Rage knotted in my chest. I could see the plan as if it had been written out for me. Station troops and archers along our favorite path. Use a flicker-bird to let the people on the high mountain know we were walking into the trap. Send it back to signal the attack. Poisoned arrows to stop him from casting, opal nets to block our ability to use Court-magic or our land-sense, poor stupid Tarra as a final trap in case arrows and swords couldn't finish off a Fury with the wings of a stymphalian bird.

They hadn't known I had my own power source—that six weeks in the wilderness had turned me into a mage whose only power was connections of her own forged to King and Court. Even I hadn't known.

With my teeth bared, I started prying off the hateful thing, chipping at the ice. They must have poured water onto it, because the woven net of stones was thoroughly frozen on. I broke the tip of my knife off and didn't give a shit. Each opal detached from my throne let the Court of Mercy back into my heart. When I broke the central stone off, power hit me with such force my breath stopped in my throat, all my skin going hot.

It wasn't an opal. The carved disc looked maybe like limestone, a solid six inches across, with the underside carved into a horrific toothed pattern that looked like a lamprey's mouth.

A slice of a stalactite, I realized with growing horror. Something told me that touching it with anything other than steel would be a terrible idea. Those teeth menaced, hungry and merciless. The world seemed to darken near it, fading away into nothingness.

Faerqen's aegis only protected us from the direct interference of other gods. Ithronel couldn't come here and swing a sword at Cass again. That didn't mean she couldn't come at us sideways.

She'd protected her worshipers, giving them passage through the caves even when she didn't have a body. She'd settled herself into Raven Court, and I was willing to bet she'd been the one to bring the presence of Cass' family to the Raven King's attention. If this wasn't another gambit – a siphon on the Court of Mercy's power, feeding her and crippling us – I'd eat my fucking boots.

I drew my sword. Gripping the hilt so hard my knuckles went white, I slammed the star-steel pommel down on the mouth.

Again.

Again.

It cracked. I kept pounding at it, fury driving me, my steel pulverizing the stone into harmless pebbles.

Then I did it to the opals, smashing the brittle stones apart. Mercy's pleasure snarled through me. It didn't like being bound and leeched upon any more than I did.

I swept the detritus off of my throne and sat in it. The cold stopped mattering. My Court flooded into me, the whole world rushing in. The rocky beaches of the western coast, the mountains scraping the sky, the slumbering forest, the eastern desert and the depths of the mines; all of it as much me as the blood in my veins.

To my left, another siphon squatted on Cass' throne in malevolent hunger. The opals shattered my awareness, like a mirror broken into shards by the blackness of the maw at their center.

It didn't belong there. Cass belonged there, my soulmate's strength and sunshine the perfect counterbalance for my sharp-edged storm. My hand tightened around the hilt of my star-sword—but, no.

He was healing from a wound neither of us had known he was carrying. He'd chosen to endure agony for the hope that he'd be able to keep his ability to heal. No matter how much I despised the parasitic construct frozen to his throne, I had to remember that it was the only reason Cass might come out of this as a man instead of a monster.

Fate worked in strange ways. Maybe this was Faery balancing itself out; making recompense for the brutality of the events that had made Cass King.

I leaned my head back against the cold stone of the throne, trying not to cry from the relief of knowing what was wrong. Cass was healing, and would probably be safe to handle the Court's power in the morning. As soon as he was, we could take the nightmare device on his throne off, and the other half of our connection would be back. His reflexive healing would share his body with me, and my power – whatever it was – would be able to follow that path back to his soul. In the meantime, I had the Court again, and I had Cass' blood in my veins.

A shooting star lit the night sky as I stared up at it. A moment later, another streaked across the sky, brilliant and beautiful. Had it really only been yesterday morning that I'd been standing on a lookout tower, watching my soulmate go into battle? It felt so unreal. But tonight was the peak of the Calanids.

Martial magic, I remembered with a sinking feeling. We'd been attacked during a meteor shower, which boosted combat magic of all kinds.

There's no way this is over, I thought, dread settling into my veins. We had Tech and Yllana in custody, but that didn't really mean anything. Any one of the three dukes could be responsible, or any combination of them. Tarra had been wrapped around Tech's fingers, but I imagined it wouldn't have been hard for Ace or Talien – or anyone else, really – to convince her that being the Monarch was a much more suitable position for someone of her beauty and class than a half-animal brute and his mortal soulmate.

There had been enough failsafes in the assassination attempt that I struggled to imagine it being the only plan. I was fairly sure that it wasn't even the main plan. There were a lot of high-class opals here, but not remotely enough to account for multiple mines' worth. Whatever those were for must be easier without Cass, specifically, as the Monarch, but I couldn't imagine that our enemies would just go "aw, shucks" and give up now.

A cold breeze blew across me, making me shiver. I looked down at the mess I'd made of the opal array and lifted my lip. We needed to get some answers out of Tech and Yllana, and it wasn't like Cass was up to it. I might as well use my wakefulness for something.

I got to my feet and smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. Someone had hurt my Cass. I was going to make them regret it.

Meteor Strikes

Icould have made a door directly back to my bedroom to change into formal clothes, but I didn't want to wake Cass, and the walk down the long stairway and back to the monarchal suite helped settle me. Every step settled the Clement Palace, too, the Court of Mercy relaxing back into me in the same way that I'd needed to relax back into Cass after wearing opals. By the time I reached the door of the monarchal suite, I almost felt normal again, with only the lack of strong biofeedback from Cass leaving me unbalanced.

I walked into the sitting room and stopped dead in my tracks, horror falling over me like a bucket of cold water.

Tech sat on one of the couches with Yllana kneeling between his legs. He had her dark hair wrapped around one hand and a bloody dagger held casually against her throat. I could see a few red lines where it had touched her skin, leaving behind dried blood and iron-burns. His skin was dappled with blood.

Opals gleamed from around his neck and on the black leather gloves he wore.

Yllana was similarly adorned, though her hands were bound in front of her with a strand of smaller opals wrapped around them like a rosary. Her reddened eyes and the trembling of her mouth told me that she'd had nothing to do with this. She hadn't sent her daughter to kill her son.