Chapter 26 begins with Merry being surprised that the door to the Unseelie mound opened immediately for Carrow when he attempted to open it. Whenever Merry would try to use the door, it would switch sides or change location, or whatever. So they all step through the doorway into the mound. Once the doorway behind them closes, a new guard asks Barinthus if he will be carrying Merry all the way to the queen, and everyone quickly draws their weapons because somehow NOT A SIGNLE ONE OF THEM noticed the other guards standing in the entrance waiting for them.
Ivi and Hawthorne are waiting in the entrance. Ivi is smiling at the group, but Hawthorne doesn’t look happy. He asks Doyle what they have done to warrant such a reaction. Doyle is apparently worried that the queen has not learned yet of what happened at the press conference. Had she been made aware, she would have sent more than just two guards to greet them.
Barinthus eventually sets Merry down, and Merry spends a bit trying to smooth out her outfit, as the queen would criticize her if she showed up any less than perfect looking. Ivi drops to one knee in front of Merry and tells her that the queen sent him and Hawthorne as gifts if the ring recognizes them.
They then argue for a bit over whether or not they are going to rush to tell the queen about what happened during the press conference. First off, they should not disobey an order from the queen (having the men test the ring) but they all understand that the queen should be told of the press conference immediately. Ivi tells them that the queen was busy “entertaining” herself, and no one would ever interrupt that.
Merry asks if anyone would dare interrupt the queen if Merry had been assassinated.
“You have stripped us of all who were powerful enough to beard her in her den, Princess,” Hawthorne said.
“Darkness, Frost, Barinthus,” Ivi said, “teacher’s pets compared to the rest of us.”
“Mistral is still here,” Doyle said.
Hawthorne shook his head. “He fears her, Darkness, as do we all.”
“She has gotten better in the last few months,” Barinthus said, “easier to talk to.”
“Again, Lord Barinthus, perhaps for you,” Hawthorne said.
“Let us finish our speech,” Ivi said. “Then you can all draw straws for who gets to be the bearer of such evil tidings.”
“Darkness, Frost, Barinthus,” Ivi said, “teacher’s pets compared to the rest of us.”
“Mistral is still here,” Doyle said.
Hawthorne shook his head. “He fears her, Darkness, as do we all.”
“She has gotten better in the last few months,” Barinthus said, “easier to talk to.”
“Again, Lord Barinthus, perhaps for you,” Hawthorne said.
“Let us finish our speech,” Ivi said. “Then you can all draw straws for who gets to be the bearer of such evil tidings.”
This, my friends, is how every conversation goes in this book. So so so many instances of “you said that already” or repetition. I hate it. And since LKH cannot actually write anything OUTSIDE of conversation (it is how the majority of the plot advances), this is what I get to slog through. I’m beginning to hate the word ‘said’ as well.
Anyway so apparently the queen ordered both Ivi and Hawthorne to fuck Merry IMMEDIATELY if the ring recognized them, which is totally not at all a rape order, right? Merry doesn’t even get a say in the matter, they are just to basically immediately fuck her.
“What he won’t tell you,” Ivi said, “is that he asked what we were to do if Princess Meredith did not wish to bed us as soon as she entered the sithen.” He imitated the rhythm of Hawthorne’s speech.
“And what did my aunt say?” I asked.
Ivi smiled up at me, and his dark green eyes held a fierce triumph that I didn’t understand.
Hawthorne answered with his face still bowed toward the stones, his voice helding sorrow the way Ivi’s usually held mockery. “Are you Unseelie sidhe or not? Persuade her.”
Ivi kept his darkly joyful face turned up toward me. “He asked, and if she will not be persuaded?” And again he echoed the queen’s voice so well that it raised chills upon my skin, “Persuade her, or take her, or tell her what I have said, and let that be your persuasion. If Meredith will not take the pleasure I offer her, then perhaps she will take pain instead. For there is both to be had here among the Unseelie. Remind her of that if her sensibilities are too delicate for fucking.”
“And what did my aunt say?” I asked.
Ivi smiled up at me, and his dark green eyes held a fierce triumph that I didn’t understand.
Hawthorne answered with his face still bowed toward the stones, his voice helding sorrow the way Ivi’s usually held mockery. “Are you Unseelie sidhe or not? Persuade her.”
Ivi kept his darkly joyful face turned up toward me. “He asked, and if she will not be persuaded?” And again he echoed the queen’s voice so well that it raised chills upon my skin, “Persuade her, or take her, or tell her what I have said, and let that be your persuasion. If Meredith will not take the pleasure I offer her, then perhaps she will take pain instead. For there is both to be had here among the Unseelie. Remind her of that if her sensibilities are too delicate for fucking.”
Oh jesus Christ. If Merry won’t agree to fuck them, they’re supposed to hurt her to convince her otherwise.
So Galen tells them that even if the ring reacts to them, he will only let them fuck Merry “over his dead body”. Merry then tells them all that there is to be no killing unless she orders it, but Ivi replies that that would be going against the queen’s directive.
I bent down just the little bit I needed to be face to face with him, and I felt an unpleasant smile cross my face. “Oh, but it would be. Corpses routinely have one last orgasm just as they die. The queen’s exact orders are not to come before her without your seed upon my body. She didn’t specify where or how that happens, now, did she?”
Jesus fucking Christ.
They continue talking about whatever some more until drunk Abloec tells them to hurry the fuck up and make decisions. Leave it to the drunk guy no one likes to be the harbinger of fucking reason in this book. Then Usna decides that he will go tell the queen about the events of the press conference and the subsequent flooding of all the rivers in the area. Everyone is all OH MY GOD NO, but Usna, since he’s really just some throwaway side character, doesn’t give a shit and tells them that there isn’t anything worth fighting for anymore, and if the queen decides to kill him for interrupting her, so be it.
So, you’d think that would decide it, yeah? NOPE. They continue to talk about how dangerous it is for Usna to go tell the queen. Usna tells them that while she’ll hate being interrupted and hearing about the assassination attempt, she’ll be very glad to hear about Merry bringing the sidhe into their godhead and full powers.
And the chapter finally ends with Usna warning Merry to be worried that the queen puts Merry into a cage to be fucked one after another to bring all of the Unseelie sidhe into their full powers.
What the fuck happened in this chapter, jesus Christ!
Trailer Park of Emotion 
🤢🤮😱🤯🤬 what the fuck is this shit omg LKH you truly are an artist, just not the good kind or the kind you wish to be. She can come up with terrifying amounts of new, grotesque, bafflingly awful sex scenes or discussions thereof over and over and over…Jesus Christ. That last line is just…so beyond repugnant and so viscerally visual i think I need to clean my brain with steel wool
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