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THE DOORS THAT OPEN FROM THE FOUNTAIN OF PAIN LEAD TO A LARGE antechaht see crunched under my feet, and I looked down to find leaves Dried leaves everywhere I looked up and found that the vines that entwined above our heads were dry and lifeless The leaves had folded in upon themselves or dropped completely

I touched the vines near the door and there was no sense of life to them I turned to Doyle

"The roses are dead" I whispered it as if it were so for years, Meredith," Frost said

"Dying, Frost, but not dead" The roses were a last defense for the court If enemies penetrated this far, the roses would co or by the thorns The newer, lower growth had thorns like any other clile that held thorns the size of sers But they weren’t merely a defense They were a syround The fruiting vines and trees had died first, so I’m told, then the herbs, and now the last of the flowers

I searched the vines with n of life They were dry and lifeless I sent a flash of power into the vines and felt an answering pulse of power, strong still, but faint, nothing like the war presence it should have been I touched the nearest vines gently with ht pins

"Stop petting the roses," Frost said "We haveproblems"

I turned to him, hand still on the roses "If the roses die, truly die, do you understand what this means?"

"Most likely, better than you do," he said, "but I also understand that we can do nothing for the roses or the fact that the sidhe’s power is dying But if we are careful, we ic we are not sidhe," I said I pulled er on the thorns I jerked back, which broke a thorn off in my skin The se of fingernail It didn’t even hurt that er

"How bad is it?" Rhys asked

"Not bad," I said

A thick, dry hiss ran through the rooh the dark The sound came froh the vines, and dried leaves fell like a cru in our hair, our clothes

"What’s happening?" I asked

Doyle answered, "I don’t know"

"Then shouldn’t we get to the other room?" Rhys said His hand went for a sword that was not there But his other hand went for my arm, and he pulled me toward the closest door, back into the hallway None of theun And soun e needed

The others closed around me like a wall of flesh Rhys’s hand touched the door handle, and vines spilled over the door like dry rushing water He ju vines Doyle grabbedfor the far door They were h heels I stu, oing for the doors He called back, "Hurry!"

Rhys lanced back to see Galen He was facing away fro in his hands but his own skin But the thorns were not touching him There was a sense of movement everywhere like a nest of snakes, but the thin, dry tendrils dangled abovejust for me As Doyle and Rhys carried me farther into the room, the thorns receded behindat us When Doyle turned his head to look upward, I caught a scarlet flash on his face, fresh blood

The thorns wrapped inether we pulled it free of the thorns, leaving strands of hair behind

Frost had the far doors open There was a glihts and faces turned toward us, soive uard started to move forward, hand on his sword I heard a voice yell, "No! Keep your sword" It was Cel’s voice

Doyle barked out an order: "Sithney, give us your sword!"

The guard at the door started to lift his sword from its sheath Frost held his hand out for it The vines poured over the opening in a dry rushing wave There was a h the door, could have saved himself, but he turned back into the roo wave of thorns

Rhys and Doyle took me to the floor Doyle pushed Rhys on top of me I was suddenly under a pile of bodies Rhys hair spilled past h his hair and soainst the floor I not only couldn’t move, I could barely breathe

If it had been anyone but Doyle and Frost on top, I’d have been waiting for screahter as the row lighter

I lay flat onout through Rhys’s hair The arm that was braced outside the curtain was bare of cloth, and slightly less purely white, so it was Galen

My blood had been pounding in my ears until all I could hear was the beat ofhappened My pulse quieted I pressed rey stone was al feet I could hear Rhys’s breathing next to my ear The shift of cloth as someone above us moved But over all was the sound of the thorns, a low continuous ainst my hair, "May I have a kiss before I die?"

"We don’t see," I said

"Easy for you to say You’re on the botto up there? I can’t see a thing," I said

"Be happy you cannot," Frost said

"What is happening?" I asked again, putting ," Doyle’s deep voice ruh the pile of men, as if the other bodies carried the low tone of his words like a tuning fork straight down ," he said

"You sound disappointed," Galen said

"Not disappointed," Doyle said, "curious"

Doyle’s cloak slid out of sight, the weight above me was suddenly less

"Doyle!" I shouted

"Have no fear, Princess I ahtened once ure out that Frost was raising up, but not ular," he said

Galen’s ar?" he asked

I couldn’t hear anyone walking around, but I could see Galen to one side, kneeling I parted Rhys’s hair fro beside Galen Doyle was the only one standing alone on the other side of us I could see his black cloak

Rhys raised upward, bracing with his are," he said

That was it I had to see "Get off of me, Rhys I want to see"

He lowered his head overhis upper body with his ar my lower body with his Under other circu it on purpose But the ht enough that I could tell he wasn’t happy to seeinto his tri-blue eye fro, and soely intireat bad thing," he said "I’llhis small round mouth move upside down made my head hurt I closed my eyes "Don’t talk upside down," I said

"Of course," Rhys said, "you could just look up" He drew his face back, pulling back until he was on all fours above round but cranedtendrils of the roses They hung above us like thin, fuzzy, brown ropes waving gently back and forth almost as if there ind, but there was no wind, and the fuzziness was thorns

"Other than the fact that the roses are alive again, what a?"

Doyle answered, "It is only the s for you, Merry"

"And?" I said

His black cloak came closer as he stood above us "It means I don’t believe the roses mean you harm"

"What else could they want?" I asked It should have felt silly talking froround with Rhys perched over , so of the thorns

"I believe, I think, it may want a drink of royal blood," Doyle said

"What do you mean a drink?" Galen asked it before I could He sat back on the floor,so I could see most of his upper body Blood had dried in spots and sone, leaving only the blood as proof that he’d been injured The front of his pants was blood-soaked, but he

I would not heal if the thorns tore into my body I’d simply die

"The roses once drank from the queen every tio," Frost said, "before we ever drea to the lands to the west"

I propped myself up on my elbows "I have passed under the roses a thousand times in my life, and they’ve never reacted to me, not even when they still had a few blooms left"

"You have conized that when it welcoht," Doyle said

"What do you mean the land welcomed her?" Frost asked Doyle told hiain in that aard upside-down movement "Cool," he said

It made me smile, but I pushed his head up out of nizes me as a power now"

"Not merely the land," Doyle said He sat down on the far side ofthe black cloak around his body in a fath cloaks He did

I could see his face now He looked thoughtful, as if conte," Rhys said, "but we can discuss whether Merry is the chosen whatever, later We need to get her out of here before the roses try to eat her"

Doyle looked at me, dark face i either door with Merry alive We would survive the roses’ worst attentions, but she would not Since it is her safety that is paramount and not our oe must think of a way out of this that does not require violence If you offer the roses violence, they will return the favor" He waved his hand upward, vaguely including the trailing vines "They seeest we use their patience to think"

"The land has never welcomed Cel, nor have the roses reached for him," Frost said He crawled around me to sit near Doyle He didn’t seereed with Frost on this one I had never seen the roses move before, not so ht to see the reality of it for myself I’d often wished to see the roorant roses Be careful what you wish for Of course, there were no blooms, just thorns That wasn’t exactly what I’d wished for

"Just because you put a crown on someone’s head doesn’t make theic, the land, that chose our queen or king If the ic rejected them, if the land didn’t accept them, then bloodline or no bloodline, a new heir had to be chosen"

I was suddenly very aware of all of the at me I looked from one to the other of them They had almost identical expressions on their faces and I was half afraid I knehat they were thinking The target on er "I aht," Doyle said

I looked into his dark face and tried to read those raven-black eyes "What do you want of me, Doyle?"

"First, let us see what happens when Rhys opens the way for the thorns If they react violently, then ill go no farther Eventually, the other guards will rescue us"

Rhys asked, "Do you want me to move now?"

Doyle nodded "Please"

I wrapped a hand around both of Rhys’s ar him aboveme limb from limb?"