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“Nah, I’ll have to give the favor some thought. That’s not something to waste.” She bounced up onto her feet on the examination table, making her a bit taller than the prince. She tossed the blanket to Liliana and gestured widely. “See, I was thinking I could help you keep Nudd and Pete and your soldiers out of trouble better if I had my weapons with me all the time. I mean, if you want me to protect your people properly, that is?”
The prince watched her pace back and forth on five feet of exam table. “Are you offering me your service as a guardian for my court?” His lips twitched again. Unseelie Fae court guardians were usually terrifyingly powerful Others like rock trolls or dragon-kin.
“Well, I supply your SET unit with custom weapons effective against Fae and beast-kin already.” Her pretty face turned wry, and she waved away a comment the prince didn’t actually seem inclined to make. “Yes, I know about the secret Special Enemies and Tactics force you’re in charge of.” She rolled her eyes. “Every Other in Fayetteville knows.”
“I did not know,” Liliana pointed out. It had never occurred to her to look for such a thing.
Siobhan waved her cybernetic arm at Liliana. “Well, except for Lilly, who was practically a shut-in until recently. The thing is, I always keep an eye on your soldiers, especially at the bars off-base, so I could––” She broke off and looked at the prince with his aura of raw power who was watching her, his handsome face unreadable.
Her shoulders slumped. “I mean I could do it sort of…unofficially. I know you wouldn’t want a cyborg flower sprite to serve you publicly.” She scoffed. “People would probably laugh at a prince with a sprite for a guardian.” She laughed, ugly and bitter.
“I am honored to accept you in my service, Guardian,” the prince said solemnly.
Siobhan blinked once, and a grin dawned in place of the bitterness on her pixie face. “So you’ll give me a permit to keep the Kel-Tec with me on base?”
“Of course.” The prince nodded to the sprite.
“Yes!” She punched the air. “And can I get real grenades for the grenade launcher?”
Alexander Bennet’s mouth curved up a tic at the corners. “Don’t push your luck.” His aura of oppressive power faded into the floor. He appeared, once again, to be an ordinary human, although Liliana thought he was still quite impressive.
She smiled into her cocoa. This prince of shadows was definitely a man worth getting to know more deeply.
“If you ladies will excuse me, I have something pressing I need to take care of.”
Liliana tilted her head and opened her fourth eyes for a moment to see what the prince was referring to.
Oh. Right.
“Don’t stand too close,” she told him.
He gave them each a small bow and left.
Doctor Nudd got up. His face split with a wide grin. “Welcome,” he said to Siobhan and gave her a formal bow. “To the Court of Earth and Fire.”
“Does this mean I’m unseelie now?” the sprite asked. “Will I feel stronger at night?”
Doctor Nudd did not seem to know the answer to that question for certain. “Well, the prince is unseelie. Normally, unseelie rulers don’t choose seelie Fae for their court. The land gives power according to its traditions, and if the peak of its power is at night…” He scratched his stubbly beard thoughtfully. “But the land doesn’t usually change your nature.”
Liliana considered that, looking into the past. “No land in North America has ever chosen a non-native Fae before.” Liliana considered some images of ancient Fae courts in North America that flashed before her fourth eyes. She couldn’t understand any of the conversation and many of the native Others were unknown to her. “I don’t think this land has any concept of seelie or unseelie. I see no separation between Fae and beast-kin either. Even Normals who were wise or had extraordinary skills were accepted in the land’s service. The Green peaks and ebbs with the seasons, neither at noon nor midnight, but it seems to have worked well to nourish all Others in the past.”
Doctor Nudd’s grin nearly split his face. “That means that our prince has the freedom to choose who he will accept without restriction.”
“He told me as much, with the power of an oath behind it. I wonder if that is part of why this land chose him.” Liliana glanced at her sprite friend sidelong. “I think you have chosen the one court where you truly can belong and let your heart choose your friends.”
Nudd grinned at the little sprite. “And you have been chosen right back. I’ve got a bottle of three-hundred-year-old mead I’ve been saving. Tonight seems like a great time to open it.”
Siobhan whooped. “Now, that’s a Fae who knows how to celebrate!”
Her friends’ joy made Liliana happy, but she had seen the prince’s near certain death in less than a year. “The new court may be very short-lived,” she warned her friends.
The tall goblin shrugged. “I know he’s half human and mortal, but some of the great kings and queens of legend were mortal. If it only lasts a few years, then…” He shrugged. “Then I believe they’ll be good years. And I would rather live fifty years in the court of a good king than another thousand alone.”
Siobhan nodded agreement. “You don’t know what it’s like for a Fae to have no court, no tie to the land,” she told Liliana. She rubbed the spot on her leg where the barest edges of the prince’s power had touched her, not like it hurt, but like she wanted to rub the sensation in deeper. “It feels like being…uprooted. You can survive for a while, but you can never grow or thrive.”
“And yet, you both came to this continent because there were no Fae courts here.”
The two Fae shared a look. The smiles left both their faces. Doctor Nudd’s deep voice rumbled low. “Some things are worse than being uprooted.”
