Hamilton, Laurell K Meredith Gentry 03 Seduced by Moonlight

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there had been entire worlds below ground for the fey to live in. Our hollow hills had hidden other suns
and moons, and meadows, and pools, and lakes, from the sight of the humans. But all that had been long
gone before I was born. I had seen a few rooms full of dead trees, dead grass, long dead and covered
with the dust of centuries.
I touched the tree at my back, for the wall ended within my arm's length. The tree was small and pinned
against it. The wood was dry and felt lifeless, but a few crumbling leaves clung here and there, and the
trunk seemed thick for a tree that was barely taller than I.
There was hardly room for me to stand with a foot on either side of the dry pebbled basin. Adair's back
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took up almost all the opening, save for a small space above his head. Barinthus would have been too tall
to stand inside the stone arch.
The light was pulling back from Adair's body, leaving a wash of red, as if the sun were setting across his
lower back and buttocks. The white in my own skin was fading as well, but it was merely the dying of the
light. Adair's body held a wash of colors, like the sky itself.
Adair moved out of the alcove, only a step. He was still close enough for me to touch his lower back.
The moment I did, the color flushed deep crimson under his skin, and he let out a strangled cry. That one
touch seemed to stagger him, because he groped for the stone wall.
He looked back at me, his eyes swimming down to three golden circles of color, still brighter than they
had begun, but they no longer shone like small individual suns. He managed to gasp out, "What did you
do to me?"
I could feel his power on my fingertips where I'd traced his skin. Could feel it, heavy and thick upon my
fingers, like the heavy blood of trees, but there was nothing to see on my hand, only that sensation of
thick liquid. I didn't know what I'd done to him, so what could I say?
I started to reach out to him, to offer the power on my fingers back to him, but something stopped me.
Suddenly I knew what I needed to do. I moved to the front of the alcove and knelt inside it, in front of
the dry spring bed. There, to the side, hidden in the dry leaves, was a small wooden cup. It was cracked
on one side. Cracked with age and disuse.
"Come, Meredith, let us see the queen." It was Barinthus's voice.
Doyle said, "Not yet, Barinthus, wait a moment."
"You opened the door while I was distracted," Adair said, and his voice held anger again. "It was a
trick!"
I held the dirty cup in my two hands, for it had no handle, and my hands were too small to hold it
comfortably one-handed. I held it toward the place in the rock where the water had once bubbled forth.
I knew exactly where the water should have flowed from. I knew it even though I had never seen it. I
touched the cup to the rock, just below the opening.
"There is no water to be had from this place, Princess," Adair said.
I ignored him and held the cup against the rock. I sent the power on my fingers into that small dark
opening, spread it on the crack like invisible jam, so thick, so rich. I knew in that instant that it had been
meant for another more real liquid to be spread upon it. But this would do; this, too, was part of Adair's
essence. Part of his power, his maleness. Male energy to touch the opening in the rock, like the opening
of a woman. Male and female to bring forth life.
I called my power, let my skin dance with silver and white light, and the moment my power touched his
where it lay against the rock, water trickled from the opening, filling the cracked cup.
Someone said, "The queen is coming."
Adair touched my arm, grabbed it. "You have tricked me!" He jerked me to my feet, spun me around to
face him, and as he did water spilled out of the cup, into his surprised face, across his naked chest. The
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water dripped down his body in clear, shining lines. He let go of me, eyes wide.
The cup in my hands was formed of white wood, polished until it gleamed. Images of fruit and flowers
covered the wood, and peeking out of that lovely tangle of vines and leaves were the faces of men. Not
just one green man, but many, like hidden images in a children's puzzle. A woman's image graced the
other side of the cup, hair flowing like a cloak down her body. There was a dog on one side of her, and a
tree heavy with fruit on the other. She smiled at me from the wooden cup. It was a knowing smile, as if
she knew everything I would ever want to know.
Doyle said, voice uncertain, "The queen awaits us inside, Meredith. Are you ready?"
I knelt back at the alcove and found the water trickling clear and sweet into the basin. The dried leaves
and debris of years that had filled it were gone. The basin was a roughly round depression full of
water-smoothed pebbles and rocks. I held the cup underneath the water, and it gave a small gurgle,
flowing faster, as if eager to fill the cup. When the water overflowed the cup, running down my hands, in
cool fingers, only then did I stand.
I stood with the cup filled to the brim, more water overflowing down my arms, trailing underneath the
sleeves of my jacket. There was energy in the water, a quiet, humming power. With that inner eye, I
could see the glow of power in that water, and the wooden cup was like a white star inside my head.
"Who is the cup for?" Doyle asked.
"One who needs healing, though she knows it not." My voice held an echo of the glow in the cup.
"I ask you again, who is the cup for?" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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