"It was the Goddess herself who did the enchanted sleep," Rhys said. "None of us can fight that, so I guess I won't kill you tonight."
Ivi said, "Shit." He went to his knees outside the shower doors, laying his head on his arm that held the gun. Brii leaned his back against the half wall by the shower. He had to adjust the long bow at his back so it didn't get damaged against the tile. He was one of the guards who hadn't embraced guns yet, but when you were as good with a bow as he was, it wasn't as big a problem as it might have been, according to Doyle.
I leaned my hair back into the water enough to finish rinsing off. It was Rhys's turn in the shower anyway. He'd cleaned his weapons first.
"What do you mean, the Goddess herself?" Brii asked.
Rhys started to explain, a much edited version of things. I turned off the shower, and opened the door to get the towels that always seemed to be hanging where we needed them. I had a moment to wonder if Barinthus put out the towels, but I doubted it. He didn't strike me as that domestic.
Brii handed me the first towel, but his eyes were all for Rhys and the story. I bent over to wrap my hair, and it was Ivi's hand that traced my back and slid lower. It made me look at him, because I would have thought that talk of the Goddess would have distracted him from such things. But, unlike Brii, his eyes were on me. There was a heat in his eyes that shouldn't have been there after a month of freedom - a month when we had almost an even number of male and female sidhe guards.
"Ivi," Rhys said, "you aren't listening to me." He didn't sound angry, but rather puzzled.
Ivi blinked and shook himself like a bird settling its feathers. "I would say apologies, but we're both so old that that's an insult, so what do I say, that the sight of the princess na**d distracted me from anything you could say?" He smiled at the end but it wasn't a completely happy smile.
"You and the others were supposed to talk to Merry at dinner about this."
"The Fear Dearg are back," Ivi said. "I remember them, oh Lord of Death. It was they I first thought of when we woke and found that both of us were asleep on duty." Ivi made a face; it was anger, disgust, and other things I couldn't read.
"I am too young to remember, for I was not yet aware," Brii said, "but I came to true life not long after the end of it and I remember the stories. I saw the wounds and the damage done. When such enemies are about, what good soldier complains about anything else?"
I stood there with my hair in its towel, but the other towel loose in my hands. "I'm missing something here," I said.
"Tell her," Rhys said, making a little go-ahead motion with his gun.
Brii looked embarrassed, and that was a rare emotion for the sidhe. Ivi lowered his bold eyes, but said, "I have failed at my post this night. How can I ask for more after that?"
"Galen and Wyn were still deep asleep when I came in here. This should have woken them?" I asked.
The three men looked at each other, and then Brii and Rhys both moved out through the door enough to see the big bed. They came back into the bathroom, with Rhys shaking his head. "They haven't moved." He seemed to think about that. "In fact, Doyle and Frost should be in here. All the rest of the guards should be in here with weapons drawn. These two" - and he motioned with his sword at them - "made a hell of a lot of noise rushing to save you."
"But no one else woke up," I said.
Rhys smiled. "The Goddess has kept everyone but the two of you asleep. I think that means you get to have your talk with Merry. My weapons are clean. Now it's my turn in the shower."
"Wait," I said, "what talk?"
Rhys kissed me on the forehead. "Your guards are afraid of you, Merry. They're afraid you'll be like your aunt, and your cousin, or uncle, or grandfather." He looked up as if thinking over the list.
"There's a lot of bad crazy in my family tree," I said.
"Most of the new guard who followed you out of faerie have stayed celibate."
I stared at him, and then turned slowly to stare from Brii to Ivi. "Why, in the name of the Danu? I told you my aunt's celibacy rule didn't hold anymore."
"She said that in the past," Brii said slowly, "and she was fine if it was casual lusts, but if we found someone we cared for ..." He stopped and looked to Ivi.
"I never fell in love with anyone," Ivi said, "and after seeing what she did to some of the lady loves, I had never been so happy that I was a cad and a bounder in my existence."
"I have six fathers and six consorts. I'm okay that the rest of you have sex, make friends, fall in love. It would be wonderful if more of you fell in love."
"You seem to mean that," Ivi said, "but your relatives have seemed sane over the centuries, but they weren't."
I realized what he was saying. "You think I'm going to go crazy like my aunt, and cousin, and uncle, and ..." I thought about it, and could only nod. "I guess I see your point."
"None of them but your grandfather was always cruel and horrible," Ivi said.
"There's a reason his name is Uar the Cruel," I said, and I didn't try to keep the look of disgust off my face. He'd never had any use for me, nor I for him.
"It always seemed that jealousy was what undid your relatives - jealousy of affection, of power, of possessions even," Brii said. "You have a relative on both thrones of faerie, and they are both vain and hate anyone who even hints that they may not be the most beautiful, the most handsome, the most powerful."
"You believe that if you go to other lovers I will see it as a rejection of my beauty?"