Hamilton, Laurell K Meredith Gentry 03 Seduced by Moonlight

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who were powerful, but she didn't have to like them, or use them much. She could make sure they were
always seated far away from her and given duties that kept them from her sight.
Mistral had been so out of favor during my lifetime that I barely remembered his face, and could not truly
recall ever having spoken with him. My father had thought him a fool.
"I don't remember anyone among the guard called Whisper," I said.
"He displeased the queen once, long ago," Doyle said, "and she had him punished. He was given to
Ezekiel in the Hallway of Mortality for" he frowned, looked at Frost "for seven years, wasn't it?"
Frost nodded. "I believe so."
I swallowed before I could speak. "He was given over to be tortured for seven years." My voice was
breathy with the horror of it. I'd been in the Hallway of Mortality. I knew exactly how good at his craft
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Ezekiel was, and I could not imagine seven years of such attention.
They were both nodding.
Even Maeve looked pale. The Seelie Court did not condone torture, at least not the overt kind that
Ezekiel dished out. They had more subtle ways of doing it, magical ways, that were less messy, less
personal. You could cause someone excruciating pain without getting your hands dirty. Queen Andais
liked calling a spade a spade. Torture was supposed to be messy, or what good was it?
"I have heard tales of your Hallway of Hell."
"See, Taranis even lets his court adopt the words of a faith that tormented and tortured our followers,"
Frost said. "He has allowed his court to become an ape of the humans."
"If your century begins with seventeen, or earlier," I said.
Frost shrugged, as if a few hundred years made no difference.
"Call it what you will, but that your queen would mete out such punishment is proof that I do not want to
be a part of your court."
"What did he do to earn seven years with Ezekiel?" I asked.
"I don't think anyone knows but Whisper and the queen," Frost said.
I looked at Doyle. "You've been her left-hand man for a millennium, or more. You'd never left her side
until she sent you here to Los Angeles to fetch. You know, don't you?"
He let out a small breath. "If she wanted others to know, Merry, she would have told them. I will not
endanger anyone by sharing that particular bit of truth."
I let it go. I didn't want Andais to have an excuse to send any of us to the Hallway of Mortality. I could
live the rest of my days without knowing what Whisper had done to merit seven years, as long as I never
had to endure another minute with Ezekiel's voice in my face.
Frost turned to Maeve. "You've refused to go to the Unseelie Court with us, even though you know that
Taranis may try to kill you while we're gone."
"You will be turning me over to new bodyguards at the airport."
"The same human bodyguards who nearly got themselves killed trying to save you from the Nameless.
The same bodyguards who, if we hadn't come along, would have died to a man, and you with them."
"We will take another plane to another country, far from the king and his powers."
"She will probably be safer than we will, Frost. For we will beard him in his den, the very heart of his
power."
"But she would be safer still at the Unseelie Court, under the queen's protection," Frost said.
"We have had this discussion," Doyle said. "It is done."
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Frost looked at her. "It isn't that you loathe the Unseelie Court, or even that you're afraid of them, of us.
It's that you're afraid that once you enter the darkling throng and are surrounded by faerie once more,
you will never leave."
"She could make me a prisoner, for my own protection, and you would not be able to break me free,"
Maeve said.
"You wouldn't be a prisoner, Conchenn, you'd simply embrace the dark, because the light won't have
you. Many a Seelie lord and lady has found that the dark is not half so ugly as they thought, or half so
terrible as they were taught." He took a step toward her, and she took a step back.
"They embraced the dark because they had no choice," she said in a voice that was almost choked. "It
was the darkness or be exiled from faerie forever."
"Exactly," Frost said. "There are no prisoners among us. Whisper could have fled the Unseelie Court.
The queen would not have pursued him, for she knows that for a sidhe to leave the Unseelie Court is to
have no place to go. No home in faerie. We take the queen's laws, not because we have no choice, but
because even seven years of torment is better than being cast out, as you were, by your king."
I saw tears shine in her eyes as she rushed past us all and out the far door.
"Did you have to do that?" Doyle said.
Frost nodded. "Yes, I think I did. She's endangering herself by refusing to go to the Unseelie Court. It's
foolish."
"Not half so foolish as entering the Seelie Court of our own free will," Doyle said.
The two men looked at each other, and something passed between them. Frost's shoulders slumped just
a little before he straightened and said, "I do not like either plan."
"You've made that clear," Doyle said.
Frost looked at me. "I will go with Merry, but I will not like it." He smiled, but it was wistful, so full of
old sorrow that it made my chest tight. "And I fear, my sweet, sweet, princess, neither will you."
I would have argued with him if I could, but since I agreed with him, it seemed silly. "We visit the
Unseelie Court first, Frost, and the goblin court after that, and only then the Seelie Court." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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