My mouth stayed against Kurag's arm, but my attention was in my hands and the strength that was holding me. I could feel the pull of his arms as he forced my hands behind my back and slightly up, just this side of pain. It was perfectly distracting and exactly what I needed.
I pulled away from the wound with a gasp, finally able to draw a good breath. I started to gag, but the hands jerked my arms upward, and I gasped again instead. The moment passed and I was all right. I wasn't going to embarrass myself by throwing up all that good blood.
The hands eased my arms back from the pain; now they were just something to hang on to.
“Hmm,” Kurag said, “that was well done, Merry. You are indeed your father's daughter.”
“High praise indeed coming from you, Kurag.” I stepped back from him and stumbled. The hands steadied me, allowing me to lean back against the chest that went with them. I knew who it was before I turned my head to see. Doyle stared down at me as I leaned against his body, hands still clinging to him.
I mouthed the words, “Thank you,” to him.
He gave a small nod of his head. He made no move to let me go, and I made no move to leave the press of his body. I was terribly afraid if I did step away from him or let go of his hands, I would fall. But it was also in that moment I felt safe. I knew that if I fell, he would catch me.
“My blood is in your body and yours in mine, Kurag,” I said. “Blood kin we are until the next moon.”
Kurag nodded. “Your enemies, my enemies. Your beloved, my beloved.” He took a step closer, looming over me, even over Doyle. “We are blood allies for a moon's space of time, if . . .”
I stared up at him. “What do you mean if? The ritual is complete.”
Kurag raised his three eyes and stared at Doyle. “Your Darkness knows what I mean.”
“He is still the queen's Darkness,” I said.
Kurag's eyes flicked down to me, then back to Doyle. “It's not the queen's hands he's holding.”
I started to pull away from Doyle, but he tightened his grip on my hands. I forced myself to relax against his body. “It's none of your business what Doyle holds of mine, Kurag.”
Kurag's eyes narrowed. “Is he your new consort? I heard rumor that that was why you were coming back to the court, to choose a new consort.”
I wrapped Doyle's hands around my waist. “I have no consort.” I leaned more solidly into Doyle's arms. He stiffened for a second, and then I felt his body relax one muscle at a time until he rested like a heavy warmth around me. “But you might say I'm shopping around.”
“Good, good,” Kurag said.
I felt Doyle tense, though I doubt anyone watching could have told a difference. I was missing something here. But what?
“No consort means I can demand one more thing or the alliance is broken.”
“Do not do this, Kurag,” Doyle said.
“I invoke the right of flesh,” Kurag said.
“He has taken your blood under false pretenses,” Frost said. “He knows who your enemies are, and the goblin king fears them.”
“Do you call Kurag, Goblin King, a coward?” Kurag asked.
Frost tucked the little goblin he was holding under one arm, leaving his other hand free, but still bare of weapon. “Yes, I name you coward, if you hide behind flesh.”
“What is the right of flesh?” I asked. I started to step away from Doyle, but his arms tightened. I looked up at him. “What is going on, Doyle?”
“Kurag is trying to hide his cowardice behind a very old ritual.”
Kurag grinned at them both. Call anyone a coward at any of the courts and you ended up fighting a duel. Kurag was being much too reasonable. “I fear no sidhe,” he said. “I invoke flesh not to avoid her enemies, Guardsmen, but to truly join my flesh with hers.”
“You are already wed,” Frost said. “Adultery is a crime among the sidhe.”
“But not among the goblins,” Kurag said. “So my marital status makes no difference here, only hers.”
I pushed away from Doyle. The movement was too sudden. I swayed, and Fflur's hand on my elbow saved me from falling. “I am going to bind your wrists now,” she said.
I couldn't really argue. “Thank you,” I said to her. As she began to dress my wrists I turned back to the men. “Someone, please, explain what he is talking about.”
“Glad to,” Kurag said. “If your enemy is mine and I must help you defend yourself against powerful forces, then my beloved must truly be your beloved. We will share flesh as we shared blood.”
“You mean sex?” Galen asked.
Kurag nodded. “Yes, sex.”
I said, “No.”
Galen said, “Oh, no.”
“No flesh sharing, no alliance,” Kurag said.
“Among the sidhe,” Doyle said, “your marriage vows are still sacred. Meredith can no more help you cheat on your wife than she could cheat on her own husband. The rule of flesh only works if both parties are unjoined.”
Kurag scowled. “You would not lie outright. Damn.” He looked at me. “You always escape me, Merry.”
“Only because you always resort to trickery to try and get in my pants.”
A servant had come with a bowl of clean water, holding it for Fflur as she washed my wrists. She popped open a bottle of antiseptic and drenched both of my wrists with it. The reddish liquid fell into the water, floating on the surface like drops of new blood.
“I made you a valid offer of marriage once,” Kurag said.
“I was sixteen,” I said. “You scared the shit out of me.” Fflur patted my wrists dry.
“Just too much man for you, aren't I?”
“The two of you together are too much man for me, Kurag, you're right,” I said.
His hand went to his side where the extra genitalia lay. One heavy stroke and there was a bulge under the pants in a place where most men didn't have to worry about it.
“Flesh has been invoked,” Kurag said, still stroking his side. “It cannot be undone, until it is answered.”
I looked to Doyle. “What does he mean?”
Doyle shook his head. “I'm not sure.”
A second servant brought up a tray of medical supplies and held it while Fflur started binding clean white gauze around my wrists. The servant acted as a sort of nurse, giving her scissors and tape as she needed it.
“I know what Kurag is doing,” Frost said. “He is still trying to run from your enemies.”
Kurag turned on Frost like a large, broad storm. “Merry needs every strong arm she can muster at her back. That is lucky for you, Killing Frost.”
“Will you honor your alliance then and be one of the strong arms at her back?” Frost said.
“Truth,” Kurag said. “If I cannot have sex with our Merry, then I would rather not honor the alliance.” His lopsided multi-eyed face suddenly seemed serious, even intelligent. I realized for the first time that Kurag was neither as stupid as he acted, nor as ruled by his glands as he pretended to be. There was a moment of absolute shrewdness in those three yellow eyes. A look so intent, so different than a moment ago, that it made me step back, as if he'd tried to strike me. Because underneath that so serious look was something elseâfear.
What was happening in the courts that Kurag, the goblin king, was afraid?
“If you do not honor your alliance,” Frost said, “then all the court will know you for an honorless coward. Your word will never be trusted again.”
Kurag looked around at the crowd. Some had gone with the queen like a brightly colored train of toadies, but many had remained behind. To watch. To listen. To spy?
The goblin king did a slow circle of the waiting faces, then came back to me. “I have invoked flesh. Share flesh with one of my goblins, one of my unwed goblins, and I will honor this alliance of blood.”
Galen stepped up next to me. “Merry is a princess of the sidhe, second in line to this throne. Sidhe princesses do not sleep with goblins.” There was a force in his voice, a heat. Anger.
I touched his shoulder. “It's all right, Galen.”
He turned to me. “No, it's not. How dare he make such a demand.”
There was a low angry murmur that swept through the sidhe in the room. The small knot of goblins that he'd been allowed to bring into our hill closed at his back.
Doyle moved up at my back. He whispered, “This could go badly.”
I glanced at him. “What do you expect me do?”
“Be a princess and a future queen,” he said.
Galen caught part of that. He turned on Doyle. “What are you asking her to do?”
“The same thing she is doing with us at Queen Andais's request,” Doyle said. He stared at me. “I would not ask if the sacrifice were not worth the goal.”
“No!” Galen said.
Doyle stared at Galen then. “Which do you value more, her virtue, or her life?”
Galen glared at him, tension running through his body like a near-visible current of anger. Finally, he said, “Her life,” but it was spat out as if it were something bitter.
If I had the goblins as allies, then if Cel did manage to kill me, he'd have a blood feud with Kurag and his court. It would make Cel, or anyone else, hesitate. I needed this alliance. “One of your goblins' flesh in my body, I take it,” I said.
Kurag smiled. “His flesh in your sweet body. Let your flesh and his be one, and all the goblin nation will be your allies.”
“Who's flesh will I be sharing?” I asked.
Kurag looked thoughtful. The eye on his shoulder went wide, and the two thin arms on his side gestured wildly, pointing.
Kurag turned to the circle of goblins and began to move through them, following the small arms of his twin. I couldn't see who he finally stopped at. He walked back out of the tightly packed knot of goblins and it wasn't until the small goblin stepped out from behind him that I could see him at all.
He was only four feet tall with pale skin like gleaming mother-of-pearl. I knew sidhe skin when I saw it. His hair curled over his neck, black and thick, but cut short of his shoulders. His face was strangely triangular with huge almond-shaped eyes that were a solid sapphire blue with a line of black pupil like a stripe in the center of all that blue. He was wearing nothing but a silver edged loincloth, which in a goblin meant that there was something of a deformity on the bare spots. They did not hide deformities, but saw them as a sign of honor.
He walked toward me over the stone like a tiny perfect male doll. If there was a deformity I couldn't see it. Except for his size and the eyes, he could have been of the court.
“This is Kitto,” Kurag said. “His mother was a sidhe lady raped in the last goblin war.” Which made Kitto nearly two thousand years old. He certainly didn't look it.
“Greetings, Kitto,” I said.
“Greetings, Princess.” There was a strange sibilance to his words, as if he had trouble forming the words. His lips were full and pink and shaped like a perfect cupid's bow, but those pretty lips barely moved when he spoke, as if there was something in his mouth that he didn't want me to see.
“Before you agree,” Kurag said, “see the whole show.”
Kitto turned his back and showed why he was wearing the loincloth. There was a spread of shining iridescent scales starting at the base of his hairline and descending down his back to the base of his spine. His butt was small and tight and perfect, but the glittering scales told me why his eyes had elliptical pupils and why he had trouble with his “sss.”
“Snake goblin,” I said.
Kitto turned back to face me. He nodded.
“Open your mouth, Kitto. Let me see it all,” I said.
He looked at the floor for a moment, then rolled his strange eyes up at me. He opened his mouth in a wide yawn, flashing dainty fangs. His tongue flicked out like a red ribbon with a dab of black on the end of each point. “Ssatissfffied?” he asked.
I nodded. “Yes.”
“You can't,” Rhys said. He'd been so quiet I'd almost forgotten he was with us.
“It's my choice,” I said.
Rhys touched my shoulder, took me to one side. “Take a good look at the scar across my face. I know I've told you a thousand heroic stories about how I got this, but the truth is the queen punished me. She gave me to the goblins for a night of sport. I thought, why not, free sex even if it is with goblins.” He blinked his one good eye. “A goblin's idea of sex is more violent than you can imagine, Merry.” He traced the length of the scar with his fingertip, and the look in his eye was distant, remembering.
I touched the scar where it ended on his cheek, catching his hand in mine. “A goblin did this to you during sex?”
He nodded.
“Oh, Rhys,” I said, voice soft.
He patted my hand and shook his head. “No pity. I just want you to understand what you're agreeing to.”
“I understand, Rhys. Thank you for telling me.” I patted his cheek, squeezed his hand, and walked past him back to the waiting goblins. I was walking straight and upright, but there was a little turning inside my head that made me want badly to hold on to something. But when you're negotiating a war treaty, you need to look strong, or at least not like you're about to faint dead away.
“Kitto's flesh in my body, right?” I asked.
Kurag nodded, and he looked pleased with himself, as if he knew he'd already won.
“I agree to take Kitto's flesh into my body.”
“Agreed?” Kurag said, surprise dripping from his voice. “You would agree to share flesh with a goblin?”
I nodded. “I agree, on one condition.”
His eyes narrowed. “What condition?”
“If the alliance between us is a season long,” I said.
I felt Doyle step closer to me. The ripple of surprise spread through the room in whispers and small movements.
“A season,” Kurag said. “No, too long.”
“Eleven moons from now,” I said.
He shook his head. “Two moons.”
“Ten,” I said.