The sharp, dark stare Zyr leveled at him gave Declan pause.Had Antonio shifting his weight, a little, pressed firmer to his side.Tense, or more so, as Antonio so often was.
“Did I ask a very silly question?”Declan asked after a stretch of silence, during which Zyr’s expression grew steadily more flat.“Mother’s expertise isn’t in the time period immediately surrounding the convergence.If the answer is obvious, I don’t know it.”
Those teeth again.Certainly not a smile, this go around.
“In the early days, yes.So many seelie were suddenly smitten with an unseelie mate.”Zyr answered, voice chillingly flat.“And they all had such pretty babies.Good little seelie to raise in the new order.”
It took Antonio’s low noise of disgust for the meaning behind Zyr’s words to sink in.Declan stared.Zyr met his gaze and held it, shockingly patient while Declan found the words that weren’t something out of Bo’s repertoire.
“You mean they onlykeptthe pretty babies.”But it made sense, didn’t it?A horrible, disgusting sort of sense.“That’s… That’s bloody madness.”
Fae had too many anatomical inconsistencies to conceive or give birth easily.Children wereprecious.
Zyr shrugged.“They claimed stillbirths.Changelings.No one saw the bodies to argue otherwise.”
“Tch.Death and life aligned?May as well ask for a string of lost babes.Difficult enough for a death aligned to be born, let alone make life, in a pairing like that.”Old whispers between one of his minders and a visiting friend.Gossiping, and little Declan with his toys.“Perhaps that’s why this family has so many little deathlings.Same alignment, easier to conceive.Though I’m shocked she’s not miscarried even once.”
“It’s much the same now,” Declan heard himself murmur at a distance.“Stillbirths.Though the popular explanation is clashing alignments.”
Zye set his book aside again with a short nod.But this time, he rose to his feet.The sudden awareness of howbigthe man was tugged Declan out of his quickly twisting thoughts.Like Aultyr, he dwarfed both human and sluagh, but his shoulders at least looked door-friendly.
Bloody gigantic fae.Barghest and beithir andbrownies, even.Declan, shorter than Antonio and slight even when glamoured, just stuck with his bond, with his just as impressive arms and shoulders, dragon or not.
“So, we’re all on team ‘eugenics suck,’ ” said Antonio, the gorgeous, dark-humored man.“You’ll help us.”
“Firmly on team ‘eugenics suck,’ yes.”
“We’ll talk in the library,” was the beithir’s response, his tail lashing with a restlessness the rest of him didn’t show.“I’ll answer your questions.Whether that helps is up to you.”
Even with the hill behind them, the door Zyr opened shouldn’t have led to the room it did.There wasno waya cottage had room enough for that staircase, the massive, floor-to-ceiling shelves, the display cases, the books and scrolls and tablets.It took all of Declan’s restraint not to gape, as used to Faerie’s ideas of size and space as he was.
Unlike the sitting room they left, Zyr’s library was neat, meticulously so.Among the shelves were three large, leather chairs Declan suspected Faerie had manifested for the occasion.Zyr didn’t strike him as the sort to entertain often.
Zyr sat, waving his hand dismissively at the other two chairs.They were just out of arm’s reach when seated.Comfortable and easy to sink into, exactly the sort of furniture one might expect in a library such as this.But too far away from Antonio, and the man already worrying at the tattoo on his wrist as well as his bracelet.
Would Zyr take it as a slight for them to sit together?Antonio’s discomfort burned like heated metal, scenting the air with rust.
“Bad news first,” Zyr said, successfully pulling Declan’s attention back.“There’s never been a human on the Council.”
Ah.They’d need to take an ax to the wall after all.
“That implies some kind of good news.Human advisors, perhaps?”He smiled as he said it, bland as his tone.“The Monarchs took a human lover who helped shape policies regarding allowances of them on the Council?”
“Good would be a stretch.What do you know about pre-convergence bonds?”
As he spoke, he waved vaguely toward a shelf.A few heavy tomes and one slim volume made their way, gracefully turning in the air to the table between them.
“They were about balance, like most things then, I believe.”Declan shifted in his seat, watching the easy drift of the old tomes, Antonio’s discomfort a continuous discordant ring in the bond.“Unseelie and seelie.Winter and Summer.Light and dark.Old magics.”
Another shift.Another glimpse of Antonio and his fingers on dulled titanium and black ink.
“Correct.Balance kept the world aligned.”
Discomfort like charred leather, a not quite flash of nettles on tan skin.Declan let out a breath and offered the beithir a quick, apologetic smile.
“Pardon me, but would you mind terribly if I moved my seat some?It’s a new bond and, ah,” a slight shrug, rueful, “I’m afraid I’m still a bit clingy.”
“Or I could stand,” Antonio started to suggest, but before he’d finished the word ‘stand,’ the seat shifted under him.It took a new shape, wider, and suited for two.
