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"I'd love it."
Then they slept some more, letting the world's machinations turn without them. For once.
Chapter Seventeen
"Kel... Kel... Help!"
Keldwyn came out of the sound sleep with the alertness of long training. Uthe was a little slower to rise. He was still feeling the effects of his near-death experience. Kel's assessing look seemed to be considering the same thing, but Uthe waved off his concerns. The owner of the voice was getting closer, coming swiftly. It was Della.
Using Fae swiftness, Kel was quickly dressed. Since Uthe only had the thin robe, crumpled and discarded inside the cave, Kel conjured him a suitable tunic and leggings in a blink. An easy enough magic to do with cotton fibers, the Fae told him. When Della reached the clearing where they were, they were dressed. While modesty wasn't a big issue for either of their species, Della might have been startled to confront two adult naked men.
"Della, calm down." Kel came to her. "What is it?"
The girl's face was tracked with tears. Her jeans and pink T-shirt were dirt-stained, as if she'd tripped and fallen several times on her way to find them. "I didn't know where you were, but the trees told me where to go. They said you would help."
"I will. What's happened?"
"Cat...she said the Queen is going to send you away. Everyone is talking about it. She went to yell at the Queen."
"Ah, bollocks," Keldwyn muttered. He lifted a hand to the sky and spoke a sharp word, punctuating it with a shrill whistle between his teeth. Energy vibrated off him like a shock wave.
"This wasn't the way I intended to do this," Kel said shortly to Uthe. "You don't get air sick, do you?"
"You really think that matters right now?" Uthe asked dryly.
A shriek cut off anything else he might have said. The sight that accompanied the sound took his words away, anyhow. He'd seen the smaller dragon playing with Della, and he had a vague recollection of one in the Shattered World--he needed to have Kel verify that at some point--but this was the first time since he'd been in the Fae world he'd had the chance to see one up close. While the sea serpents might be a related family, the circumstances of their encounter hadn't given Uthe time to appreciate them.
Purple gleaming scales, lavender eyes, green and purple wings. The creature was as large as a private charter plane, and Uthe assumed he was intended to serve the same purpose now.
"Yes and no," Kel corrected him. "They don't lend themselves out for transportation unless they owe a favor, or they're particularly fond of you."
Stepping onto the creature's front leg, Kel used the rough staggering of the scales and a firm grip on the curved wing to swing up on his back. He offered Uthe a hand. "Come. Quickly."
Uthe followed his lead, sliding on behind him. He was sitting on a dragon. Despite the seriousness of the situation, it flooded him with an unexpected sense of optimism about everything. He gripped Kel's hips as the Fae Lord spoke to Della. "Go back to your mother's garden, Della. I'll take care of Catriona. I promise."
"Okay." Della looked at him hopefully. Only then did Uthe notice she was clutching a brown lunch bag bulging with its contents. "I brought her tomatoes from Momma's garden. I thought she'd like them."
"Why don't you hold onto them until tomorrow, and then you can give them to her yourself. All right? She'll like them even better that way."
"Okay. I'll come back tomorrow."
Kel afforded her a short nod, then said a quick word to the dragon. "Hold fast to me," he told Uthe. "We will be making haste."
Uthe complied, wrapping both arms around Kel's chest. Looking down, he saw straps winding around him and Kel, holding him even tighter. "Just in case," Kel said.
The dragon launched itself like a rocket. They shot up into the air like a space shuttle leaving earth. Gravity pushed Keldwyn against him, and Uthe hung on even tighter, glad the Fae Lord had taken the precautions he had. It was exhilarating, the world rushing by beneath them, a landscape of vibrant color. From this height, he had a view of all the castles, though savoring the experience was hampered by the speed they were going. It underscored the urgency the Fae Lord was feeling.
Catriona had been locked in a tree for twenty years for defying the Queen. What would she do to her for challenging her on Keldwyn's behalf?
The Fae have as many rules about defying authority as the vampires do, Kel said grimly in his head. Only they can be far less merciful. Particularly the Unseelie side.
* * *
"You never learn," Rhoswen said icily. "Is that what you want, dryad? Do you miss your tree prison? Do you want to stay there a century this time? Is that what it takes for you to learn your lesson?"
Catriona was shaking, and the Queen's threat only made it worse. Her chin was firm though, her gray-green eyes bright with unshed tears. "I will do it if you will let him stay here. You can't banish him. No one deserves that. Have you ever felt it, Queen Rhoswen? Have you ever suffered the fate you find it so easy to inflict on others? I hate you. I don't care what you do to me. I'd rather tell you that you're wrong, and mean and evil, than to cower and pretend all those things aren't true just because I'm afraid. I'm sick of being afraid of you."
Rhoswen lifted a hand and Keldwyn skidded to a halt in front of his ward, sword drawn and charged with enough energy to cut a swath of orange and red light before both of them. "No," he said. "Whatever punishment she has incurred, I will take it."
Rhoswen glanced toward the throne room entrance. The two guards there were no longer upright. Uthe stood in the doorway over them. He sketched a bow her way and her lips thinned. Sighing, she continued the motion she'd started, pushing a lock of her pale white hair back up beneath the intricate comb that looked like a bouquet of snowflakes. Glittering frost highlighted the strands.
"They will wish they were dead instead of merely unconscious when Cayden gets hold of them." Turning her back on the three of them,
she moved to her throne. "My lord Keldwyn, if you would sheathe your sword, you might greet Tabor and Lady Lyssa. We were discussing the upcoming Yule festivities when Catriona flitted over the heads of two armed guards like a deranged butterfly and interrupted our discussion."
Kel's gaze snapped left. King Tabor stood at a sidebar of prepared foods, pouring himself a glass of wine. Lyssa sat in a nearby chair, nibbling what looked like a sugar frosted flower petal. While there was some amusement in the Seelie King's leonine face, suggesting the tone of this confrontation was less dire than Kel feared, there was an underlying tension there, too. He knew Rhoswen as Kel did, and knew her mood could turn on a dime. He saw it in Lyssa's watchful expression also, even as she licked the sugar off her fingers delicately.
"Dayel coeurose..." Catriona beseeched him.
It was the Fae phrase for father of my heart. It made him think of Evan, calling Uthe something similar in the language of love they shared. Sheathing his sword, Kel turned and put his hands on Catriona's shoulders. "I cherish you in more ways than I can express," he said. "Your foolish championing of me only makes me love you more. But--"
"No." She wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in his chest. "I won't lose you like everyone else. I don't care. I'll go to the human world with you. I'll die there. I'd rather die there tomorrow than stay here a thousand years, where everything is perfect and beautiful, but so heartless. So intolerant of everything that's not Fae..."
"Ssshh..." Keldwyn laid his head on top of hers. "It's all right. You should have spoken to me first. It's all right."
Still standing by the inert guards, Uthe watched Keldwyn comfort the nearly hysterical young woman. He was sure the Fae Lord hadn't forgotten they stood before a royal audience, but the look exchanged between Lyssa and Tabor, and Rhoswen's unexpectedly patient expression, said they understood the dryad was having an emotional breakdown that couldn't be stemmed by threats or royal wrath, at least not until she calmed down.
