Page 82 of Crowned By the Fae King

Cass and I both jerked away from the sound, my ears ringing. Vaduin stood in the doorway, his eyes hard and fixed on a point between us as if he could cut a line down the center of the room. His tail snapped again, snaking through the air.

"Pull yourselves together," Vaduin said in an ice-cold voice. "Ithronel's feast is set to begin in less than an hour. You're late, you're a mess, and you have three dukes who would surely love to see you embarrassed in front of your Court."

Cass didn't even look at me. He turned his back on me, and walked away.

Vaduin took a deep breath, clenching his teeth, then gave a tiny shake of his head and followed Cass without a word. His judgment hurt more than I expected it to. I'd known him for all of two months, but I liked and respected him. Having him see me laying into his best friend, no matter how righteously, sucked. Even the knowledge that Cass was probably getting the same chill silence didn't help.

Kat was in my room, waiting for me, wearing a nervous expression. I didn't bother explaining. I submitted myself to her care, and got ready for Ithronel's feast.

I took the world's fastest shower, doing nothing but scrubbing my pits and washing my hair, and did my best to be a good mannequin while Kat dressed me up. It wasn't my first high feast, though it was probably the most important one for the Court of Mercy. They happened every thirty-five days, each one dedicated to a different god, and unlike the coronation events, the focus was on the deity, not the Monarchs.

My dress was merely a dress, one designed for the winter weather. The fur ruff and layers of heavy cloth made me feel like some sort of barbarian bride. It was all in silver and black, lovely and dark, with jet earrings and a delicate tiara made to look like willow leaves perched on my glossy black hair.

There wasn't time for us to go hang out in the waiting room—not that I really wanted to be alone with Cass right then. We made it to the great hall approximately sixty seconds before we were supposed to enter.

Cass looked heartbreakingly handsome in black velvet embroidered with silver thread and tiny crystals to look like the night sky. A crown matching mine gleamed on his dark hair, the simple braids held in place with long pins capped in what looked like black zirconium. Long black chandelier-cut gems dangling from his lobes caught the light as he moved, drawing my attention to his pinned-back ears and the tension in his jaw.

He didn't look at me. He held his arm out for our entrance, eyes straight ahead, and didn't look down.

I didn't want that level of connection with him, but refusing was worse than saying yes. I took a deep breath and set my hand on his arm.

A shudder ran through his body. Depths of unhappiness cracked open inside me, a pain that felt impossible for one person to carry. His shoulders, tight; his throat, aching; his wings, longing for the sky.

It's too much, I can't do this, how am I supposed to survive this if she hates me? I can't do this, I don't know how to do this—

"Don't," he whispered, another tiny shudder making his feathers tink against each other.

I yanked my attention away from him in time to hear the announcer crying out our names.

We stepped forward together, as if we were a pair; as if we were happy and serene and perfectly matched. Cass matched his strides to mine, moving like a bodyguard. I could only keep my eyes fixed on the high table, where the high priestess stood in her regalia, waiting for her Monarchs.

Something was horribly wrong. I felt it the second we stepped into the room. It was in the set of the high priestess' shoulders and the way my footsteps rang on the floor. Baneful—inescapable. The world seemed to constrict around me, like walking down a tunnel in a dream, as if reality fell away behind me, no longer bothering to render.

A sense of doom prickled across the back of my neck. It wasn't anxiety, or even fear. It felt like I was outside of my body, watching myself walking towards the door with the monster behind it, an observer helpless to stop what was going to happen. You are going to die, some deep-seated part of my lizard brain said. You can't escape. It's over.

Not now, I begged the universe. Everything's already horrible. Please just let us get through this, first. Just Ithronel's feast, let us survive this before you give us anything worse—

We made it across the floor. Got to the foot of the platform on which the high table stood. Had our hands over our hearts, about to bow to the high priestess.

The sword fell.

Between one heartbeat and the next, the great hall went from being full of light to twilight dusk. Cold bit at me. Flurries of snow rolled through the air on the wind, falling onto the suddenly-silent courtiers.

The dread fell away into horrible calm. Slowly, knowing what I would find, I turned around.

The entire back wall of the great hall was gone, replaced by a dense, snowy forest, one unlike any I'd seen in Mercy thus far. Bare branches wove together, cutting across the bloody sunset sky. Gnarled trees seemed to shift as I looked at them, like they were monsters in disguise.

Standing where the door had been, in an archway made of trees, stood a woman.

She was easily eight feet tall, and maybe taller. Curling black tattoos that moved like branches in the wind patterned her deep green skin. Black, tightly curled hair fell around her face with green leaves sprouting out of it, leaf after leaf until what cascaded to the ground was the branches of a weeping willow. Salt tracks of dried tears traced down her dark skin, glittering like the snow.

In her hand was a greatsword, one as cold and alien as the rapier Cass had made me from the iron of a meteor. Star-iron, in the hand of a goddess.

"Xarcassah Marys," Ithronel said as she stalked forward, her voice ringing out across the hall. No one moved, too stunned or terrified to act. "You feast in my name, piling delicacies on your tables, and yet starve me. I am hungry, Merciful King. Where is my place at the table?"

Her bare feet left gleaming prints, as wet as those of a woman stepping out of a shower.

Cass stood there, trembling. His wings sounded, a chorus of knives, but he said nothing.

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