Mistral's Kiss

IF I HADN'T BEEN AFRAID OF GETTING STABBED ON THE BONES, I would have swum out to where Sholto and Agnes stood holding Segna. The other two guards, Ivar and Fyfe, were still in the water, still close, but not holding the fallen woman. The water reached to my shoulders, stinging in the claw marks that Segna had made on me, and plenty deep enough to swim in, if it hadn't hidden those bones beneath its surface. My blood trailed into the black water, lost.



Sholto was cradling Segna's head and upper body as well as he could with only one good arm. Agnes was still beside him, helping hold her sister hag above the water. I stumbled on the soft bottom and went under. I came up sputtering.



Agnes's voice came clear to me as she said to Sholto, "How can you want that weak thing? How can that be what you want?"



I heard earth sliding, water moving. I turned to find Doyle and Frost in the water, wading toward me.



Agnes yelled, "It is her kill or she will never be queen."



"We do not come to kill for her," Doyle said.



Frost said, "We come to guard her, as your king's guard protects him." His face was an arrogant mask. His pale, expensive suit soaked up the dirty water. His long silver hair trailed in the water. Somehow, he seemed more dirtied by the water than anyone else, as if it spoiled his white-and-silver beauty more grievously.



Doyle's blackness just seemed to melt into the water. The fact that his long braid trailed in the water didn't bother him. The only thing he worried about keeping clean was his gun. Modern guns shoot just fine wet, but he'd begun using firearms when dry powder meant life or death, and old habits die hard.



I waited for them to reach me, because I wanted the comfort of their presence while I did this. What I really wanted to do was fall into their arms and start screaming. I didn't want to kill anymore - I wanted life for my people. I wanted to bring life back to faerie, not death. Not death.



I waited, and let their hands give me solace. Let them lift me above the soft, treacherous bottom and guide me through the water. I didn't collapse against them, but I let myself take courage from the strength of their hands.



A bone brushed my leg. "Bone," I said.



"A ridge of bone, by the feel of it," Doyle said.



"Are you hoping Segna dies before you get here?" Agnes asked, voice derisive. The tears shining on her face made me discount the tone. She was losing someone she had lived with, fought beside, loved, for centuries. She'd hated me before this; now she'd hate me even more. I did not want her as my enemy, but it seemed as if no matter what I did, I couldn't avoid it.



"I'm trying not to share her fate," I said.



"I hope you do," Agnes said.



Sholto, tears plain on his face, looked at her. "If you ever raise a hand to Meredith again, I will be done with you."



Agnes stared at him, searched his face, as she held Segna's body. She stared into the face of the man she loved. Whatever she saw there made her bow her head. "I will do as my king bids." The words were bitter; it seemed to tighten my own throat just to hear them. They must have burned in Agnes's throat.



"Swear it," Sholto said.



"What oath would you have of me?" she asked, head still bowed.



"The oath that Meredith gave, that will do."



She shivered, and it wasn't from cold. "I swear by the darkness that eats all things that I will not harm the princess here and now."



"No," Sholto said, "swear that you will never harm her."



She bowed lower, dry black hair trailing into the water. "I cannot make that oath, my king."



"Why can you not?"



"Because I mean her harm."



"You will not swear to never hurt her?" He sounded surprised.



"I will not; cannot."



Ivar of the bird voice said, "May I suggest, Your Highness, that she swear the oath to not harm the princess now, so we can all move about freely. We can deal with her treachery later, once we've dealt with the urgencies of the present moment."



Sholto clutched Segna to him, and her yellowed hands with their broken claws grasped at him. "You are right," he said. He looked at Agnes, who was still bent over the water and Segna's body. "Make what oath you will, Agnes."



She straightened up, the water streaming from her hair. "I swear by the darkness that eats all things that I will not harm the princess in this moment."



"May I suggest something, King Sholto?" Doyle asked.



"Yes," Sholto answered, though his eyes were on the dying woman in his arms.



"Black Agnes should add to her oath that she will not harm the princess while we are here in your garden."



Sholto just nodded and whispered, "Do as he says, Agnes."



"Do the sidhe guards give orders to our king now?" she said.



"Do it, Agnes!" he screamed at her, and the scream ended in a sob. He folded his body over Segna and wept openly.



She glared at me, not Doyle, while she spoke, and each word seemed dragged out of her. "I swear by the darkness that eats all things that I will not harm the princess while we stand in the dead gardens."



"I think that is as good as we get from her," Frost said, voice low.



Doyle nodded. "Aye."



They both looked at me, as if they knew this was a bad idea. I addressed their look aloud. "There's no way around this, only through it. We have to live through this moment to get to the next."



Sholto raised his face enough to say, "Segna will not live through this moment."



He hadn't been this upset in Los Angeles when I'd done something much more horrible to Nerys the Grey, his other hag. I didn't point this out, but I couldn't help noting it. They had both been his lovers - but then again, I knew better than most that you don't feel for your lovers all the same. Segna meant something to him, and Nerys had not. Simple, painful, true.



I looked past the dying hag to Black Agnes, who watched Sholto intently. I realized in that moment that she didn't just weep for Segna's death, but like me remembered that he hadn't wept for Nerys. Was she wondering if he would weep for her? Or did she already know that he had loved Segna more? I wasn't sure, but I could tell it was a raw and painful thought that cut across her features. She stared at the weeping king, and her thoughts carved loss across her face. She would not come out of this night's work simply mourning Segna.



She seemed to feel the weight of my gaze, because she turned. She looked at me, the grief in her face changing into a fine, burning hatred. I saw my death in her eyes. Agnes would kill me, if she could.



Doyle's hand tightened on my arm. Frost stepped over the bones in front of us, hidden by the water, and put his broad shoulders in the way of Agnes's look, as if her look alone could somehow hurt me. That time was past. But there would be more nights, and more ways of making one mortal princess dead.



"She has given her oath," Sholto said in a choked voice. "It is all we can do tonight." That last was some acknowledgment that he saw what we saw in Agnes's face. I'd liked to have believed that he could keep a tight enough rein on the hag, but her look said there would not be a leash of honor, or love, stronger than her hate.



I didn't want to kill Segna, didn't want to end her life while Sholto wept for her. And now I knew that I must also kill Agnes or she'd see me dead. I might not do the deed myself, and it might not happen today, but I would have to call for her death. She was too dangerous, too well placed among the sluagh to be allowed to live.



As I let the thought come all the way up to the front of my mind, I didn't know whether to laugh, or weep. I didn't want to kill one hag, and had hated killing the first, yet I was already planning the death of the third.



Frost and Doyle lifted me over the hidden ridge of bones. They half floated me to Sholto, where he cried over the hag. They tried to let me go, but I sank to my chin when they released me. They grabbed me in the same moment, both fishing me higher above the black water.



"She must stand on her own two feet for this kill," Agnes said, her voice holding some of the deadly heat of her look.



"I don't know if I'm tall enough," I said.



"I have to agree with the hag," Fyfe said. "The princess must stand on her own for the kill to be hers."



Frost and Doyle exchanged glances, still holding me between them. "Let me down slowly," I said. "I think I can touch bottom."



They did what I asked. If I kept my chin pointed up, I could just barely keep the dirty water out of my mouth.



"We have no weapons with us that will kill the immortal," Doyle said.



"Nor we," Ivar said.



Sholto looked at me, his face raw with grief, and I fought to meet that look. He moved, and a tiny wave slapped my face. I began treading water, so I could keep my head above the surface. As I did so, my leg brushed something - I thought it was a bone, but it moved. It was Segna's arm, limp in the water. My leg brushed it again, and the arm convulsed.



"The bones are a killing thing," I said.



Then Segna said in a rattling voice, thick with things that should never be in the throat of the living, "Kiss me one...last...time."



Sholto leaned over her with a sob.



Ivar moved everyone back to give us room. He made certain that Agnes moved back, too, which meant that Segna's body began to sink below the water. I moved forward, tried to help catch her, as I treaded water. I got a hand on her body, felt the weight of her cloak wrap around my legs. I felt her tense a heartbeat before her arm, which was behind me now, swept forward. I had time to turn and put both hands on her arm, to keep the claws from my side.



"Merry!" Doyle yelled.



I had time to see her other arm sweeping up behind me. I let go of the arm I was already fending off, and tried to sweep the second arm away from me. Segna's body rolled under the water, and took me with her.