A Shiver of Light

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

SHOLTO AND I got dressed, him back in his mix of modern and muse-umworthy fashion, the black making his skin whiter, and strangely bringing out more of the yellow in his mostly white-blond hair.

“I always like you in royal purple; it makes your hair even more scarlet, and only green makes your eyes more brilliant.” He touched my hair as he said it, gazing down at me as if to drink in the sight of me in one of his favorite colors.

I smiled up at him, putting my hand over his so I could rest my cheek in his open palm. He felt safe and warm, his hands large enough that he could cradle the entire side of my face.

“Why do you think I wore it today?”

His smile lit up his face, not with magic, but with happiness. “I have never had anyone pay as much attention to my preferences as you do, Meredith.”

He was over three hundred years old; the thought that I was the first person to ever pay the attention that all lovers deserve made me sad, but I didn’t say it out loud, because I didn’t want to take the happiness off that handsome face.

I let my smile quirk at the edges and put into my eyes the heat I felt for him.

“We just finished,” he said, laughing.

“I am never finished with the pleasure you can give me, Sholto.”

His face sobered, his gold-on-gold eyes gazing down at me with a tenderness that was almost frightening, because I only aimed such looks at other men. I loved Sholto, but I was not in love with him, though that might come. I’d learned that my heart was big enough for more than just one great love of my life; maybe it could hold more than two someday?

I let him see the hope on my face, not the worry, and he leaned down to lay another kiss on my lips. I melted into his arms, getting as close as our now-clothed bodies could manage. It felt almost odd to not feel his extras. I must have stiffened, because he pulled back.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“It feels different without your extra bits,” I said.

He looked down at me, and I could see him thinking. “Different good, or bad?”

I frowned. “Just different, but”—I hugged him tighter—“I do sort of miss them when they’re not touchable.”

He laughed and hugged me close, folding his upper body over me, so my head was pressed into his chest not in a romantic way, but almost in a childlike way. I could forget how much taller almost all of my lovers were, but every once in a while they would do something and I would be forcibly reminded that I was tiny. I didn’t feel that tiny, but it was as if Sholto could have folded himself around me twice. His hair fell around our bodies like a pale curtain.

I pushed at him enough to make him rise up so I could see his face. “What is so funny?”

“You’re not horrified by the tentacles; you miss them when they’re gone. Do you know what a wonder that is to me?”

I touched his face, still bent so close, and smiled. “I have some idea, yes.”

The laughter died around the edges and left his eyes haunted. “I would have given anything not to have them when I was younger. It wasn’t until the Seelie cut them off and I thought I would never have them again that I realized they were a part of me, as much as my arms and legs.”

I held his face between my hands, gazed into those golden eyes, and said, “I’m so sorry they hurt you, and so happy that the Goddess and Consort made you whole again.”

“That’s just it, Meredith; I didn’t realize until they were lost that I wasn’t whole without them.”

“Sometimes you have to lose a thing to value it,” I said, softly.

He nodded, but his face was serious now, the laughter gone as if it were a dream. He stood back up all straight and tall and every inch the sidhe warrior and king. He pulled his dignity around him like a familiar piece of clothing, or a well-used shield. I wrapped my arms around his waist, happy that I got to see inside that shield.

He smiled down at me and hugged me back but stayed standing this time, so it was just his arms across my back. “Well, I value you without having to lose you, my queen.”

I smiled, and said, “And I value you, my king, so much.”

“I had given up having a sidhe for my queen.”

“Would you have taken someone from among your sluagh?”

“I would have had no choice, would I?”

I thought about it. “Humans can be driven mad seeing some of your people, and goblins are, well, goblins. I cannot imagine you happy with one of their women, though Kitto is very dear to me, and if you could have found a female similar in nature to him she might have been quite lovely, and there might be lesser fey who would have been willing.”

“I mention it in passing, and you think seriously about it.”

“I’m sure you thought seriously about it,” I said.

“Not as hard as you might think, my queen. Remember, my throne is the only one in faerie that is not normally an inherited one.”

“The goblin throne isn’t inherited either,” I said.

“True, but they kill the old king and the victor takes the crown. I may retire from my job, and help my people vote another in my place.”

“Has any King of the Sluagh ever stepped down voluntarily?”

He laughed again. “Well, no, but we can step down; the goblins do not give their rulers that choice.”

“No, they do not.”

“Now you look worried; what is wrong?”

“Holly and Ash,” I said.

“The goblin twins who are your visiting lovers. You fear they will kill their king, Kurag.”

I nodded. “They mean to, eventually, I think.”

“It is the goblin way.”

“Yes, but I have no treaty with Holly and Ash. I have one with Kurag.”

“You brought them into their hands of power, and turned them from sidhe-sided goblins to true sidhe. They must be grateful for that.”

“They are both thrilled with the power, but grateful enough to stay bound in treaty to me, knowing that I have enemies at both sidhe courts.” I shook my head. “I don’t know if they’re that grateful.”

“Have you not won them over with the pleasures of your body, as you won the rest of us?”

“I might have, but I haven’t been able to have sex with anyone for months. The goblin twins weren’t tamed enough before I had to stop entertaining them.”

“Then as soon as you are able, Meredith, you must invite them to visit you.”

I studied his face. “You aren’t bothered by me sleeping with them?”

“I always find that euphemism for sex confusing, because the last thing you do with the two of them is sleep.”

I smiled. “Fair enough, but my question remains.”

“It is politically expedient to keep the goblins as your allies, and that means Holly and Ash must want to be on your side, because you are correct, they will be the next rulers of the goblins.”

“I’ve been wondering how they’ll divide up the throne. They can’t both be king,” I said.

“I think Ash will take the crown, but they will rule the goblins as they have done everything in their lives.”

“They will rule together,” I said.

“Yes.”

“Ash is the more dominant personality, but up to the point where they disagree they are a unit.”

“And then Holly lets Ash win the disagreement?” Sholto asked.

I nodded.

“I wonder what would happen if Holly wouldn’t give way to his brother?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think either of them would have survived without the other. Sidhe-sided goblins are physically weaker than most goblins.”

“Like your Kitto.”

“Kitto is weaker than most,” I said.

“You have given him a refuge and a home, Meredith; it is good to see.”

“I didn’t think you cared for Kitto one way or another.”

“I did not know him, but I knew the fate of the sidhe-sided among the goblins and I would not wish that upon anyone.”

“You are much kinder than your reputation among the fey.”

“The King of the Sluagh needs a fierce reputation to keep his kingdom and people safe.”

“That may be true of all rulers in faerie,” I said.

He touched my face. “Now you look too serious.”

“I am not respected, or feared, enough to keep us safe.”

“The Goddess walks with you, Meredith. You have brought back the magic that we lost, and the sidhe are having children once more; those are all things worthy of much respect.”

“Many of the sidhe still see me as a mortal abomination, the first sidhe ever born who was mortal and could be killed by normal means.”

“You and I are both abominations to them. You with your human mortality, and I showing that the humanoid bias of the sidhe no longer wins genetically. We are both living proof that the sidhe are fading as pure people.”

“They do hate us both for that,” I said.

“Let them hate us, we know our worth,” he whispered, and leaned down to kiss me again. I kissed him back eagerly, because he was right. We knew our worth now. Those who hated us for physical traits we could not change could go hang themselves. Racists are always evil, whether it’s the color of your skin they hate, or how many limbs you have, or how fragile you are; it’s all hatred and it’s all just fear. They hated us because they saw us and thought, There but for the grace of Goddess go I, or my children. Sholto and I were the bogeyman in the mirror, and yet he was a king and I was a princess, and those who hated us most were neither. I wondered, did they hate us more because we were different, or because we were different and ruled in faerie and they with their pure, perfect, sidhe bodies did not?