The Huntsman stilled and said in a voice too much like Nathan's growl, "You defy me?"
"Mine." Nathan crouched lower, hands out – a fighting posture. "She's Kai, and she's mine."
The Huntsman tilted his head, his eyes narrowing. "Or you are hers. She's a binder, boy. She's caught you."
"She's not. Not a true binder, though I... she thinks she's a telepath. I don't know what she is, but she's Kai. I can't let you kill her."
"You can't stop me." All the humor – the fey, Robin Goodfellow pleasantry – fell away, and Kai was looking at death. Beautiful, implacable death was coming for Nathan and for her. The hounds – so friendly a moment ago – spread wide, hackles lifting, heads lowering.
Nathan called out a name.
Kai heard icicles and silence, and silently the air split open in front of them. A woman, all in white, stepped out of that slit in reality. It closed up neatly behind her. She took a single step forward – and Nathan abandoned Kai to reach for his queen, and he held her as she held him, both of them speaking in a liquid roll of syllables that made no echoes of meaning in Kai's head.
Kai stood, stricken and staring. This wasn't the Queen of Winter. She was winter.
Her skin was white. Not Caucasian, but truly white – like snow or alabaster or opals, for there was a sheen to it, as if colors played beneath the surface. Her hair was blacker than the hellhounds' midnight fur and spiraled in shiny curls to her waist. Her long, oval face angled in ways no human face would, and her tilted eyes were silver just kissed by blue. Tears spangled those eyes, glistening like melting snow in the lashes and on the white cheeks, as she and Nathan embraced.
She had no colors.
Kai blinked. She focused harder, but still saw none of the colors every living creature possessed. No shapes, intricate or otherwise. No thoughts. No emotions. Nothing. "She's not there," Kai said stupidly.
The queen turned her head, her arm still around Nathan, to look directly at Kai. "Binder." Her voice wasn't bells or flutes or anything Kai had expected. No, it was husky and warm, the welcoming warmth of a fireplace on a winter's night. She spoke English now. Clear, unaccented English. "Did you think I would leave my thoughts dangling free for you to seize?"
"My queen." Nathan inhaled on a shudder and stepped back from her, closer to Kai. "She is not a binder."
Those tilted eyes swung toward him, and the queen spoke gently. "I see what you cannot."
"Yes. But it may be I see what you cannot, also."
Her eyebrows lifted. "Nadrellian." She cupped his face in both hands. Her fingers were long and thin and indescribably graceful. "My Nadrellian."
A shudder passed through him. He stared into her eyes, and for several moments neither of them spoke. Finally he said, "I cannot step aside. She is mine."
Kai didn't know if it was courage or ego or simple stupidity pushing her, but she couldn't keep still any longer. "She has a name and a voice, and I was raised to think it's rude to discuss people as if they weren't present when they are. Especially if you're talking about killing them."
The queen laughed. "So we are," she said agreeably. And a knife winged through the air, heading straight for Kai.
Nathan's hand slapped out, knocking it aside.
The queen glanced over her shoulder at the Huntsman. "Iss'athl," she said – two precisely inflected syllables that echoed in Kai's mind as something like "lively and clever idiot."
"Control yourself."
"She lacks respect."
"She's human." The queen moved around Nathan to study Kai, her gaze traveling up and down. "Mostly human."
Mostly?
The queen stretched out a hand to one side. The chameleon, who had been oddly still until that moment, inched forward to sniff those white fingers, then lick them. "I will discuss your fate with you, then, Kai Tallman Michalski. How did you bring Dell to you?"
"I..." Kai licked dry lips. Now that she had the chance to speak, it was hard to do so. Those eyes... "I didn't, exactly. I was sleeping, and she asked... I don't know how to say it because there weren't words, nothing like words. But she was so alone, and she hurt. I said yes, and just – I fit her in, or she came in."
"She asked?"
"I told you," Nathan said. "Kai is not a binder. She sees thoughts, but doesn't – "
"Hush," the queen said absently. She tipped her head to one side. In that moment, curious and alert, she looked about twenty. "I would examine you. For that, I need your permission. You do not have a wide spectrum of choices, since if you refuse I must let my brother kill you. But still, you have this choice. I will not undertake such an invasion without your consent."
Kai's head buzzed with questions, a dizzying mass of questions. She couldn't speak them. Somehow the words wouldn't form, not while she stood beneath the gaze of this ancient power. "May I talk to Nathan?"
"Nai-thann." She made the syllables longer, more weighted, and turned her head to smile at him. "It was a good choice, that name. Are you Naithann now?"
"As much as I know what I am, yes."
"Very well." The queen nodded and stepped back. "You may speak with Naithann."
Chapter 14
Nathan turned and gripped her arms. "Kai. I didn't know – I never guessed... let me hold you. Let me hold you a moment." But he didn't wait for permission, just wrapped himself around her. Gradually his ragged breathing eased.
So did hers. "Okay," she said into his shoulder. She dragged in one more long, uncertain breath and lifted her head to look at him. "Okay. What is a binder, and why does everyone think I am one?"
"They see your energy, your Gift. I don't have that vision, so I can't say what they are seeing, but... the chameleon, Kai. You tied her to you. She asked. You didn't force her, but you... it didn't occur to me because you're so whole, but this is a thing a binder does."
She swallowed. He thought she was a binder, too. He just didn't want to. "So what is a binder?"
"A rare type of telepath who tampers with others' thoughts, binds their will. They are terribly dangerous, because so few can guard against them. Queens' law calls for... it is death to be a binder."
Kai had heard of blood running cold. She'd never experienced it until that moment, and didn't like it at all. When in fugue she could tamper with thoughts. She even wanted to, because some patterns were so sad and wrong...
"No, Kai," he said firmly, as if he were the telepath, not her. "Binders are warped. They are moral infants who understand only their own needs, their own wants. You aren't like that."
"I'm not like a regular telepath, either." Not that there was much regular about telepathy, but – oh, God. These people wanted to kill her – not for anything she'd done, but for what she might do.
She had to think. Kai squeezed her eyes closed and tried. "This examination she wants to give me... it's not a true-false quiz."
"No. It can be – almost surely will be – painful. She has entry to me because of our bond, but to find the truth of you she'll have to force her way in. If..." He ran his hands down her arms to take her hands. "If she finds what I know is true, Kai – that you don't tamper with others' will – she might not kill you."
Kai licked her lips. "I was hoping for something more certain, like she won't kill me."
"She won't," the Huntsman said matter-of-factly. "I will." He squatted beside Dell, scratching behind her ears. The big cat purred for him. "Nadrellian – no, it's Nathan now. I need to remember that. Did you know Dell was a mage's familiar?" He snorted. "Illegal in several realms, to take a chameleon for a familiar, but not a violation of Queens' law. But that's why Dell needed the connection, the communication, so much. Why she knew how to find it, too. When the power winds blew, her master... who seems to have been an idiot," he added, giving Dell's chin a good rub, "wasn't he, girl? He was killed, and she was blown here."