Page 14 of Crowned By the Fae King

I tried to ignore that bitter thought, too.

"Everything," I said placidly, "from the moment His Splendor became King."

"Ah," she said, sounding strangled. "How's that been."

I gave her another sidelong glance. "Enlightening."

"Cooool, cool cool cool," she said, and ducked back out of the room.

Even though I wanted to luxuriate in the shower, letting hot water carry away weeks of misery, I turned it off and grabbed the nearest towel to dry off.

"Does it have something to do with the Court?" I asked, giving her an out. There was no reason to antagonize her when she was trying to help me. I poked my head out of the bathroom as I toweled my hair off. "Because that's been…" I trailed off, not sure how to describe what it was like to feel the Court all around me, all the time. "It's been a lot."

Danica was busily digging through a set of jewelry-boxes, holding up various glittering pieces before discarding them. In the plain midnight-and-tan decor of the room, she looked opulent, the gold-on-white brocade catching the lamplight and her dark brown hair gleaming. She had a sword, the pommel some sort of golden-apricot gemstone. I wondered if she knew how to use it.

A gown lay on the bed, the same dark, sultry silver-gray as distant thunderstorms and tarnished silver. It had little tiny crystals sewn all through the dense embroidery of leaves and vines, in a pattern like dew, and not the fake shit, either. If those weren't actual gemstones, and maybe actual diamonds, I'd eat my boots. You know. Assuming I had any boots, which I didn't.

"I'm not sure. If it's been half as bad as what he's dealing with, I'm impressed you're sane," she said brusquely, clearly relieved I wasn't going to chase down the specifics of her discomfort. Danica held up a necklace of pale gray stones gleaming with high gloss, but not a lot of brilliance. Spinel, maybe. The stuff was pricey. She turned back toward me, looking less upset, though I thought maybe she was simply good at hiding it. "I have no idea what particular combination of things is giving you the empathy, but he's really land-tied. So that's probably leaking."

"I don't know what that means." I didn't stop staring at the dress. "Are you seriously going to put me in that?"

She laughed. "It'll match Cass' outfit well enough, and you're only a little smaller than me, so I'm hoping it fits. It's Faery, so you could go naked if you wanted, and that would probably make a hell of an impression, but this seems a bit warmer."

"I don't get cold anymore," I said, then gave myself a physical shake. "It doesn't matter. Tell me what I'm walking into, and get me dressed."

I didn't want to have to attend a coronation. I especially didn't want to attend my coronation. But I needed to talk to Cass, and I needed him to be willing to help me. If what it took was putting on a ridiculously expensive dress and pretending to be a Queen… fine.

Danica walked me through the events of the next couple hours while she laced me into a dress that had to cost the fae equivalent of at least fifteen grand, then draped gemstones that might have been worth even more around my throat. She was most of the way through doing my makeup when the winged man who'd been with her rapped on the door and came in.

"Did you find him?" she asked, not looking up from doing my mascara.

"And told him he was being irresponsible for having a snit, and made him go to the staging room like a good royal," he said, humor lilting his tenor voice. "Did you send someone for a crown?"

She froze. "Shit."

He chuckled. "One trip to the vaults, coming right up. Meet me at the staging room, princess? I don't want to miss his face when his soulmate walks in looking like a goddess."

"You've got it, babe," she said in an absent tone, focused on my eyelashes again. The door swung shut, leaving the two of us alone again.

"Your soulmate," I said.

"Yeah." Her whole expression softened. "Vaduin's the best thing that's ever happened to me." She sat back and capped the little pot of mascara. "There. Now you're ready to meet yours."

I looked down at myself, feeling very unready for my face-to-face with Cass. I might have been more comfortable naked than in a dress meant for royalty. At least I'd been naked in front of men before. Wearing something like this was a novel experience. "Sure."

She took me back into the palace at the same harried clip, casting nervous glances out of windows and picking up her pace every time. I managed to keep up, barely, mostly due to the fact that I was still barefoot. Danica's shoes hadn't fit me, so I could pelt along without skidding on the smooth inlaid wood floor, the delicate silver chains decorating my ankles and feet bouncing against my skin.

We came to a halt in front of an ordinary-looking door, dark wood with a little bit of beveling and a claw-foot door knocker in brass.

Danica flashed me a wicked smile. "Ready?"

I looked down at myself, then over at her with a wry look, jittery and stressed and entirely unprepared. "Not even in the slightest."

"Sounds about right," she said, wrinkling her nose at me, and flung the door open. She gave me a shove, none-too-gently, following on my heels so I had to walk into the small, opulently-decorated room.

Putting me face-to-face with my soulmate.

Hello, Soulmate

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