“An exchange, our Merry,” Frost said gently.

“It is a fine blade, but not a fair exchange for this one,” I said.

“No one but you in this room can touch that blade and keep sanity and life, so let it go and take up Frost’s knife, and then tell us what happened in the dream.”

I breathed deeply, forcing myself to take even breaths, and then I let it out slow, counting as I did so. Control your breathing and you control nearly everything else, but first gain control of yourself; always begin there. Those had been my father’s words to me. That helped calm me, too.

I let go of Aben-dul, and it lay heavy across my legs, but my hands were empty enough to wrap around the hilt that Frost was offering. Doyle moved back then, sliding off the bed; after a moment Frost echoed him. I had room to sit up, and some weight that had been trying to make me panic and lash out at them eased. It wasn’t a spell put on me by Taranis, but it was his damage. He’d raped me, and there were moments when even the most beloved of my partners had to give me space, and time to work through the issues of that attack. I was happy I didn’t remember most of it, didn’t remember the sex, only waking afterward with the concussion that almost killed me and my unborn children.

“I wish we did not have to ask, Merry, but what happened in the dream?” Doyle said.

I took in another deep breath and counted it out slowly, then nodded. I told them about the dream, everything that had happened in it.

“Do you believe that the injury to his arm will follow him out of dream?” Doyle asked.

“I do not know.”

“That is not possible,” Frost whispered.

“Once the king could use dream to seduce and bed a woman, and the children that came from those dreams were real enough,” Doyle said.

“Are you saying he was able to get women pregnant from just visiting them in their dreams?” I asked.

They both nodded.

I must have paled, because they moved toward the bed, then hesitated and looked at each other, then back at me. “We would comfort you if you would allow it, Merry, but we do not wish to rush this moment,” Doyle said.

I nodded, but I didn’t really want to be touched right that second. I gripped the hilt in my hands tighter, so that the leather-wrapped metal dug into my hands a little, helped remind me that I was awake and not trapped.

“I will take comfort in a little while, but right now just explain to me how he could do that in just a dream.”

“Once he was the Lord of Dreams, but that was centuries before we came to the Western Lands. I do not believe that he can make dreams as real as he once could,” Doyle said.

“Do not tell her that, for we do not know. He should not have been able to use his hand of light through the mirror when he nearly killed you, and that was months ago. The Goddess returns and wild magic follows in Her wake,” Frost said.

Doyle nodded. “And the magic is like most of our powers, like nature itself; the storm does not mean to tear down your house, but it still might.”

“Which means that we have no way of knowing who will have gained powers from the return of the Goddess,” I said.

“Sadly, no,” Doyle said. He gave me a very solemn look.

“What?” I asked.

“If you damaged his arm in this reality, then he may seek revenge outside of dream.”

Frost said, “Or he will be so terrified of Merry that he will not come near her.”

“It could go either way, true,” Doyle said.

“I didn’t know he had ever been able to enter dreams,” I said.

“Once upon a time,” Doyle said.

“The queen could enter nightmares, or speak to us through them, as well,” Frost said.

“So he was the Lord of Dreams, and she was what, the Lady of Dreams?”

They both shook their heads, and I was feeling better, because I was a bit distracted by them both standing there nude. Sadly, I still had weeks to go before we could have sex. It had been too long.

“Merry, did you hear what we said?” Doyle asked.

I blinked and had to think; had I heard anything that those lovely mouths had been saying in the last few minutes? I finally said, “No, I’m sorry, but your being nude distracted me.”

They smiled at each other, and then at me. I would have said, Don’t be conceited, but it was just truth that the two of them standing there nude, bodies not even ready for such things, had made me think of sex, and longing. I still ached too badly to do anything about it, even if the doctors hadn’t warned against it, but that my body was interested again was nice. After being hugely pregnant for so long, and so ill with the triplets, it was nice to feel something close to normal and think that maybe my body could get back to doing something besides having babies.

“You’re going to have to repeat everything you just said. I will endeavor not to be distracted, but perhaps if you sat down and put the sheet across your laps, that might help my powers of concentration.”

Their smiles turned to mischievous grins, but they did as I suggested and sat down on the sides of the bed that had become theirs, Frost to my left and Doyle to my right. Once they had piled the sheet in place, Doyle said, “She was the Queen of Nightmares, for she was never merely a lady of the nobility, Merry, but always destined to be more.”

“But the king was once just a lord?” I asked.

They both nodded, Frost’s hair spilling forward around his bare shoulders. His ponytail had come undone in the night, as it often did. Even braiding didn’t always hold it, as if the hair itself didn’t like to be bound.