Swallowing Darkness   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

The Goddess had given me choices along the way; bring life back to faerie with life or death, with sex or blood. I had chosen life and sex over death and blood. In that moment, with Gran's blood on my gown, I chose again.

I looked for Rhys, because I knew Galen would not do what I needed, not in time. "Rhys, bring me Gran's body."

Rhys had to argue with the doctors, and Galen helped him win the argument. Rhys brought her body to me. He laid her body on top of Sholto's, as if he knew what I meant to do.

They say the dead do not bleed, but that's not true. The recently dead bleed just fine. The brain dies, the heart stops beating, but the blood still flows out, for a time. Yes, for a time the dead do bleed.

Gran looked so small lying on top of Sholto. Her blood flowed out and down his pale skin, over the blackened burns the hand of power had made.

I felt Rhys and Galen at my back. I heard, vaguely, unimportantly, Galen arguing. But it didn't matter; nothing mattered but the magic.

I put my hands with the bracelets of tentacles on top of Gran's thin chest. Tears bit at my eyes, and I had to blink them away to keep my vision clear. My skin flared to life, moonlight glow. I called my power. I called all of it. If ever I were truly queen of faerie, princess of the blood, let it be this night, this moment. Give me all of it, Goddess. I ask this in your name.

My hair glowed so brightly I could see the burning garnet of it from the corners of my eyes, see it flow down the front of my gown, like red fire. My eyes cast green and gold shadows. The nightflyers that touched me glowed white, and that glow slid around the circle of them, so that their flesh glowed like sidhe flesh, white and moonlight bright.

Sholto's body began to glow, as white and pure as our own. His hair ran with yellow and white light, like the first glow of dawn in a winter's sky. I heard his first breath, a rattling sound, the sound of death living in a gasp.

His eyes opened, wide and already full of yellow and gold fire. He stared up at me. "Merry," he whispered.

"My king," I said.

His gaze went to the nightflyers glowing around us. They burned as brightly as any sidhe had ever burned. Sholto said, "My queen."

"On the life of my grandmother, I swear vengeance this night. I call kin slayer against Cair."

He put his hand over mine, and the glowing tentacles of the nightflyers flowed over his hand and mine, binding them together. "We hear you," the nightflyers said, almost with one voice.