A Stroke Of Midnight - By Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,35

that spread out as far as the eye could see. It was green and lovely, but strangely empty.

"What have you done, Princess?"

"Not me," I said.

He gazed up at me, and there was puzzlement in his eyes. "I don't understand."

"Look at the tree."

He turned, with his hand holding mine now, rather than pressing it to his face. The tree was a huge, blackened thing, its bark crumbling in the growing wind. The first time I'd seen the tree so dead it had had a large cleft in the center. This tree did not. It had taken me a while to understand that the tree wasn't real, or the hill. Neither were any place a map could get you. The tree represented the Goddess, and the power of faerie; the hill was The Hill. We stood at the center of the world, but the center of the world changed at the thought of the gods. In this moment, this was the center, and Mistral and I stood at that center. We stood hand in hand, while the wind blew across the sky.

The wind smelled of apple blossoms and roses - sweet and clean and good. I heard a voice on the flower-scented wind. Or perhaps it was merely a thought. Mistral did not seem to hear it, so perhaps the voice was only for me.

"Kiss him," the wind said, "kiss him. Let him taste the chalice." But the chalice is not here, I thought. The wind said, "You are the chalice." Oh, of course. It made perfect sense in that moment, though I knew that later it might not make any sense at all.

"Mistral," I said, and the wind grew stronger, sweeter, at the sound of his name.

He looked at me, and there was a hint of fear in his eyes. Had it really been that long since he was touched by the Goddess? Yes, the voice in my head said, it had.

"Kiss me, Mistral," I said.

His gaze searched my face. "Who are you?"

"I am Merry."

He shook his head, even as he let me draw him in against my body. I realized that my arm was not injured in this place of dream and vision. I slid my arms around the smooth strength of his back, over the leather of his armor. His hands slid around my waist, but he was still shaking his head.

"No, you are not the princess."

"I am, but I am more, that is true." My voice had taken on that echoing softness that I'd heard before, like listening to someone else's voice in your own ears.

"What are you?" he whispered.

"Drink of the chalice, Mistral." The flower-scented wind wrapped around us like invisible arms, binding us until our bodies were pressed as close together as we could manage with clothes on. He held me, but he was afraid, and fear is not a good aphrodisiac for most people. The queen has never understood that.

His face bent toward me, but his body was tense, and he tried not to bend closer. The wind pushed at him, forced his head downward. I understood in that moment that he was once the master of the winds, bringer of storms. Once he had controlled it all as a man controls a horse, but now Mistral was the horse, who was being ridden, and he didn't like it.

Mistral fought against the push of the sweet wind. He fought to move his body away from mine, but the wind was like chains, and the best he could do with all that strength was keep his mouth just above mine. Keep himself just out of reach.

"Why do you fight when this is what you want?" the voice said, using my lips.

"You cannot be the chalice. You cannot be the Goddess, she cast us out long ago."

"If I am not real, then you cannot kiss me."

"You cannot be real."

"You were always my doubting Thomas, Mistral. Kiss me, kiss me, and discover the truth. Whether your doubts are real, or whether I am real." The wind pressed so tightly that it was hard to breathe. "Kiss me!" The voice came from my mouth, and echoed through the wind, and the drowning scent of blossoms.

His mouth touched mine, and the moment it did, he stopped fighting. He gave himself to the kiss with his lips, his mouth, his arms, his body. The wind was only wind again, but Mistral did not notice. He picked me up in his strong arms, his hands pressing me against his body. One hand