Page 28 (1/2)

WE WALKED BACK THE WAY WE HAD COME, BUT THE HALL WAS STRAIGHT now and narrower-a different hallway all together I glanced behind us, and there was no double door The queen’s rooms were elsewhere For a moment I was safe I started to shiver and couldn’t stop

Rhys hugged ainst hi around his waist, under his cloak He stroked my hair from my face "Your skin is cold to the touch What did she do, Merry?" He raisedto him "Talk to me," he said, voice soft

I shooka little sidhe could want The trouble is, I don’t trust it"

"What are you talking about?" he asked

I pulled away from hi "I am mortal, Rhys Just because I’m offered the moon doesn’t mean I’ll survive to put it in entle, but I was also suddenly aware of how very , but the look in his eye was not "Is that the worst of the injuries?"

I nodded

He reached out and touched the spot of blood It didn’t even hurt when he touched it It really wasn’t much of a wound It was so hard to explain that as hurting didn’t show onin denial about what Cel was, but I wasn’t He’d never share the throne with me: One of us would have to be dead before the other sat on the throne

"Did she threaten you?" Rhys asked

I nodded again

"You look totally spooked, Merry What did she say to you in there?"

I stared at hi it out loud would make it more real But it was more than that It was the fact that if Rhys knew, he wouldn’t be totally displeased "It’s sort of good news, bad news," I said

"What’s the good news?"

I told hiht and hard "That’s wonderful news, Merry What could possibly be bad news after that?"

I pulled back fro enough to displace hio, and he didn’t have nearly this good a reason for wanting me dead"

The smile faded from his face "You bear the queen’s mark now- even Cel would not dare kill you It’s death by the queen’s mercy if anyone harms you now"

"She stood in there and told me that I left the court because of Griffin I tried to tell her that I hadn’t left because of a broken heart, that I’d left because of the duels" I shookanything She is in very e that"

"You ," he said

"Exactly Besides do you really think he’d risk his own lily-white neck? He’ll have someone else do it if he can-then they’ll be the ones in danger, not hiood at our job"

I laughed, but it wasn’t a good laugh, ed your job description, Rhys"

"What do you mean?"

"Let’s hile I tell you I feel the need for more distance between ain "As my lady wishes" He smiled when he said it, and I went to hi his arm He stiffened, surprised for a second, then slid his arm across my shoulders We walked down the hallway, arms wrapped around each other I was still cold, as if souished

There are men that I can’t walk arm in arm with, as if our bodies have different rhythms Rhys and I moved down the hallway like two halves of a whole I realized that I simply couldn’t believe that I had periven the keys to the kingdo me in his arms, until he could rub his hands up and down "

"Not as badly as before," I said

He planted a soft kiss on my forehead "Come on, honey bun, tell me what the Wicked Witch of the East did to you?"

I srinned "Honey bear? Honey child? Snookulanced at the ring lying against the whiteness of his sleeve "Doyle said the ring calanced at the heavy silver octagonal band and nodded

"It lies quiet against my arm"

I looked up into his face He looked forlorn "The queen used to let the ring choose her consort," he said

"It’s reacted to alht"

"Except ret that I couldn’t let it stand

"It has to touch bare skin," I said

He started to reach forI pulled away fro, Merry?" he asked

The light had faded to a di silver curtains Pale white spiders larger than hosts

"Because even at sixteen I was the one who said stop You should have known better"

"A little slap and tickle and I’ame forever Baby, that is cruel"

"No, it’s practical I don’t want to end my life nailed to a Saint Andrew’s cross" Of course, now that didn’t apply I could tell Rhys and we could do it up against a wall right this minute, and there would be no penalties Or so Andais said But I didn’t trust my aunt She’d told only me that the celibacy had been lifted I only had her word that Eamon knew, and he was her consort, her creature What if I threw Rhys up against a wall, and then she changed herto be real, to be safe, until she announced it in public Then, and only then, would I really believe it

A large white spider ca The head was at least three inches across I was going to have to pass right under the thing

"You see one uard and you re memory," Rhys said

"I sahat she had her pet torturer do to the guard who transgressed, Rhys I think youron his arm, just short of the heavy-bodied spider I could call will-o’-the-wisps, but the spiders weren’t ier than a will-o’-the-wisp?" I asked I stared at that waiting spider, its body bigger around than my fist The spider webs above hed doith the round bloated bodies like a net full of fish about to spill on my head

Rhys looked atthe thick webs, the scurrying sense of movement "You never did like the spiders"

"No," I said, "I never did like the spiders"

Rhysin wait forto the heavy scurrying and watching the aver abovethat I could see He sier to the spider’s abdomen The spider started to scurry away, then it stopped abruptly, and started to shake, legs spas a partial hole in the webbing, and it dangled helplessly half in and half out of the webbing

I could hear dozens of the things running for safety in a soft clattering retreat The webs swayed like an upside-down ocean with the rush of their flight Lord and Lady, there had to be hundreds of the in upon itself as if so it That fat white body turned to a black dry husk until I wouldn’t have been sure what it was if I hadn’t seen it alive

There was no sense of movement in the spider webs now The hallas utterly still except for Rhys’s sht seemed to collect around his white curls and the white suit until he glowed against the grey cobwebs and the greyer stone He was sh?" he asked

I nodded "I only saw you do that once before and that was in battle, but that hen your life was in danger"