He shuddered under me. "I do," he said, exhaling the words.
With my heart in my throat, I started untying the makeshift bandage. The blood soaking it made it difficult to undo the knot. It was slippery and half-coagulated together, defying me, but I got it untied. I had to brace myself for the gore I knew was underneath, taking meditative breaths. I'd seen that greatsword through his arm. I knew how bad the wound had to be.
I took a breath and took it off. Cass' breath grew shallower, and he started trembling, his wings ting-ting-tinging behind us.
"Shh, it's okay," I said, holding myself together for him. I slid my fingers around the cuff of his sleeve like they were scissors, aligned with the tear in the blood-soaked cloth, and leaned gently into my connection with the Court.
The cloth between my fingers rotted in a heartbeat. I ripped through the fragile fibers, working my way up, and rolled back his sleeve.
Ithronel's sword had left a gruesome wound behind. Cass had taken it between the two bones of his forearm, but that vicious twist of her blade had broken both, and left behind gouged and torn flesh. It was seeping blood in a steady flow. The thick red dripped down his skin and soaked into my skirt.
At least he wasn't hurting. That was the best thing that could be said for the injury.
Carefully, I set both my hands on his forearm, over the gaping red wound in his flesh. I closed my eyes to steady myself. Faery hated worked iron. The Court of Mercy had despised the blades the bandits had thrown onto the ground, and through me it had been able to destroy them. Cass didn't need the clock turned forward; he could heal far better than time. But the star-iron in him had burned him—was still burning him, I realized, feeling the Court's loathing for the traces of metal that had seared their way into its King.
Rust, I thought softly, my lips shaping the word.
It did.
It just did, the iron reacting with the oxygen in his blood to become microscopic shards of rust. In the space of a heartbeat, the sense of wrongness vanished, leaving behind only the permanence of an iron wound. Mercy purred with pleasure in the back of my mind.
Cass let out a sharp whimper. His warm hand covered mine, his breathing suddenly heavy panting and his trembling grown to shuddering. Under our hands, his wound started closing, the natural healing of the body sped up and directed by his will and the power of the Court.
My whole arm started itching. Pus and blood oozed out of both sides of the wound, the disgusting proof of healing. A sickening crunch marked the movement of his bones into place. Instant relief hit, the raw tension of the broken bones vanishing and the muscles no longer deformed by shards of bone.
The edges of the wound drew closer together. His forearm tensed, pinky jerking. My hand went staticky with the painful tingling of a numb limb waking up.
I gritted my teeth, starting to shake. Cass' wings rattled from the force of his trembling.
He flexed his hand. Muscles twitched under our touch, coming back online again as he reconnected nerves. With each new connection came the shock of the neural pathway. Tiny patches of heat, cold, pressure, pain, itch, prickling, stretch; a jumble of signaling that felt like going insane.
Cass grunted, then took a deep breath and forcibly relaxed both of us. I gasped from the sudden cessation of discomfort. My head lolled back against his chest.
The wound narrowed, then closed. Tingling pain spiked and vanished.
Blood turned to a gnarled scab, then crumbled and peeled off. The jagged and ugly purple scar it left behind faded to red, then turned brown, a slightly darker color than his warm brown skin.
Cass let out a heavy breath and slumped backwards against the throne. He flexed his hand, wiggling each finger, and shuddered. "Thank you, lioness," he whispered in a hoarse voice. "I'm not sure I could have done that without your help."
I drew another heart on the back of his hand. My eyes stung with tears of relief—his as much as mine.
He swallowed hard. "I can feel it, now." Cass wrapped both arms around me, holding me like a lifeline. "Gods. Thank you." He shuddered, then whispered it again. "Thank you."
Our clothes were bloodied and crusted, but Cass was clinging to me like he would die if he let go, and I decided to ignore the mess. I turned and pressed my cheek against his chest, listening to the heavy thud of his heart. "There's no reason to thank me," I murmured, though the warmth of that trust and gratitude seeped through me, washing away the pain of the past days. "We're a team, right? We do this together."
A bright emotion sang through me with the same shivering sensation as seeing a beautiful piece of art for the first time. Cass nuzzled my hair, his breath warming me. "It feels like all I bring to your life is hardship," he said in a low voice. His arms tightened around me. "I cost you your family, your freedom… A goddess tried to kill you, Quyen."
I relaxed back against him, looking at the sky with a soft smile. "My family is safer and better-cared-for than they've ever been before." I started stroking my fingers along his strong forearm, tracing the smooth line of his scar. "I chose to stay in Mercy, and I can do pretty much whatever I want within its borders. And," I added, tilting my head back to smile up into his eyes, "it's pretty badass to be able to say I stood up to a goddess."
Cass lifted his lip, but didn't protest.
Light streaked across the sky, a brilliant flash against the midnight black. I almost laughed, delighted to see something like that. It was too bright in the city to see much of anything in the night sky. "Shooting star," I said. "Make a wish."
"Bad omen," he said drily. Cass let go of me and sprawled back against the back of the throne with a sigh. "Meteor showers amplify combat magic, among other things. I believe there's one later this season."
"…Troubling," I said, contemplating what that might mean for us, given everything.
"Very." He sighed again before patting the sides of my thighs. "Let's go get cleaned up and, well… deal with the rest of this."