“I encouraged you to go to the therapist, Dogmaela; what you take from it has to work for you, not me.”
She looked at me, seemed to study me. “If I may be so bold, Princess, perhaps taking your own advice might not be a bad idea.”
“What do you mean?”
Saraid said, “No, no, you are not going to tell the princess she needs therapy. We are going to escort her to Captain Doyle and anywhere else she needs to go, and that is that.”
Dogmaela dropped to one knee as the Red Cap had done in the weight room. “I beg your pardon, our princess.”
“Oh, get up, you did nothing wrong, Dogmaela, and neither did you, Saraid. You’re allowed to be different people and deal with your traumas differently. Right now I just need to talk to Doyle and Aisling.”
“Aisling, why do you seek him?” Saraid asked.
“That is my business.”
Saraid dropped to her knee beside Dogmaela. “We have offended you.”
“Oh, get up.” And with that I started down the hallway as fast as my high heels could take me. I made them jog a little to catch up with me, and then they dropped back to their bodyguard position half a pace behind and to each side. That was how we walked through the sliding glass doors and out into the Southern California sunshine, where Doyle was teaching hand-to-hand combat, and all I wanted to do was run to him and wrap the strength of his arms around me. I didn’t, because it might have undermined his authority, but it took more control than a would-be queen likes to admit.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
DOYLE STOOD UNDER the shade of a huge eucalyptus tree that rose at least thirty feet high and spread out like a canopy. Most eucalyptus didn’t have such a magnificent top, but this one was simply one of the prettiest ones I’d ever seen. Doyle had paced off a circle months ago that started under its shade and then spread out into the bright California sun. That circle of shade and light had become the unarmed combat practice area, because the Red Caps who practiced with the guard were too big to be thrown around inside any room the house could boast, so they got thrown around outside where they couldn’t break things. Though, honestly, most of the guards who practiced with the Red Caps couldn’t throw them around; it was more getting thrown around. The sidhe were quicker and more agile than the biggest of the goblins, but they weren’t stronger.
The white, oversized tank top made a startling contrast with Doyle’s skin, but the fitted exercise shorts were black so that it was almost hard to see them against his long legs. He was dressed like a hundred personal trainers in L. A., but the clothes were the only thing that was ordinary. No other trainer was going to have skin the color of night with purple and blue highlights when the sunlight hit it just right, and the pointed ears and ankle-length braid made him look like some elven prince from a fairy tale trying to blend into a modern gym. If Doyle wasn’t different enough, the circle around him was full of the towering figures of Red Caps.
There were actually more Red Caps than sidhe standing and sitting around the circle. It was a first; the sidhe always outnumbered anyone else. Then one of the sidhe got up from where he’d been sitting on the ground, and the sunlight sparkled across his bare upper body as if he’d been sprinkled with gold dust. I knew that he had yellow and gold blond hair braided tight to his head, because he’d shoved it all up under a thin face mask that covered him from the chin up, leaving only holes for his eyes and mouth. It was far too hot even for the thinnest mask they’d been able to find, but it was the best solution we’d found so far to make sure Aisling’s face wasn’t exposed. He was why there were so few of the sidhe here. The Red Caps feared nothing, so they said, which meant they couldn’t admit to worrying that Aisling’s beauty would bespell them.
Dogmaela and Saraid moved in front of me, turning their backs on the practice and blocking my view entirely. “Princess, you should not be here; none of us should,” Dogmaela said.
“Aisling is one of the people I need to speak with; please move aside.”
“None of the female guard will risk seeing him bare of face, Princess Meredith, and we would be poor bodyguards if we let him bespell you,” Saraid said.
“True love protects from his magic,” I said. “I think you and I will both be safe, Saraid.”
It took her a moment to understand what I’d implied, and then she blushed, which was not something you saw much among the fey. It made me laugh, not at her, but just happy for her and for Uther. He was like the ugly stepsister who had won the beautiful prince, and it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.
“We are not certain that anything protects from Aisling’s beauty, and he seems to have grown in power since he helped bring the dead gardens back to life,” Dogmaela said.
I remembered that night. Galen and several of the sidhe who had once been vegetative deities had been absorbed into the very trees, rocks, and earth. When they came back out, they’d gained in power, or regained old powers once lost. But Aisling’s sacrifice had been the most spectacular. A tree limb had pierced him through the chest, and he’d hung there. I’d thought he was dead, and then his body had exploded not into flesh, bone, and blood, but into a flock of songbirds that flew out into the garden to be lost in the dead trees. Their songs had been the first life heard in that lost place in centuries. Later Galen and all the rest appeared, melting out of the very walls and floor of the Hallway of Mortality, the queen’s personal torture chamber. The hallway’s cells had opened, and some had dissolved, and there were flowers and trees growing there now.
Aisling had survived all that and come back into more of his powers, or so some of the women believed. Since none of us could risk gazing on his face, I’m not sure any of us knew for certain whether Aisling had gained from his own sacrifice, or if everyone assumed it, because it was so true of the other men that had been taken by faerie and returned to us that night.
“I’ve seen Aisling with his shirt off before, and it hasn’t affected me.”
The two women glanced at each other, and then Dogmaela said, “I would not risk staring at any part of his body without a covering.”
“Hafwen told us what happened when he revealed his face to Melangell.”
I looked down at the dry grass. “I was there, I remember.”
“Melangell clawed her own eyes out, so she would no longer be able to see him,” Dogmaela said.
“I was there,” I snapped at her.
She dropped to one knee, head bowed. “My apologies, Princess Meredith, I did not mean to offend.”
“Get up, Dogmaela; I don’t want any of you to abase yourself like that.”
Saraid said, “Prince Cel expected that and more from us, so forgive us if we still fall back into decades of habit.”
“I forgive you, but Dogmaela, please stand up.”
“I angered you,” she said, head still bowed.
“I regret what happened to Melangell. I didn’t understand what I was asking when I told Aisling to use his magic on her, and a leader should know what a weapon does before using it.”
They both looked at me, Dogmaela still on the ground. They exchanged another glance. It was Saraid who said, “Melangell meant to kill Galen that night. You were within your rights to do what was needed to find out the plan to assassinate you and your consorts.”
“You did nothing wrong,” Dogmaela said. “I just don’t wish to suffer Melangell’s fate by accident.”
“I would not willingly use Aisling’s beauty against anyone ever again.”
“Why not?” Dogmaela asked.
“Because it wasn’t lust that he filled Melangell with, it was love, as if she were forced to be in true love with him all at once, even though they hated each other.” I hugged my arms tight trying to hold myself.
“You feel guilty,” Saraid said, voice full of a soft awe.
“It was a terrible thing to do; why shouldn’t I feel bad?”
They exchanged another look.
“Stop that,” I said.
“Stop what?” they both asked.
“That look, just talk to me. I am not my aunt, or my dead cousin, I am not even my narcissistic mother, or egomaniac great-uncle, or my grandfather, Uar the Cruel; just talk to me, please, and for the love of Goddess, Dogmaela, stand up.”