Page 156 of Crowned By the Fae King

Though Tarra had been a traitor, and had tried to kill Cass, we did the same for her. Ysvai, Cass' home city, had been conquered by Stag Court during the Annihilation War, and with the Stag King's blessing, we sent Tarra and Yllana home to rest there alongside Cass' father. We couldn't go with them, of course, but Vad and Dani went for us, and I knew Cass slept easier for having that door closed.

Then there was the shaken-up High Court to deal with, long discussions about how to handle the significant surge in Cassite sentiment, a shocking amount of immigration from people who were willing to risk whatever crazy magic shenanigans might happen for the sake of never being sick again, and the unsurprising emigration of the devout who couldn't handle the knowledge that the Monarchs of Mercy were basically the sworn enemies of the goddess of mercy.

Win some, lose some, I supposed. It came out to a net positive in population, in the end. Apparently having Monarchs who could hold their own in the arena of the gods was something of a draw, after all.

Cass still didn't tolerate people calling him "your glory," but I never once heard anyone call him "your majesty," either. It was "your splendor" or "King Marys," only.

People started calling me "your splendor," too.

I didn't hate it.

It did mean that it took us until the very end of spring to make it all the way down the list to dealing with our Sagebrush Duke. Ace had vanished from the scene after that dark night, and he hadn't resurfaced. Cass was still keeping his pain at bay, so we knew he was alive and where he was, and reports from the Bitterbreeze Castle in the Sagebrush Duchy told us that he hadn't completely turned into a recluse. Our duke was still quietly conducting the business of his duchy even though he was keeping his head down, totally withdrawn from society.

We gave him twenty-four hours of notice, and came calling.

To his credit, Ace didn't try to avoid dealing with us. His seneschal greeted us at the gate and brought us through the lovely castle to a raised patio that overlooked the rocky cliffs and the ocean below, where the Sagebrush Duke awaited us.

It was a lovely view. The dark stone of the cliffs stood in stark contrast to the cerulean sea and clear blue sky, and the low scrub tumbling across that stone was so like the California coast that I wanted to cry. Seabirds circled overhead and a wren burbled in the dense brush. I could see a small herd of elk picking their way across the shore towards a stream that fed the sea. The pale stone of the patio looked right at home alongside the scenery, and the low table set for three beckoned from under its woven shade.

Ace stood when we arrived. He met my gaze with quiet assessment, then put his hand over his heart and bowed, the greeting of a duke to his Monarchs. "Your splendors," he said, his musical voice rougher than I remembered. "Welcome to my home."

"I hope not to take too much of your time," Cass said, inclining his head in return. "We have a few matters to settle, but I can't imagine that we're your favorite people."

A tiny smile twitched the corner of the duke's mouth. "Have a seat, if you will," he said in a political tone. "Take some refreshment, and enjoy the sea breeze. It's a lovely day. Can you smell the sagebrush?"

The breeze flirted with my hair, as if in reply, carrying the acrid scent of sage. I inhaled with pleasure, tilting my head back and closing my eyes to really revel in it. "Is it always like this?" I asked, a faint smile turning up my lips. "Beautiful and wild?"

"In my opinion? Yes," Ace said. He waited until Cass and I sat to take his own seat again, moving with ease. "I often think that one season is my favorite, until time turns, and I see another. Storms in the night, fog off the sea, days like this…" He exhaled through his nose, almost a laugh. "But I don't imagine you came simply for the view."

Cass helped himself to iced tisane before Ace could move to offer, pouring glasses for all three of us and snagging a pastry for his plate. "The view certainly played a part," he said cheerfully. "We were hoping to borrow your hunting lodge down in Karaja Cove for the next few weeks."

Ace blinked at Cass, a line appearing between his fine brows. "I can send word to have it prepared at once," he said slowly. "All I have is yours, after all."

"About that," Cass said. He took a long drag from his tisane. "Now that Quyen and I are balanced, it appears to be impossible to break off a piece of the Court of Mercy with something like an opal array. We tried it a few weeks ago with a small patch of what used to be the Duchy of Flies. You don't even get a diminution of magic." He lifted his wings in a shrug, the corner of his mouth tugging back into a wry expression. "I can't say I'm unhappy, precisely, about being unable to offer cracking off more than an eighth of my Court for you, but since we're unable to offer you Sagebrush Court, how would you feel about being a sovereign prince of Mercy?"

You could have heard a pin drop.

A tiny tremor ran down Ace's body. His hands fisted in his lap. "Is this some sort of cruel joke?" he asked. His nostrils flared. "I know what I did to you and yours, your splendor. I'm a traitor. You could have me executed, and I imagine there's few who would challenge such a ruling."

"You were a traitor against Omahice, who so far as I can tell really fucking deserved it," I pointed out, swirling my drink. "I don't see any reason why you should get punished for the promises you made hundreds of years ago. There's no way you could have anticipated where they'd land you, and in the end, you didn't pull the trigger."

His mouth trembled. "And that's it? I didn't help kill you, so I'm forgiven?" An expression of discomfort crawled across his face.

"Hardly," Cass drawled. He was the one who'd pointed out to me that there wasn't an easy way to let Ace off the hook for what he'd done—and the one who'd found a way around it. Sometimes it was useful, having an academic for a soulmate. "Being a sovereign prince is more than simply a fancy name. It's not a title commonly given to people outside the royal bloodline, I'll grant you, but non-bloodline sovereign princes do exist elsewhere. The Court of Bones has two, and there's been a few others historically. One in the Court of Mercy, even, albeit more than thirty thousand years ago, and by a different name."

Ace's brows drew together. "What, precisely, are you suggesting?"

"The Court of Mercy is enormous and politically complex," I said. I set down my drink and leaned back, watching him from under lowered lashes. "Cass and I weren't trained to be Monarchs. Vaduin was, but that was more than thirteen hundred years ago, and he and Danica have plenty to handle with Mirage Duchy." I gave him a sharp smile. "You have been handling Sagebrush for a thousand years. You successfully kept the Court's spymaster out of your business for centuries—"

"Which he's extremely peeved about, by the way," Cass interjected.

I rolled my eyes at him, though I was amused. "The point is, you know what you're doing, and you're good at it. We have fifty years to get our shit together, magically and politically, before gods can take pot-shots at us again, and we'd like you to handle everything west of Borlaen Pass so that we can worry about the magic instead of the politics." It was a huge swathe of land – one that included all of Sagebrush Duchy, what had been the Duchy of Mists and which was now simply Mercy's land, and a significant swatch of the mountains east of both – and I was willing to bet that Ace would know precisely what that region included.

"That includes political dealings with Pinesap, Serpent, and Icewind Courts, and probably Aspen Court, too, since they're upriver," Cass added, before Ace could do more than cover his mouth with one hand. "The establishment of trading routes with Lightning Court and the city of Maestrizen, and preferably also the Lost Isles and across the Western Sea. Seasonal reports, and all the paperwork that comes with them. It's a fucking hard task, and it requires a sovereign to do it." Cass shrugged his wings again, as if he didn't care how Ace answered. "Three hundred years of working to defend this Court instead of working to break it seems like a suitable repayment for your actions."

Ace took a shaky breath. His eyes gleamed wet in the sunlight. "And after that?"

"Do a tolerably good job, and I imagine I'll see little reason to change the status quo," Cass said. "You'd be an established sovereign prince, these lands would be prospering, and our coastal trade would be greatly improved from its current sad state. Why would I seek to harm the man who did that?" He tossed back the last piece of his pastry and washed it down with the last of the tisane. "Vow not to seek harm against the Court of Mercy for the next three centuries, until the repayment of your treason is complete, and this," he said, tugging off the golden signet ring he'd worn here, one which granted the wearer the authority to speak for all of Mercy, "is yours."

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