Page 18 of Crowned By the Fae King

Even on his knees, he cut an imposing figure. His broad shoulders and solid body made him immovable, and though the fae high priestess was taller than me by at least six inches, that just meant that the top of Cass' head came up to her chest instead of her chin. She had to lift her hands to set the crown on his dark hair, moving with smooth strength.

He didn't move, his face impassive and breathing calm. In the distance, I heard a wolf howl, and then another, and another, until it seemed like every wolf pack in the mountains was singing to each other, the faint, eerie sounds floating on the wind.

"Let this crown be a reminder of the weight of your duty to Mercy," the high priestess intoned. One of her ears tilted towards the mountains, as if monitoring the wolfsong. "Its people are yours. Its land and treasure are yours. You answer to Mercy, and none other."

The Court responded as the crown settled onto Cass' head. Dust swirled in eddies across the entire surface of the stone platform, swept across it by a sharp gust of wind. The leaves on the high priestess' corset rattled. Several tore off and floated off into the void. On the twin thrones, the carvings of bramble roses shifted, going from simple illustrative carvings to high relief, stems polished and thorns gleaming wickedly sharp.

Mirroring her soulmate, Danica stepped forward and knelt, holding the iron crown up.

Iron burns fae. Glancing contact won't hurt them severely, but the longer they hold it or the longer it's inside them, the worse the damage and pain gets. I'd been told that an iron arrowhead could kill a fae within half an hour if it wasn't removed, dissolving in their blood and leaving them fatally poisoned, and that holding cold iron would leave burns.

She still picked it up, sliding her fingers carefully beneath the rim. The lowest part of the crown gleamed with a silkier tone than the rest—silver, I realized, to protect the head that wore it and the hands that touched it.

The high priestess didn't crown me. She turned and held out the crown to Cass, a faint smile touching her mouth. "Even more than a Court, a soulmate is the greatest gift Faery may grant, whether to fae or mortal. Mercy chose your soul, and your soul chose hers. Thus, it is you who should crown your soulmate, Merciful King."

Cass took the crown, his brows drawn together and with anxiety tensing his face. He shifted, turning towards me while still on his knees.

"Are you willing?" he asked, holding my iron crown.

It was more than a question of if I was willing to wear a crown on my head for the sake of pageantry. Cass met my eyes with quiet determination, and he gave me the opportunity to choose him… or not. Was I willing? To wear a fae crown, to have a soulmate, to learn how the two of us would correspond?

To stay?

It wasn't a fair question. It wasn't a fair situation, not for him and not for me. Faery had thrown us together, and now we were here, with the Court's entire focus on us.

"He's land-tied," Danica had said, in a way that made me wonder if my sense of the Court as part of Cass' body was more than merely the connection from his magic. That he was bound to the Court in a bone-deep way, and that if he set his crown on my head, I would be, too.

He'd healed the raw wound of the opal mine. He'd healed me. Protected me from death and injury, over and over again, without even needing to think about it. The Court was his body, and if I agreed, it would be mine, too.

To say yes was to agree to never set foot off this Court again. To remain in Faery, with him, forever.

He could simply have crowned me—claimed me. Bound me to the Court, and thus, to him.

But he'd asked.

"I'm willing," I said, holding his gaze.

His lashes fluttered, and Cass gave me a tiny nod. "Then I crown you, Quyen Anh, Queen of Mercy," he said softly, talking only to me. His fingers brushed my scalp, and for a moment I was as much him as myself.

—anxious, wanting, terrified, hoping—

The weight of the crown settled onto my head, cool and inflexible, and with the sensation of a sigh, the Court settled into me, like an old dog laying its head into its master's lap to sleep.

"Let this crown be a reminder of the weight of your duty to Mercy," Cass said with quiet intensity, his dark eyes holding me captive. "Its people are yours. Its land and treasure are yours. You answer to Mercy, and none other."

"Rise," the high priestess said, "and claim your thrones."

Dukes

Cass and I took seats in our respective thrones, with Danica at my right hand and Vaduin to his left hand. The arrangement set me off-kilter until I realized that I was expecting to be at Cass' left hand instead of his right, because he was the King and I was the soulmate. Maybe it didn't work like that here, though. He'd given me the same coronation that he'd gotten, and we had thrones of equals. Maybe it didn't matter that I was the soulmate, at least as far as power went.

A thrill ran through me at the thought. The Court had killed four men for me because I'd wanted them taken care of. Mercy loved me. It caught me with terrifying ease. I was wargs and trees and mountains, and I was Mercy's Queen.

The wind picked up again as we took our seats, the cold promise of rain. I glanced up at the sky almost in synchrony with the high priestess and Vaduin, but aside from the thin white clouds high overhead, there wasn't much in the sky. Darker clouds hazed the air over the mountains far to the southwest, but with any luck we'd be safe from getting drenched.

Cass took a careful breath and turned his dark gaze back to the high priestess. "Let us welcome the High Court," he said, his voice steady and devoid of emotion.

"As you will it," she said, and turned to walk back down the stairway, disappearing from sight.

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