Page 42 of Crowned By the Fae King

"As I can feel Mercy's yoke, I'm fairly sure the order remains the same for me," Cass said in a dry voice, though he sounded uncomfortable—and maybe a little uncertain. Given people's reactions, and from what he'd said, the extreme reaction of the landscape was right up there in the god tier. If it was unsettling for the common man, it had to be unsettling for him, too.

Discomfort flickered across Paloma's face, but she hid it well. I might not have seen it if I hadn't bartended at a strip club for so long, and learned how to tell when the dancers – who were talented professionals at hiding discomfort – needed a rescue. "Even were you to stand before your worshippers and declare yourself not a god, I doubt they would believe it," she said coldly, though I didn't think the ice was directed at Cass. "The fools would surely believe you misled."

"What's your desire, then?" Cass asked. He shuffled his wings. "You said they were being insistent. They've been on the palace grounds, albeit on the other side of the bridge, for days now. What makes today any different?"

Paloma looked like she'd bitten into a lemon. "Three fae and a mortal claim to have been visited by Ithronel. They say she wept as she spoke of a thief in her palace drinking her springs dry." Her hands clenched so tightly in her lap that her knuckles went pale. "They say her statue stepped off the pedestal and spoke to them in her temple, and indeed, the statue is gone and the priestesses on duty fled. They weren't your worshippers before, your majesty, but they are now, and they're preaching that you can conquer death for all of Mercy on the Silver Coronation."

There was that phrase again—"Silver Coronation."

"That's ridiculous," Cass snapped before I could say anything. His dark wings mantled with the sound of a drawn sword as he leaned forward, casting me in shadow. "How can fae say something like that?"

Her face pinched tighter. "I expect that they believe every word, your majesty."

I raised my hand like a child in school and gave Paloma a pretty smile. "For the sake of a mortal who's only just recently made it to civilized lands, what's the Silver Coronation?"

Cass sighed gustily and dropped forward, catching his weight on his forearms on the back of the couch. "Wild magic is influenced by the sky," he said, relaxing away from sharp frustration as he spoke. "The most visible manifestation of that influence are the sky-called shapeshifters, of which moon-called are the most common."

"No shit?" I asked, craning my neck to look up at him. "There's fae werewolves?"

His ears lifted and tilted towards me as he laughed. "Something like that." He settled his wings behind him and smiled down at me, the expression lighting up his whole face. "All celestial lights, including meteors and auroras, affect power. The three major comets are the strongest of these. Strange and terrible magic can be done when the comets are in the sky, and all three of them will be lighting our nights in a little less than two years."

"Huh." I digested that. Maybe there was more to astrology and geomancy than I'd given people credit for. "How often does that happen? And why 'Silver Coronation'?"

"The comets are sometimes called the Scepter, the Sword, and the Crown," Paloma said with an air of benevolent instruction. "Llystaeon, Incantes, and Mistravel. Those three items are commonly used during coronations, and the white light of the comets is reminiscent of silver."

Cass draped himself more firmly along the couch, his wing shadowing me. "And they align, oh, every three and a half million years or so."

I gave him an over-exaggerated frown and received a boyish grin in reply, showing a dimple in his right cheek. "Do not tell me there's three-and-a-half-million-year-old fae."

"Fae? No," he said. "At least, not that anyone knows of. The oldest living fae are somewhere around a hundred fifty thousand years old. Anything older than that is liable to be a god or a monster, and possibly both."

"Fucking hell," I muttered under my breath. That was, like, the Stone Age of the Stone Age.

"You've got a mouth on you," Cass said, sounding pleased about it.

"That's what men tell me," I said, smirking up at him for a moment. Heat thudded into me, Cass losing his grip on his physical experience of sexual attraction for a moment as his eyes widened. With a wicked grin, I turned back to Paloma.

"Alright, so," I said, acting as if the byplay was a totally normal thing to do in front of a religious administrator. Fae were chill with public sex, so presumably it was. "Four people claim to have had a religious vision, and they're preaching that Cass is their holy savior who will end death itself." I exhaled a sharp breath through my nose. "Obviously, we don't want some sort of cult on our doorstep. What's your solution, hierarch?"

A strange light settled into her face—not quite mania, but something akin to it; a bloodthirstiness that made my hackles rise. I recognized that look. I'd seen it before, on the faces of gangbangers and reckless adrenaline junkies. Those people were the ones to stay far, far away from, unless you liked games of Russian Roulette and tattoos of black tears.

"They claim you want to abolish death," she said with calm satisfaction. "Prove them otherwise. Remind them that there is a god of death, too."

"I'm a healer," Cass said, his voice going cold.

"You're battle-trained. You fought in the Annihilation War, and those deadly wings you wear are the proof of the blood on your hands," Paloma said, meeting his eyes without fear. The silver tears painted on her face glittered. "You're a killer. Stymphalian birds are creatures made for tearing through armies, and so are you."

A dangerous, animalistic rumble started in my soulmate's chest. He leaned forward. "They're not my enemies."

"They're the enemies of the goddess of mercy," she said. She didn't flinch away from his anger. "Does that not make them your enemies, King of Mercy?"

I got to my feet, all my skin cold. I couldn't forget what it had been like to slaughter people with the power of the Court—how easy it was. If I could do something like that, with no training and no knowledge of how human bodies fit together, what could someone like Cass do? "She's the goddess of mercy," I said in a flat voice. "Aren't you her priestess?"

The smile Paloma gave me would have chilled the blood of seasoned soldiers. "To grant mercy is to make debtors," she said, like she was quoting something, "and faery things pay their debts, or die."

Influence

Cass pushed himself up, straightening to his full, looming height. His control settled onto me like shackles, my heart beating with his. "As they have not yet caused me nor Mercy harm, they need neither pay nor die," he said in a dangerous rumble that sent giddy heat skidding down my spine. "Think carefully on your next words, hierarch, lest you find yourself entombed in my palace the way others remain entombed across my Court."

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