"I'm sensing a theme," Rhys said.
So was I. Because not only were they more nude even than Hawthorne and Ivi had been, but they were also vegetative deities. Adair still bore the name of what he had been once, for adair means "oak grove." His skin was the color of sunlight through leaves, that color more common among the Seelie than the Unseelie, the color we call sun-kissed. His ankle-length brown hair had been butchered short, shorter than Amatheon's by nearly half a foot. Someone had shorn him, so that there was almost nothing left to remind the eye what beauty once framed that golden body.
Amatheon spoke as if I'd asked, "I was not the only one who was reluctant, Princess. She began her... example with Adair."
Adair's eyes were three circles of gold and yellow, like staring into the sun. Those eyes held nothing as he watched us come toward the doors. He had been cast out of the Seelie Court for speaking too strongly against their king, and to avoid exile from faerie he had joined the Unseelie. But he had never truly taken to the dark court's way of life. He existed among us, and tried to be invisible.
I spoke low: "I know why you do not want my bed, but Adair and I have no quarrel."
"He wants to be left alone, Princess. He wants to not be involved in this fight."
"Unless you're Switzerland, there is no neutrality," I said.
"So he learned."
The other guard still stood in a cloak of his own pale yellow hair. That hair framed a body that was a pale whitish-grey, not moonlight skin like mine, but a soft, almost dusty color. His eyes gleamed out of a narrow, high-cheekboned face, eyes the color of dark green leaves, with an inner star of paler green like some sort of starred jewel. His lips were the reddest, ripest, prettiest in the courts, either court, if you asked me. The ladies envied him that mouth, and only the brightest, most crimson of lipsticks came close to producing it. His name was Briac, though he preferred to be called Brii. Briac was just another form of the name Brian, and had nothing to do with plants or agriculture. I knew that Brii was some sort of plant deity, or had been, but beyond that his name kept its secrets.
He smiled as we came nearer - those red, red lips, distracting from the jewels of his eyes, the curtain of his hair, and even the long na**d lines of his body. As if he felt me looking, his body began to respond, as if my approach was enough to whet his anticipation and bring him partially erect.
Adair's body was as empty of reaction to my approach as his eyes. He was lucky I was not my aunt, for she sometimes took lack of response on an involuntary level as a personal insult. I did not. Adair had, at the very least, had his pride cut away with his hair. I had no idea what other pains my aunt had put him through to make him willing to stand at this door and await me. He was angry, on that I would have bet a great deal. Anger and embarrassment are not always the best aphrodisiac. My aunt has never truly understood that.
Brii's head went to one side like a bird. His smile slipped a little. "You have not done your duty by the princess."
"There was an assassination attempt on the princess," Doyle said.
The last of his smile was gone. "The blood."
"What else did you think it was from?" I asked.
He shrugged and gave a rueful smile. "Someone else's blood smeared on the queen's face would mean she had a very, very good time. My apologies for assuming the same of you." He gave a bow that swept his hair out and around one arm like a cloak then stood up smiling again, with that look in his eyes that was all male, and said plainly that no amount of unpleasantness could take all the pleasure from this duty, at least not for him.
Adair stood on the other side of the doors, wooden-faced and limp-bodied. He wouldn't even look at me.
"We must tell the queen of the attack." Doyle moved up as if to touch the doors.
Adair moved first, but Brii followed, and their arms crossed in front of the door handles. "Our orders were very specific," Adair said. His voice tried to be as empty as the rest of him, but failed. There was a razor-thin edge of rage in those simple words. So much so, that it danced a line of magic down the hall, across our skins like tiny bites. He was fighting very, very hard to control himself.
I rubbed my arm where the edge of his power had touched me, had hurt me, totally by accident, and cursed my aunt. She'd made it so that Adair would obey her orders and bed me, but she'd made certain that neither one of us would enjoy it.
"And what were those orders?" Doyle said, his dark voice, lower even than normal, sounding as if it would crawl down your spine and hunt for vital organs.
Brii answered, trying to make his voice upbeat, conciliatory. I didn't blame him; I wouldn't have wanted to be standing between Doyle and Adair when the flags went up, either. "If the ring knows both Hawthorne and Ivi, then they are to service the princess as soon as possible. If the ring does not know both of them, then one of us is to take the place of the one the ring did not recognize." He smiled, at Doyle, as if trying to ease some of the tension. It didn't work.
"Open the door, Brii. We have much to tell the queen, and much of it is not only dangerous but also not something to be discussed in the hallway, where more ears may hear us than the queen would like."
Brii actually moved back, but Adair did not. Somehow I'd known he wouldn't. "The queen has been at great pains to be certain that I follow all her orders. I will do as she has... bid me, and follow those orders to the absolute letter. I will not give her cause to abuse me again this day." The anger had quieted and didn't bite down the hall now, but Doyle moved like a horse when a fly settles on it. Perhaps all that stinging anger had gone only on his skin.