Mistrals Kiss   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

“If all you want is to crawl back into another bottle or another bag of powder, then do it. Step away from the cup and let someone else drink,” Rhys said.

A look of pain crossed Abeloec’s face. “It’s mine. It’s part of who I was.”

“The God didn’t mention you by name, Abe,” Rhys said. “He told her to share, not who with.”

“But it’s mine.”

“Only if you take it,” Rhys said, and his voice was low and clear, and somehow gentle, as if he understood more than I did why Abe was afraid.

“It’s mine,” Abe said again.

“Then drink,” Rhys said, “drink and be merry.”

“Drink and be damned,” Abeloec said.

Rhys touched his arm. “No, Abe, say it, and do your best to believe it. Drink and be merry. I’ve seen more of us come back into our power than you have. The attitude affects it, or can.”

Abeloec started to let go of the cup, but I moved off the bed and came to stand in front of him. “You will bring everything you learned in this long sad time with you, but you will still be you. You will be who you were, just older and wiser. Wisdom bought at great cost is nothing to regret.”

He stared down at me with his eyes a dark and perfect grey. “You bid me drink.”

I shook my head. “No. It must be your choice.”

“You will not command me?”

I shook my head again.

“The princess has some very American views on freewill,” Rhys said.

“I take that as a compliment,” I said.

“But…,” Abe said, softly.

“Yes,” Rhys said, “it means it’s all on you. Your choice. Your fate. All in your hands. Enough rope to hang yourself, as they say.”

“Or save yourself,” Doyle said, and he came to stand on the other side, like a taller darkness to Rhys’s white. Abeloec and I stood with white on one side, black on the other. Rhys had once been Cromm Cruach, a god of death and life. Doyle was the queen’s chief assassin, but once he had been Nodons, a god of healing. We stood between them, and when I looked up at Abeloec something moved in his eyes, some shadow of that person I had glimpsed on the hill inside the hood of a cloak.

Abeloec raised the cup, taking my hands with it. We raised the cup together and he lowered his head. His lips hesitated for a breath on the edge of that smooth horn, then he drank.

He kept tipping the cup back, until he had to drop to his knees so that my hands stayed on the cup while he upended it. He drank it down in one long swallow.

On his knees, releasing the cup, he threw his head back, eyes closed.