Page 104 of Crowned By the Fae King

My frown deepened. I listened in to the palace – it took more thoughtful effort for me, since Cass was the one directly connected to Mercy, and we weren't balanced soulmates yet – and saw why Cass was interested in declarations of power. The mage was more powerful than any of the other fae mages I'd met, with a darkness and gravitational pull that reminded me of a black hole.

"Who the fuck is that?" I asked, making my eyes refocus on Cass.

"That," he said with distaste, "is Pelleas Xirangyl, the crown prince of Raven Court, and the man ultimately responsible for putting me on the throne."

Inlaws

Igot the story out of Kat while she put me into the slinky midnight-blue dress and did my makeup. As Cass had once told me, the former King had killed himself to put Cass on the throne. What hadn't occurred to me at the time was that, if King Omahice had been blood-linked to Cass, it should have been all but impossible for him to kill himself. Cass would have reflexively intervened, and kept him alive.

But Omahice had been suffering from a fae condition called "deliquescence." Put too much magical power into a living creature, it turned out, and they'll literally start dissolving from it, coming apart at the seams as they liquefy. Cass had been trying to revert that, burning away magical power by healing near-lethal damage to himself and using that narrow window of time to command-heal the King's body back together. It meant that when he wasn't actively burning magic, he had to focus on not healing Omahice, in the same way he stayed up to keep from healing the land itself.

That gave Omahice the slimmest chance. He needed to die in the space between heartbeats, faster than Cass could detect and combat.

The Raven Crown Prince had provided the tool: a rare dagger made with the clipped quill from a still-living manticore, one Ayre Brouwer née Xirangyl, his younger brother and the half-manticore King of Windswept Court. Omahice had used it, and as he'd wanted, Cass had become King.

Now here we were.

I joined Cass in our staging room with some trepidation. Up until seven weeks ago, Pelleas wouldn't have shown his face in the Court of Mercy. Cass had very little reason to like him, and a lot of reason to take out his ire at being the Merciful King on the obvious target the Raven Prince offered. But we'd made our bargain with Faerqen to give hospitality to Pelleas for the next fifty years, and the prince obviously knew about it.

Cass and I came in by the normal door, strolling in with me in front as if this was a casual encounter and not an ambush. Two women sitting at one of the gaming-tables stood when we came in, but my eyes were drawn magnetically to the man sprawled like a panther on the central couch of the room.

Pelleas had obviously arranged himself for maximum impact, with an eye to the artistic. His bat-winged cloak fell across the seat of the couch and dripped to the floor as if it was poured ink, and he had his shiny black riding-boots propped up on the coffee table. Deep royal purple brocade several shades darker than his violet hair fit his lean body to perfection, the gold in it matching the gold edging of his cloak and the gold rings in his nose and ears. All of it had to be actual gold, though I couldn't place the brilliant black gems dangling from his lobes and in the diadem on his brow. They had as much fire as moissanite, but it seemed weird for fae to have lab-made gems.

At my back, I felt Cass go still, a shocked halt that came with sweat prickling down my spine and under my arms. A shark's smile turned up the prince's full mouth.

"Mother?" Cass said, his voice catching. "Tarra?"

Oh, shit.

"Well met, your majesties," Pelleas purred from his position on the couch. He swirled a wine glass, his long black-enameled nails gleaming in the light. "I hadn't anticipated returning to the Court of Mercy so soon, but. Well. Princesses deserve a royal escort, don't you think?" He held the wine glass up to the light, looking through the red wine with a desultory air. "Oh—" he added, as if he'd almost forgotten to say the next words, "Ithronel sends her regards."

My blood ran cold. Without even thinking, I put my right hand on the pommel of my sword, getting a languid, heavy-lidded smile from the prince. Swordmistress would be pleased, I thought distantly. I didn't take my hand off the sword, though I let my grip ease until only my fingertips rested on the hilt. Against glamor, the only defense was steel.

"Ithronel?" I said pleasantly. "I'm surprised she managed to build herself a body so soon."

"Gods can be so troubling, can't they?" Pelleas said in a croon. "Especially when they have such devoted followers, and such easy access to places of power."

Paloma, I thought, and the caves.

A petulant sound drew my attention over to the two women for the first time. They were certainly dressed like princesses, I'd give them that. Whoever had seen to their wardrobe had done a great job; the evening gown made entirely of crystals appliqued on cloth that matched the skin tone of the taller of the women exactly looked like it could have come off a red carpet, and the soft green tulle on the petulant one emphasized her full curves and plunged down to bare a décolletage worthy of a courtesan.

The taller woman had an elegant bearing and a cold expression. Her warm brown skin was a shade darker than Cass,' and the black waves that tumbled down from her updo had the same curl. She looked a great deal like him, actually, down to the flat brows, dark eyes, and the strength of her hands, but unlike my powerful warrior-angel of a King, she was willowy, and stood maybe five feet ten inches—tall for a woman, but hardly the outlier Cass was.

The other had striking sapphire eyes shrouded by dense lashes and a full mouth pursed in a moue. Her black hair fell in perfect ringlets around her soft face, and what had come out in brawn for Cass had turned in her towards the sort of womanly shape men pant after like hound-dogs. She was, if I was being honest, even more drop-dead gorgeous than Danica, which was saying something. Dani looked like an old-timey Hollywood bombshell. This woman, with her flawless tan skin and lush body, looked like she'd walked out of a sultan's harem.

"You're being so rude, Xarcassah," Blue-eyes whined, her lower lip sticking out. "Darling Pelly-welly brought us all the way here through those nasty caves and you can't even say 'hello' properly."

Pelleas' expression didn't change one iota. His hand didn't tighten on the wine glass, nor did his shoulders so much as tense. But I felt the raw disgust dripping off of him, seeping into the floor of my palace like spilled wine into a carpet. Darling Pelly-welly despised the beautiful woman standing there. I was willing to bet any amount of money that he would have preferred to leave her in the nasty caves rather than suffer her company all the way here.

At least I had an answer for how he'd ambushed us with them, and verification that the militant Ithronel faction had escaped through the caves. They might very well have gone to Raven Court. Why not? If Faerqen had done as he'd suggested he'd do, and given Ithronel another source of power, it was possible he'd even orchestrated the whole thing himself and sent her to his buddy Ruekh. An ally of his prey turned into his own ally seemed like something of a coup.

"Well met, Tarra," Cass said, like a man who'd seen a ghost—like a man in a nightmare, the words falling off his tongue because he had no other options. "Welcome to my home, and to my hearth. I offer you the hospitality of my Court." He swallowed hard enough that I could hear it. "And welcome to you, too, Yllana Kovaiy." A harsh breath. "Mother. It's been a long time."

"It has," the taller woman said. Her dark gaze slid over to me. "We accept your hospitality, of course, even if it should have come sooner, and the invitation from your hand. Introduce us to your companion." The imperious words hit like arrows. Yllana was used to being obeyed. She was used to Cass obeying.

What do I call her? I asked Cass through our bond, giving him a mental nudge. Cassie. What's her relationship to me?

He looked at me, shock and pleading on his face. He really needed to work on his poker face—but given that the alternative was the whole Court shouting his emotions, I wouldn't complain. It was an enormous testament to how far he'd come, and to how relaxed he was after our time together, that the only thing showing his unhappiness was his face.

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