Mistrals Kiss   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

The look on his face made me laugh. The laughter echoed on the air like the song of birds.

“Joy will suffice to bring this place back to life,” the Goddess said.

“If you bring life to this place with joy, then you will change the very heart of the sluagh. Do you understand that, Sholto?” the God said.

“Not exactly.”

“The heart of the sluagh is based on death, blood, combat, and terror. Laughter, joy, and life will make a different heart for the sluagh.”

“I am sorry, my lord, but I do not understand.”

“Meredith,” the Goddess said, “explain it to him.” The Goddess was beginning to fade, like a dream as dawn’s light steals through the window.

“I do not understand,” Sholto said.

“You are sluagh and Unseelie sidhe,” the God said; “you are a creature of terror and darkness. It is what you are, but it is not all you are.” With that, the dark shape began to fade, too.

Sholto reached out to him. “Wait, I don’t understand.”

The God and Goddess vanished, as if they’d never been, and the sunlight dimmed with them. We were left in gloom. It was the twilight of the underground of faerie these days — not the aberration of the momentous sunlight that had bathed us moments ago.

Sholto yelled, “My God, wait!”

“Sholto,” I said. I had to say it twice more before he looked at me.

His face was stricken. “I don’t know what they want from me. What am I to do? How do I bring the heart of my people back with joy?”

I smiled at him, the mask of blood cracking with it. I had to clean off this mess. “Oh, Sholto, you get your wish.”

“My wish? What wish?”

“Let me clean off some of this blood beforehand.”

“Before what?”

I touched his arm. “Sex, Sholto, they meant sex.”

“What?” The look on his face, so astonished, made me laugh again. The sound echoed across the lake, and again I thought I heard birdsong.

“Did you hear that?”

“I heard your laughter, like music.”

“This place is ready to come back to life, Sholto, but if we use laughter and joy and sex to make it happen, then it will be a different place than it was before. Do you understand that?”

“I’m not sure. We are going to have sex here, now?”

“Yes. Let me wash off some of the blood, and then yes.” I wasn’t sure he’d heard anything else I’d said.