A Lick Of Frost   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

Maybe he was remembering the first time he saw me, collapsed in grief, clutching my dead father's sword as if it were the last solid thing in the universe.

"Doctor," I whispered. "I need a doctor." I whispered because the last time I'd felt this sick, talking had hurt my head. But I also whispered because I knew it would make me seem more pitiful and if sympathy would get me in front of the press, I would play that card for all it was worth.

Agent Gillett's eyes hardened, and I saw again that purpose that had made me believe he would find my father's killer.

Tonight, that was all right. I carried my father's grandchildren inside me. But I had to get to safety. Strength of arms and magic are so often what the sidhe rely on, but they have never been weak. They do not understand the arsenal of the powerless. I understood, because I had lived in the land of the helpless most of my life.

I stopped fighting to be brave. I stopped fighting to feel better. I let myself feel how hurt I was, and how frightened. I let myself think the thoughts I'd been shoving back. I let them fill my eyes with tears.

The guards at the doors tried to move in front of us, but Major Walters used his officer voice. It echoed in the marble room and into the open door beyond. "You will move aside, now."

The talkative guard said, "Shanley, we have no healers who can cure this. Let the humans treat her." He had hair the flame color of autumn leaves just before they fall to the ground, and eyes of circles of green. He seemed young, though he had to be over seventy, because that was Galen's age, and he was the next youngest sidhe to me.

Shanley looked down at me. His eyes were two perfect circles of blue.

I lay in Hugh's arms and gazed up at him through tear-soaked eyes, and a swelling bruise that covered me from temple to chin.

Shanley spoke quietly, "What story will you tell the press, Princess Meredith?"

"The truth," I whispered.

A look of pain went through those inhumanly lovely eyes. "I cannot let you into that room." His words were his admission that he knew that my truth and Taranis's truth were not one and the same. He knew that his king had lied, and given oath on it. He knew, and yet he had made oath to serve Taranis as guard. He was caught between his vows and his king's treachery.

I might have pitied him, but I knew that Taranis would not be distracted forever in his bath. Not even with servant girls to abuse. We were inches away from the press and relative safety. But how to travel those last few inches?

Major Walters pulled his radio from a coat pocket and hit a button. "We need backup out here."

"If they come through, we will fight them," Shanley said.