17. Soot

Soot

T he entrance to the courtyard had moved with the courtyard. I stepped back into the palace before anyone could think to stop me. It wasn't that I particularly wanted to be in the palace, but I definitely didn't want to be on a shattered courtyard staring at the mangled remains of a dragon, and I thought that maybe I should… I didn't know. Talk to Cass? Look at him and try to divine the right thing to say to someone who'd survived dragonfire in front of a crowd of fae nobles?

Daisies growing thorns had been only the gentlest foretaste of a courtyard growing knives. Nobody who'd seen that was going to forget it. My soulmate had bite .

Adrenaline heat thrilled through me like the rising anticipation before the rollercoaster tips over the edge. Faery thought I could match that—could match him . For one fraction of a second, Cass had been off the leash, and like an adrenaline junkie at Universal Studios, I wanted more. Not more of the blood and gore, but more freedom , power crackling at my fingertips. I liked to dance in the rain and tease the lightning, and Cass was lightning.

A man's hand grabbed my arm before I'd gotten more than ten feet down the hallway. I whipped around, nostrils flaring and all the skin of my face going tense, meeting the Misted Duke's eyes with heat.

"Get your hand off me," I said, voice cold.

He let go, instantly, holding his hands up in a gesture of peace. "I meant no offense, your majesty," Tech said. "I simply—" He exhaled sharply, his body taut. "You ought not chase him down."

My eyes narrowed. "And why's that, your grace?"

His ears laid back for a moment, his whole body tensing as his eyes flicked back towards the door. "He's surely strained. A man close to the edge of his control. With a monstrous power like that at his command…"

I made myself take a careful breath, not wanting to make the situation worse. "He's not a monster."

"Not yet," he said grimly.

"Did you see how fast he did it? How cleanly?" I snapped back, anger sparking under my regimented calm. "He protected every stupid fucking courtier there. Dozens of people would have been burned to death, and the only people who died were the two standing right next to the damn thing. Paloma was barely four feet away from him, and she's fine, even if her clothing isn't." I clenched my jaw. "He even caught the people who fell when he shoved our half of the courtyard out of dragon-range. What about that reads as 'monster'?"

Tech's jaw clenched for a moment, but he didn't respond in kind, merely lowering his hands with a serious expression. "His Majesty's control is obviously exemplary," he said in a quiet voice. "Yet no man can maintain perfect control for his entire life. What happens when he's upset or distracted, and something happens at the exact wrong time?"

I didn't have an answer for that. I'd thought the same thing, after all.

He seemed to sense my hesitation, leaning forward. "Mages with that sort of power can destroy civilizations , your majesty," he said, low and intense. "Of all the mages on the Western Continent, the only one to rival the sheer magical strength of the Merciful King is the Stag King, and he has the blood of tens of thousands on his hands." Tech hissed a breath through his teeth. His ears moved like a wary animal's, monitoring the voices of the people still out on the courtyard. "Courts can drive even trained heirs insane. Today only two men died. Can you truly say that, next time, it won't be more?"

My expression went tight. "They would have died either way," I said, even though that defense made my gut churn. "None of this would have happened if the Serpent King hadn't tried to kill him."

"I doubt it was the Serpent King," Tech said, his eyes going hard. "These presentations are carefully screened for baneful magic. Whatever geas-spell or talisman that was used on that beast was surely placed today, and possibly mere minutes before the presentation." His ears pinned back. "Someone was testing him. Someone here ."

"Well, they failed." I crossed my arms over my chest to hide how much that information disturbed me. "And I'm not going to be their lackey. He's my soulmate. That doesn't scare me."

The duke shook his head, the short iron-gray curls of his hair bouncing. "There's nothing stopping you from opposing him," he said, though he stood back, falling into an easy stance. "You can decide to protect the rest of the world from him—that something that can tear a war-dragon to shreds in an eyeblink shouldn't be allowed to stalk the face of Faery with impunity. It's your choice, your majesty." He gave me a slight bow, hand over his heart and a sharp smile lifting the corners of his mouth. "If you'd like to seek your soulmate, he's surely had enough time to gather his control again. I think you'll be safe now."

The implication that he'd stopped me to protect me caught me up short. I frowned at him, brows pulling together, but he didn't elaborate. The words tugged at all the years of Auntie's tutelage in manners, demanding that I thank him for the consideration—but I knew better. I'd learned those lessons about fae early.

"Until next we meet," I said, turning away with my eyes still on him.

"Until then," he said, expression level.

Nobody else accosted me on my way to my rooms. That was probably for the best. Tech had left me more unsettled than I wanted to admit. I didn't think he was right about Cass, but I also couldn't claim to be one-hundred-percent certain that he wasn't.

What if he was right? If, one day, Cass slipped, and tens of thousands paid for it with their lives?

So we don't let that happen , I thought, brow furrowed. We figure out what Cass needs to handle the Court's power, and we give it to him.

He was in the shower when I got back to the monarchal suite. The water thundered down, and steam fogged the mirror next to the bathroom door. If I focused, I could feel cold pressure against his skin, the water pounding against his head and shoulders. Cass must have used the water to cool off his superheated wings, and was standing there, braced against the wall, letting the shower sweep the soot away.

I followed the steam up, looking at the painted ceiling. Even more than I remembered, it was an oppressive thing to have overhead. The white walls and dark ceiling made it feel like the mountain was descending onto me. Heavy stone loomed overhead, unbroken even by decorative beams, covered with richly-painted horrors. Wolves tore a unicorn to shreds; naked humans bowed in obeisance to an enormous, bird-headed man painted red, with blood dripping from his fingertips. Distant forest fires encroached on bucolic scenes, turning the painted skies black with smoke.

Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath. It was only paint. Surely it wouldn't be that difficult to get someone to come in here with some primer and a bucket of ceiling paint, and blot out all the ugliness.

I sat down and got right back up, too full of stress and worry to sit calmly and wait for Cass to get out of the shower. The fact that we had a timeline – that in less than two hours, I had to be in evening wear and walking into a formal dinner with Cass on my arm – harried me as I paced. All of this focus on formal etiquette I didn't understand and the sort of elegant affairs I'd never learned how to attend was making me crazy. I liked the luxury, but I was too unprepared for the rest of it to enjoy any of it. If I'd been a fox in a trap, I would have gnawed my own foot off to escape by day two of this shit, and here I was, five days and an assassination attempt in, facing down another day and a half of it.

I stalked around the enormous bedroom, worrying on it like a dog with a bone. When Cass finally came out of the bathroom with his hair wet and expression set, I planted myself in front of him with my hands up on my hips and frowned up at him.

Cass blinked down at me like an owl, the first expression other than flat endurance I'd seen him wear in days. "Quyen. You're here," he said, with the sort of quiet disbelief that people use when someone stands up for them unexpectedly.

The whole atmosphere of the room shifted with him in it. We stood in a pool of calm, like sunlight breaking through the clouds to fall on us. I wanted to bask in it – to melt against him, his heartbeat under my ear and his fingers in my hair – but I didn't, letting him keep the distance he chose.

"This is my bedroom," I pointed out, my expression easing. "Why wouldn't I be here?"

His wings hunched up in a defensive posture. "Because I am," he said softly.

I tilted my head to the side, looking up at him without reproach, the quiet sorrow in those words squeezing my heart. "Why should that bother me?"

I knew why he might think that. It was obvious. A dragon turned to mincemeat was the sort of vicious display that could turn any stomach. I wasn't going to put the words in his mouth, though. How he said it seemed a lot more important than what he said.

His ears dropped down and the corners of his mouth trembled. "I've spent centuries seeing how frightened people are of my magic." Cass swallowed, looking away. "I don't blame them. It's frightening. Even before I had a Court's power at my command it was frightening. Most people don't look past that."

"I'm not looking past it," I said, searching his expression. "I'm looking right at it. You can't just chop pieces of people off and claim that what's left is the 'real' person. There's not some secret core. You're all of it."

One corner of his mouth twitched back into an expression that looked like sorrow. "I suppose so."

"You're my soulmate, Cass. That's not a problem for me." When his dark eyes flicked back over to mine, I gave him a half-smile.

He lifted his hand like he might brush my hair back behind my ear, then lowered it, his throat working. "Then what's upsetting you?"

All my unhappiness surged to the forefront. I scowled. "How the fuck am I expected to go to a formal dinner after that ? I've been patient. I've dutifully attended the world's most tedious viewing parties and done my damndest to have pleasant conversations with rich assholes who look at me like I'm a homeless woman in their favorite park, but this ?"

"Quyen…" he started.

I started tapping my foot, an irate habit I'd picked up from my manager at the club. "I'm not done," I said. "Someone literally tried to incinerate you, me, and a nice big swathe of our obnoxious courtiers, like, thirty minutes ago. There are big, wet chunks of dragon all over a bisected courtyard, so why the hell are we hosting a dinner party? Don't we have some seriously more important things to care about?"

Cass raked his fingers through his hair, looking anywhere but me. "Can I put on some pants? Before we have this conversation?"

I looked down in surprise. Not even that far down, because his hips were about level with the bottom of my sternum, and that was where he had his hand clutching the white towel closed. A towel, because he was naked, and because he was still damp from his shower, with droplets of water clinging to his bare skin and wetting the narrow trail of dark hair that led down from his navel.

My eyes tracked south along that trail and my brain short-circuited. The fae I'd seen were pretty hairless, and Cass was no exception, but that didn't mean they didn't have pubes—and Cass, again, was no exception.

His were shaved. There was maybe a millimeter of stubble, the edges of it peeking above the white terrycloth. Black, coarse, dense—

His hand tightened on the towel, dragging it up a half-inch. Heat flooded through me, a molten golden sensation that made me aware of every inch of my skin.

I jerked my eyes back up his statuesque body to his face and put on a tight smile. "Right. Pants. Sure." I stepped to the side.

Cass gave me a nod and strode past, his blush and mine combining to turn my face searing hot. All the feathers on his wings were roused. They gleamed in the light, every one of them a deadly weapon.

What did it say about me that I liked that even more than the view from the front?