A Lick of Frost

DOYLE AND FROST PICKED USNA'S MIND FOR OTHER BITS OF unimportant news from his mother about the Seelie Court. There was a lot of it. Apparently Taranis had been acting erratically for some time. Aisling asked as we pulled into the gates of Maeve Reed's estate, "Why did you request me for this talk? Taranis forbade anyone to speak to me of the Seelie Court on pain of torture, so I have no intelligence to report."

"The Seelie sithen recognized you as king when we arrived in America," Doyle said. "You were exiled because of that."

"I am aware of what cost me my place at court," Aisling said.

"So the princess is in effect being offered your rightful throne," Doyle said.

Aisling's eyes went wide. Even through the veil his astonishment showed. Obviously he had not put two and two together and come up with that.

The door to the limo opened, and Fred held the door. We all stayed sitting while we waited for Aisling to digest this. "Close the door for a moment, Fred," I said.

The door closed.

"Just because the sithen recognized me more than two hundred years ago does not mean that I would still be its choice for king," Aisling said. "And it is not me to whom the nobles are making this offer."

"I wanted you to hear it first, Aisling," Doyle said. "I did not want you to think that we had forgotten what faerie itself offered you once."

Aisling looked at Doyle for a long moment. "That was a very decent thing for you to do, Doyle."

"You sound surprised," I said.

He looked at me. "Doyle has been the queen's Darkness for a very long time, Princess. I am beginning to realize that some of his finer emotions may have been buried under the queen's orders."

"That is the most polite way I've ever heard anyone say that we thought you were a heartless bastard, Doyle," Abe said.

Aisling's eyes crinkled at the edges. I think he was smiling. "I would not have put it quite that way."

Doyle smiled. "I think many of us will find that under the princess' care we are more ourselves than we have been in a very long time."

They all looked at me, and the weight of that look made me want to squirm. I fought it off and sat there trying to be the princess they thought I was. But there were moments, like now, when I felt that I could not possibly be everything they needed. No one could meet so many needs.

I got a whiff of a spring breeze and flowers. A voice that was not a voice, but more something that thrummed through my body, hummed along my skin and whispered, "We will be enough."

I knew it was the old idea that with God, or Goddess, on your side you could not lose. But there were moments when I was no longer certain that winning meant the same thing to me that it did to the Goddess.