aunt has sent to Los Angeles with me."
"You know what they call me behind my back."
"Kingmaker," I said.
"Queenmaker now." He shook his head, that long blue hair trailing like a cloak behind him in the sudden
rise of wind. "They have feared me as a power behind the throne for millennia. Do you believe they
would tolerate me as your consort, knowing that I might become king?" He shook his head again. "No, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]