“I don’t think it’s just about height,” a voice said. It was Biddy just coming into the gym. She was six feet of broad shoulders and muscles, even after having her baby only two months ahead of my triplets. She was built more like a very tall human, and she put on muscle better than most of the sidhe, even the men, but then she was half human. Her hair was cut very short in a mass of brown curls. She’d chosen to cut it when she refused the late Prince Cel, and had been warrior enough and willing to do enough damage to make her no stick. She’d told me she’d keep her hair short to remind herself that she was stronger than she knew, and that no one would ever hurt her again.
“I’m having to work to get back to my fighting weight. I guess after three hundred years the metabolism slows down,” she said with a grin.
“You’re half human; I’m not,” Fenella said.
“You know, Fenella, I’m beginning to wonder why you left faerie,” I said.
Those yellow eyes narrowed. “I came here to get with child, not to sweat and guard … you.”
Trancer’s hand stopped moving in those small useless circles on her back. His smile looked frozen. “Now, dearest …”
“Merry had triplets. The last set of triplets among the sidhe was at least eight hundred years ago,” Biddy said. Her solid brown eyes, so very human, were darkening with the beginnings of anger. She would get angry for me.
“Yes, triplets, like a litter of dogs,” Fenella said.
Biddy said, “Bitch.”
“Exactly,” Fenella said.
Rhys made a small movement forward, but I held him tighter around the waist.
I didn’t need to be protected; I had the power to do it myself now. “You know, Fenella, if you don’t want to be one of my guard, that’s fine; I don’t think you’re suited to the position.”
“I can stop lifting these things?” She motioned at the weights.
“Yes, and in fact pack your bags and go back to the beach house.”
“There is no fairyland at the beach house. It’s just ordinary land.”
“Princess Meredith, my wife didn’t mean …” Trancer began.
I held up a hand and stopped him midsentence. “The beach house is lovely all year round, and maybe going back there will remind your wife that all the fairyland around this house is here because of me.”
“The Goddess returned Her blessing to us,” Fenella said.
“No,” Biddy said, “the Goddess returned Her blessing to Merry, and Merry shares it with the rest of us.” She stood very tall, looking down at the other woman from where she still sat on the front of the weight machine.
Fenella opened her mouth again, but Trancer actually put a fingertip against her lower lip. “My love, we will go to the beach house, as the princess bids. She is, after all, the ruler here in the Western Lands.”
Fenella pouted with her lips still against his finger, but she didn’t try to talk again, which was a relief at this point. She was the perfect example of exactly why I hadn’t tried to stay at the Seelie Court. Yes, she was less astute than some of the nobles, but her attitude was about average. I wasn’t pure enough, sidhe enough, and more than the Unseelie, the Seelie put great stock in physical purity.
“Pack and go, now,” Rhys said, voice low. His skin began to hum with power, and about the time I noticed that, I could see the white glow of his power sliding almost cloudlike under his skin. I glanced upward and saw that the three circles of blue had begun to swirl, as his magic began to unsheathe itself.
“We will, my lord,” Trancer said. He got his wife to her feet and began to ease out from among the machines and us. I realized that “us” didn’t just include Biddy. The three Red Caps were looming behind us like the mountains were on our side, my side. I reached my free hand out and touched the closest Red Cap, who happened to be Clesek. I wanted them to know how much I valued them, and had since the night they risked themselves in battle to help me save the men I loved.
Clesek’s cap was suddenly a bright scarlet instead of the dried brown it had been. The first thin trickle of blood began to drip down the side of his face from his round skullcap. The Red Caps had once dipped their caps in fresh blood often enough to keep them scarlet, but random slaughter for dipping purposes had been forbidden since the fey immigrated to America. I’d known that to be a war leader among them you had to have enough magic to cause your cap to bleed on its own, but what I hadn’t known was that a sidhe with the hand of blood could give them back that ability and make all their caps bleed. That was why they called me their queen, and why they bowed, and why they had risked everything to help me, and had joined me in exile here.
Fenella hissed, “Unclean, Unseelie magic that.”
I stopped touching Clesek, because I didn’t want him to bleed enough to get the new padded floor bloody, but I’d had enough of the Seelie for today. “Yes, yes it is Unseelie magic, Fenella, and you might want to remember that the next time you insult me.”
“Are you threatening me?”
Trancer tried to pull her toward the door, saying, “Hush, my dearest.”
“Yes, yes, I think I am. I can come to you as a goddess of fertility and joy, or I can come as the dark goddess who brings the winter and kills the crops. That was the face of the goddess that the Seelie brought down upon themselves, centuries ago. You have learned nothing.” And that last sentence echoed in the room in a way that human voices did not. Pink and white rose petals began to fall from thin air around me, Rhys, Biddy, and the Red Caps, but the fall of flowers stopped short of the two Seelie nobles.
Their eyes went wide and I saw fear on their faces. “She meant nothing by it, Princess, please.”
“She meant everything by it, Trancer.” My voice was almost mine, just the faintest echo of the Goddess around the edges of my words.
“We will pack and we will go to the edge of the sea, and await your pleasure to bid us return to this new bit of faerie,” he said, pulling his wife backward toward the doorway.
“You do that,” I said. The petals were thick as a snowstorm, but spring warm, so that I watched their frightened faces leave through a pink snowfall.
“It is not our place to say so, but they do not deserve your blessing,” Clesek said.
Rhys hugged me. “I love you, our Merry, just as you are.” And just like that, I started to cry again; stupid baby hormones. The rose petals fell so fast it was like being inside some magical snow globe that had been shaken by a giant. What did the Christians say—if God be with me, then who can be against me? That was true, but it still hurt to know that no matter how many wonders I performed, I would always and forever be too short, too human, too Unseelie for the most of the Golden Court to ever accept me. But then hadn’t six out of sixteen of the Unseelie noble houses been against me the last time I stood in open court there, too? If the Goddess herself could not make them see their own bigotry, then there was no cure for it.
There was a soft kiss on my cheek. I looked up and found that Rhys’s face was pressed to the top of my hair, and no one else was close. The Goddess had kissed my tears like my own mother never had. I whispered my thanks, and the petals began to slow. I was almost ankle deep in petals now; that was enough.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
RHYS AND BIDDY both offered to escort me to the outdoor area where Doyle was conducting the hand-to-hand training, but I told Rhys to stay and supervise the weight training. Biddy wasn’t on full duty yet, and she helped run the household along with her husband, Nicca. I didn’t want to put her back on guard duty; it wasn’t where she was best used. Both of them were content when they realized Saraid and Dogmaela were just outside the door.
Rhys kissed me good-bye and gave me over to the two female guards. I’d already asked him my question, and he’d had no problem with Bryluen, and the two human nannies weren’t needed when he, Galen, and Kitto were on duty, so he hadn’t seen them with the littlest of our babes. It was interesting that Maeve and I both felt Bryluen’s magic, but Rhys didn’t. He was a death deity, and Maeve and I were both fertility, sex, and love. If that made us more susceptible to my daughter’s glamour, then Galen would also have an issue, but Doyle and Frost might not. Come to think of it, Galen was the only one of the fathers who was spring and fertility, though he wasn’t as close to Maeve’s and my magic as a couple of the other guards. Adair and Amatheon weren’t fathers, or my lovers anymore, but their magic was closest; I might see how they fared babysitting if Galen had more issues than the other fathers. If he didn’t, then I might ask one of the female sidhe and see if Bryluen had more power over women, though I couldn’t think why she should.