Page 147 of Crowned By the Fae King

The corners of my mouth tightened. "So in revenge, you handed over an innocent man for execution. One who'd never caused you any harm."

Talien breathed with care, his chest rising and falling. His ring of safety diminished with my every step. I walked towards him, the drumbeat of an execution, my hungry Court gnawing at his land.

"Blood for blood," he said. "The dead don't rise, but a Court may be reborn."

Something about that itched at me; scratched a bed in my heart. I walked up the steps to his dais. My footsteps rang in the unnatural silence.

"He would have given it to you," I said, feeling the truth in the words. "If you had asked. If you had come to him, and told him how it might be done. He would have willingly suffered that to right the wrongs done to you and yours."

The King of Flies sneered at me. "Easy words for you to say without your King here to deny them."

Even now, he wouldn't bend. Wouldn't give in. Looking at him was like looking into a mirror, seeing a person I could have become—someone I could still become. I saw it from a hundred eyes; watched my fingers tighten on the hilt of my sword and his fingers tighten on the arms of his throne.

He'd killed a King for that throne. Taken what would have been given to him. There was no remorse on his handsome face. Talien would defy me to the grave.

I wouldn't give him the victory. The satisfaction.

I raised my sword. Pointed it at his heart. "Ask me for your Court, King of Flies," I said, my voice very soft.

His gaze darted past me, to the hungry creatures just out of arm's reach. To all those shining, watching eyes.

Talien gripped his throne. Leaned forward, his expression tight.

"I already have it, Merciful Queen," he said, glaring into the teeth of a hungry Court.

The world felt so still. Mercy held its silence, waiting for me, every tooth and claw mine to command.

It would be so easy to kill him—to take what was mine. All I had to do was decide to do it, and it would be done. Mercy's jaws and Mercy's power would snap down on him, and that would be the crimson end. The Court of Mercy would be whole again. Mine again. Cass' legacy would be saved, without a single inch of land lost.

No, I thought, the sorrow settling onto me like snow. Cass wasn't a blood-streaked tyrant. I knew my soulmate. He was sunlight shining off of bronze wings and laughter in the dark of night. He was irises on a dance floor and notes signed with hearts; wickedness glinting in golden eyes and the sort of loyalty that threw itself into the teeth of danger for the ones it loved with no hesitation or regret. His legacy shouldn't be written in blood.

Beneath my feet, Mercy snarled, rage thrumming in my veins.

A soft smile touched the corners of my mouth. He was protective wrath, too, but I was his balance. I could stand between him and those he wanted to destroy, and he would pull the blow.

Talien had killed a King for his throne.

I would not.

I took a deep breath, and lowered my sword.

Talien struck like a snake—and the earth itself surged up to stop him.

Heartbeat

Astone hand grabbed the King of Flies by the throat. It flung him back down into his throne so hard I heard his teeth clack together.

Basalt loomed, taking the shape of a man, salt and earth shifting.

Sunlight illuminated dark soil; turned the dusty swirl of the air to golden haze. Wings of stone and dust spread and beat once, the dark basalt slicking down into the blackened-bronze feathers of a stymphalian bird. They gleamed in the dawn light, sharper than any sword.

Salted earth settled into place, leaving salt-sheened skin over smooth planes of muscle and bone. Black hair fell and tangled around fae ears. Ribs spread with each panting breath, moving easily, muscles shifting as metal wings folded along his back.

Those deadly wings were unmarred. Not one scar marked that long expanse of brown skin. The pale dawn light left nothing to the imagination. Only the haze of salt glittering across his nude form remained to say that he had once been stone and soil, as much a piece of the Court of Mercy as the mountains themselves.

The heartbeat at the center of the world beat in his chest, the same as mine.

My sword slipped from my fingers. It clanged on the ground and fell against Talien's feet.

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