Power sang in the air. I felt it on my tongue, thick and syrupy and sweet, and then it flowed into me like a spring flood, and my body grasped it like a parched thing. Caedmon’s hand smoothed down my side and my whole body tingled and came alive. I opened my eyes, but I couldn’t see him. The creature holding me was a brilliant light in the darkness, bright as a sun, eternal as a mountain and utterly unmistakable for anything but what he was.
Gradually, the brightness faded and I came back to myself. My first thought was that Radu was going to need a new vineyard. The straight, symmetrical lines were no more. In their place was a riot of green—grapevines and small trees sprouted everywhere, and thin delicate garlands of bougainvillea and hibiscus draped over it all. Heavy with blossom, they swayed in the cool breeze, dropping an occasional orange or vividly pink petal onto the soft, grass-carpeted floor beneath us. The storm clouds had rolled back, and the sky was a pale, rain-washed blue.
“ ‘Caedmon’ means ‘Great King’ in Gaelic,” I said, as a vine burst into flower over my head, like a living firework.
“Does it?” Caedmon looked mildly interested. Heidar gave a yell and chased a retreating Fey into the vines.
“And your loyal retainers would be where?”
The king shrugged. “Serving my interests in Faerie. That is why we were to meet tonight—I needed time to contact and assemble them. But when an informant told me the Svarestri had been seen in this area, I sent word to my people to join me here as soon as they might, and returned to be on hand in case anything went wrong in my absence.”
We sat in silence for a moment while I picked red petals out of my hair. “Claire’s uncle was part Fey,” I finally said. “He couldn’t have made all that wine, otherwise.”
“Hmmm.”
“And her father was Dark Fey. Making her just slightly over half-Fey.” I shot Caedmon a dirty look. “You planned this.”
His lips twisted wryly as he unwound an overly affectionate vine that was trying to twine up his arm. “My dear Dory, I assure you, I did not plan for the deaths of two of my oldest retainers, nor for my own nephew to try to murder me.”
“But you did plan for Heidar to end up with Claire. You sent him to that auction, didn’t you?”
“What we parents must do to get our offspring happily settled.”
“Why?” I asked in bewilderment. “Why not just introduce them?”
He shook his head, dislodging the flock of butterflies that had come to rest there. Some fluttered off, but one lit on his knee, fanning extravagant orange wings in voluptuous contentment. “Heidar is just over one hundred of your years old—a teenager, by our standards. And, like most young men of his age, the last thing he wants is to follow orders from his sire. Had I told him in advance that I meant her for him, he wouldn’t have touched her—nor, in all likelihood, would she have had him.” He smiled at me smugly. “As it was, their attraction had an irresistible forbidden quality to it.”
“That resulted in an heir for you.”
“Already?” Caedmon’s smug grin widened. “That’s my boy.”
I refrained from slapping him. Just. “How is it that no one knew? I thought the Fey are obsessive about genealogy.”
“Oh, yes, particularly among the noble houses.”
“Then why did ?subrand know nothing about Claire’s uncle?”
“We are obsessive about our ancestry, Dory.” When I still looked blank, he elaborated. “Light Fey ancestry.”
It took me a moment to understand what he meant. “You’re telling me Claire’s uncle was Dark Fey?”
“I believe his great-great-great-grandmother was a quarter Brownie. It works out to a very small percentage for Claire, but enough to make any child born to her and my son more than fifty percent Fey. And therefore, by our laws, my legitimate heir. Assuming it is male, of course.”
“And you think the Svarestri will accept a king who is part Dark?” I couldn’t see someone like ?subrand bowing to Olga or Stinky. Or anyone with similar blood.
“There is nothing in the old rules about what kind of Fey blood it must be,” Caedmon assured me. “I suppose it was considered so obvious that it must be Light that it was never written down. As for the Svarestri, if I am right about their intentions, no Blarestri ruler will satisfy them for long.”
“Which is why you’ve been skulking about, pretending to be dead?”
Caedmon grinned delightedly. “Skulking. Was I really? How… divine.”
“Caedmon!”
He laughed. “Do you have any idea, Dorina, how long it has been since anyone has dared to address me so familiarly? Skulking.” He laughed again.
Heidar came through the forest of vines, dragging an unconscious, or possibly dead, Fey behind him. He looked up and saw us, and a delighted smile broke over his features. It was so like his father’s that it might have been a mirror image.
“That is why,” Caedmon whispered as his son came closer. “If the Svarestri believed me dead, I thought there would be no reason for them to attack my son, who they knew could never rule. It would give me time to find him and your friend while my retainers searched for ?subrand. The only factor I did not anticipate was Claire proclaiming to all and sundry that she was carrying my heir!”