Poison (10 page)

Noire flushed under the praise, surprised to hear his duties described in such a way. He had never thought about it like that—caught in the middle—but it fit. "It's an honor to serve in such a role," he replied.

"Well, I admire you saying so when you look ready to drop. I did not exhaust myself to that extent unless I was being paid very well indeed."

Ailill laughed. "Oh, is that why you tolerated me, mercenary? Because I paid well?"

Ivan gave him a look that was unmistakable. A look that made Noire ache because Gael only looked at him that way when no one else could see it. "For you, there were additional perks, and you know it."

"I do approve of giving perks where they're earned."

"There is nothing I can say to that without losing those perks, and so I shall say nothing," Ivan said, making Ailill laugh.

He laughed harder at Noire's confused expression and explained, "I believe his grace just called me a slut."

"I think that's what they say about most faerie children," Noire said with a faint smile.

"I rest my case," Ivan said with an easy grin. "Eat, little cat. We will go get our belongings gathered so we can leave before you start lashing your tail again." They left before he could reply, leaving him scowling at the door.

Little cat? That just made him think of 'kitten'. It was something people seemed to love calling him, no matter how old he got. He had always loathed it, the way it affected how people treated him.

Until Gael had said it right before he had kissed him the first time. He made the word intimate, special. Certainly Gael did not treat him as if he was fragile, but gave him everything he asked for and more. In bed, anyway.

Noire poured tea and helped himself to a bowl of soup and a small loaf of crusty bread. He refused to believe that Ailill was a murderer. Was he letting an old friendship sway him? Well, obviously he was—but he did not think he was wrong. Ailill would never kill other people for his own ends.

He didn't think Gael believed it either. He just wished he could help more, say something—just comfort Gael. But he couldn't, not until they managed to be safely alone. All because Gael refused to trust Noire with his own life. He could take care of himself, and they would stand stronger together and open than as a secret.

His eyes blurred, and he angrily scrubbed at them. He was tired, that was the only reason he was being so stupid. He had kept the secret for three years; he could manage for the two and a half months remaining.

"Noire, what's wrong?"

Jerking and dropping his teacup, Noire reared back—and froze, relaxed and feeling stupid as he stared at Ailill and Ivan. "Nothing. I'm fine. I'm tired. Are we ready to depart?"

"No," Ailill said firmly, shoving his satchel at Ivan and striding up to Noire, grabbing him firmly by the shoulders and giving him a gentle shake. "Noire, what's wrong?"

"I cannot discuss it," Noire said. "For all intents and purposes I am fine. Please," he added in a whisper.

Ailill made a rough, frustrated noise, but after squeezing his shoulders in reassurance, let him go. "Fine, but if you need someone to talk to, about anything, please come see me. I want to help, and I will take your secrets to my grave, I swear."

"It's not—thank you," Noire said. "We should be going."

"We're going, we're going," Ivan said lightly and handed Ailill's bag back to him.

Noire followed them outside, but stopped on the stairs with a frown. "A carriage?"

"Get in," Ailill said. "We will make it there as quickly as possible, I promise. But I am not leaving Vanya behind. If it were truly necessary for me to return within the hour, Freddie would have fetched me herself. If I am correct in my assumption that another Beast has fallen, arriving tomorrow night is sufficient. Now get in the carriage, or I will strap you to the top."

Scowling, Noire nevertheless obeyed. He hoped Gael would not be angry that it had taken him so long to fetch Ailill. "I'm going, I'm going," he groused as Ailill all but stuffed him into the carriage. He settled into one of the seats, staring at Ivan and Ailill together on the opposite and fighting an urge to go to sleep as the carriage started moving. "So how do you come to visit Verde, your grace? If you do not mind my asking."

"Renewing an acquaintance," Ivan said, twining his hand with Ailill's. Envy coiled in Noire's chest, making it ache. He turned away to stare out the carriage window.

"How was the royal ball?" Ailill asked when the silence had stretched on.

Noire's breath hitched as thinking of the ball flooded his mind with images of Gael dancing with him, sneaking him away. That brief moment in the kissing nook, then being bent over the sofa and fucked hard, the way Gael had listened to him, apologized—

"It was fine," he said, shoving the memories back and ignoring the sting of his eyes. "A ball is a ball. They do not change so much."

"Spoken like a jade of the court," Ailill said with a laugh. "Here I am a duke, and I will be overwhelmed by it all."

Ivan snorted, and Ailill jerked, not quite yelping, as Ivan pinched him. Noire could not endure another moment of their flirting, the easy, open way they were allowed to love each other. Closing his eyes, he let sleep finally have him.

He woke up with a start, groaning when someone continued to roughly shake him. "Noire, we're stopping for a bit," Ailill said. "Are you all right?"

"Stop asking me that," Noire said. "I'm fine."

"Stop lying, and I'll stop asking," Ailill retorted. "Come on, we're going to stop to eat and stretch our legs, and we'll be back on the road in a couple of hours."

Noire nodded, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "I will follow shortly, just give me a moment to wake up so I do not stumble around like a simpleton."

Chuckling, Ailill patted his thigh and then left him in peace. Noire sighed, raked a hand through his hair, and thought longingly of his bed. He yawned again, then heaved himself out of the carriage. Ignoring the traveler's post itself for the moment, he went over to the washrooms tucked back into a copse of trees several paces away.

After he'd relieved himself, he finally headed into the post itself to find Ailill and Ivan. When he stepped inside the dining hall, however, it was empty save for a handful of people. Where were Ailill and Ivan?

He shrugged it off; there were only so many places they could have gone, and they would not leave without him. Given the way they had been flirting, he had a sneaking suspicion what they had slipped away to do.

While they had fun, he was more than willing to eat without them. Sitting down at a table near the door, he slumped groggily while he waited for someone to serve him.

The room was hot, and Noire was too tired to feel like retaining his jacket. Unbuttoning it, he handed it to the man who came up with a pitcher of wine and a cup. "Just a fruit tray will be fine, thank you," Noire said with a smile, and handed off two coins. The man slipped away to hang up his jacket and fetch the requested food, leaving Noire relatively alone once more.

He poured wine and sipped it while he waited for Ailill and Ivan to reappear. Really, where had they gone? Well, whatever. He let his mind drift, from the worrisome problem of the poisoned Beasts to dancing with Gael to kissing him to the way he'd apologized and then back to the Beasts and the looming ceremony.

Raucous laughter drew him from his thoughts, and he looked up in time to accidentally meet the gaze of a tall, extremely slender man with a sharp, pointed face and mean eyes. The three men with him looked no better. Noire smiled politely, but with a sinking heart recognized the cold look that fell over all their faces.

"It's a dirty faerie," the man with the pointed face said.

Noire flushed at the insult, but remained stubbornly silent. He loathed getting into fights. Appearance was the dumbest possible reason to engage in violence. But clearly the men did not share his opinion, taking his silence as encouragement and raining down further insults as they crowded around his table.

Still, he put up with it, drinking his wine and smiling stiffly and otherwise not looking at them—until one grabbed his hair and yanked his head back. "Pay attention, you half-dead whore," the man with the sharp face and eyes the color of green algae said.

"I'm neither half dead nor a whore," Noire said. "You have no idea who I am, and if you let me go now, I will not press the matter. But if you do not unhand me, I promise you will regret it."

In reply, the man just pulled him out of his seat by his hair and then threw him to the ground.

That was enough for Noire. He shifted as he fell, landing smoothly on his feet and roaring in fury as he rammed his full body weight into the nearest two. Roaring again, he rounded on another, swiping his claws down the bastard's chest—enough to draw blood, but not do any real lasting damage.

Something heavy hit him, landed on him, and rolled them across the room, knocking into tables and chairs. He heard other people scream and start running, heard somebody roar for them to stop—and then that voice was abruptly cut off.

Noire yowled, threw off the weight pinning him down, snapped around, and slashed his claws across the face of the lion that had attacked him. He roared again, rounded on the two wolves coming toward him, pounced to strike—and then they all stopped as Ailill appeared in the doorway and unleashed the full power of a White Beast.

They dropped to the floor, immediately submissive and compelled not to move. "What in the name of the Three is going on here?" Ailill demanded. "Shift, all of you."

Obediently shifting, they went to circle around Ailill as he beckoned them. Reaching out, Ailill grabbed Noire's wrist and separated him from the rest of the group. "Tell me what happened."

"I was drinking wine when they came in," Noire said. "They saw me and starting casting slurs. I ignored them. Then they grabbed me, threw me to the floor, and I decided I was tolerating nothing further."

The man with the pointed face, the lion who had nearly gotten the better of him, sneered and said, "Your grace, he's as filthy as you are pure. Look at him! He belongs more to those corpse-lovers than—"

"That is enough," Ailill thundered. "Do you not know whom it is you have assaulted?" Confusion filled the men's faces, along with a slowly growing dismay. "You have attacked none other than the Royal Voice of the Triad," Ailill said. "For that, you will be imprisoned until I have time to deal with you. Hope that by then, I have decided to be merciful. Until someone can be sent to arrest you and take you back to the city, you will be bound and locked up."

The men fell silent, torn between genuine fear at what would happen to them and rage that they were in trouble because of someone who had only gotten what he deserved—someone in a position of which he was not worthy.

Noire ignored them and simply turned and strode outside. There, he drew in deep breaths of fresh air, faintly sweetened by the white flowers growing in a field across the road. He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying not to think, trying not to feel, trying not to do anything but just be. Everything else just hurt too much. He wanted Gael.

"Noire ..." Ailill touched his shoulder, but Noire jerked away.

"I'm fine, please," Noire said.

"I cannot even begin to tell you how sick I am of those words," Ailill said and took his arm, turning him around and then, to Noire's astonishment, hugging him tightly. "What's wrong, Noire? Please, tell me."

Noire pushed him gently away, shaking his head. "I can't. I wish—I wish that I could, but I can't. I made a vow and I intend to keep it."

"There is no point in keeping a vow that is slowly killing you."

"That's not true," Noire said softly. "Every day the Triad pushes on knowing that all their efforts could be for naught. Is not waiting for death the way they must the same as slowly dying? They cannot truly live, not when they live like that. Yet they smile and rule and serve with never a single word of complaint."

If Gael and Freddie and Etain could do that, then he could survive for two and a half more months. Feeling sorry for himself would accomplish nothing, and by the Oak, he would remember that.

Looking up, he smiled more genuinely. "If the Triad can face all that lies before them bravely, so can I. And speaking of the Triad, we are due in the palace. Enough dawdling, your grace. You have been ordered to return home with all haste. Do so."

"Yes, Voice," Ailill said, and he smiled as he led the way back to the carriage.

Ailill followed Noire through the halls of the palace until they reached a section of it he had not yet seen—which seemed impossible, given just how easily he got lost. Noire halted in front on an enormous set of double doors carved with a representation of the Great Oak. The guards on either side of the door grabbed the handles and laboriously pulled the heavy doors open, and Noire led the way into Trinity Hall.

"I'll wait out here," Ivan said, gesturing to the benches nearby.

"Wander off to find food if you get hungry," Ailill replied, smiling. "Hopefully this meeting will go quickly, but if not, I'm sure I'll find you back at my house eventually." With a parting kiss to Ivan's cheek, he followed Noire into the hall.

Like the Sanctuary, it had a glass ceiling. Late evening light cast long, sleepy shadows across the floor. Servants were walking the perimeter of the enormous hall quickly, but carefully lighting the wall sconces. The walls were of white marble, set with windows interspersed with the sconces. Tapestries depicting the gods and well-known stories hung between the windows and the glass ceiling. At the very back of the hall, the wall was covered by an enormous painting of all the gods gathered before the Great Oak, their bestial forms wavering translucent behind them.

In front of the painting were three thrones, with Etain in the middle, Gael to the right, and Freddie on the left. Arranged in front of the thrones were two rows of six seats, interspersed with small tables. In the seats before Gael sat the Beasts under his domain:  the Lion, Owl, Fox, Stag, Mongoose, and the vacant seat of the Eagle.