26. Revel In It

Revel In It

I expected Cass to lead me down the stairs, as he'd done after the coronation, or maybe to take me somewhere wall-like to make a door.

He did no such thing. He turned us so that we had the thrones to our back, moonlight streaming over us, and with a sharp snap of his wings tore a rift in the open air.

Music and light poured out of the twelve-foot-high tear in reality. Behind us sprawled Mercy's night—before us, the great coronation revel came to a staggering halt, every eye turning towards us.

The musicians played on, the wild music of the revel thrumming through the air. Cass lifted his chin as he folded his wings down, then stepped forward. I schooled my expression into heavy-lidded calm, as if terrifying, world-breaking magic and soul-telepathy was no big thing, and stepped into the revel alongside him.

People parted in front of us like minnows in front of sharks. Behind us, reality snapped back together with a whipcrack, a breeze whooshing across my back. Mercy murmured underfoot, a self-satisfied sort of focus. It was an empire. It liked its King being viewed as a god.

We stepped across the warm hardwood floor of the ballroom, coming to a halt in the dead center under an enormous chandelier, with the High Court all around us. Color and light flickered in my peripheral vision, the courtiers dressed with all the vibrance of tropical flowers and the light shining through jeweled collars around the throats of the glass lamps.

I kept my eyes on Cass. All my skin was hyperaware of the air and the eyes. I felt like I could count the people watching us from nothing more than feeling their gaze on my skin.

Cass settled us into a dancer's pose, my hand on his upper arm and his on my hip instead of beneath the drifting mist that fell down the small of my back. The only outward indication of the tension vibrating between us was the way the claws of his gauntlet jewelry pricked me through the fabric. Even the Court seemed to be holding its breath, the attention of the entire world falling on us .

The pace of the music changed, to something more stately, as befitting the first dance of a King and Queen. Cass rolled one shoulder. The palace turned eagerly towards him, like a dog fawning at its master's feet. "What's your favorite flower?" he asked in a low rumble.

"Irises," I said, not missing a beat, even with the power of Mercy growing over me like ivy. "The spiky Pacific kind, not the big frilly bearded ones old ladies grow in their gardens."

One corner of his mouth kicked up into a wicked smile. "As my soulmate desires," he said, and stepped into the dance with the rising song.

I didn't know how to do formal dancing, and while I had a vague idea of what a waltz was, I definitely didn't know any fae formal dances. It didn't matter. Cass knew the steps, and he moved through them with confidence. I knew his body, and I moved with him.

Under our feet, the floor blossomed into color.

Golden boards of ancient oak gave way to inlaid wood with every step, blooming out from the center of the floor where we'd stood. Spars of olive-green matched with pale tan speared out into a sun-in-glory from which long stems sprouted across an ebony mosaic. Irises wrought in dusky violet and blue with vivid yellow pollen sprawled across the floor like a strewn bouquet. Cass asked, and the palace answered without restraint, turning the ballroom floor into wild beauty.

People gasped. The crowd murmured, people milling about in uneasy clusters from the ostentatious display of Court magic.

I started grinning, unable to help it. Storms and dragonslaying were one thing, but this? Doing something beautiful; doing it in front of people, and doing it for me?

I looked back up at Cass. He still had his eyes on my face, though his ears shifted, tracking the room. "Show-off," I breathed, delighted by him.

His thumb stroked along my side as he took us in a wider circle, driving the courtiers off of the floor—making them see it all. "They're not looking at me in this ridiculous outfit, though, are they?" Cass asked. A tiny smile played across his lips. "And these irises will surely last longer than cut ones."

Cut irises wouldn't go amiss, either , I thought, amused at the grandiosity of the gesture. It reminded me of something in a movie. I suspected Cass had never seen a movie, but maybe grand gestures came naturally to him. "Go big or go home, hmm?"

"Do you like them?" he asked, his ears lifting into a hopeful position. A silent question hid behind the words, one I could almost hear: do you like me?

"They're beautiful. It's amazing," I said, letting my happiness show in the words. I tilted my head back with a bright laugh. "This is worth all six days of horrible events."

His smile could have lit the night. "You truly think so? "

"Truly," I said, charmed by the formality of the faery phrasing. "I wouldn't have expected you to do something like this. I love it."

He brought us to a halt in the center of the ballroom floor as the song came to a close, flowers radiating out from us in all directions, as if we stood in the center of the world. The palace practically purred with pleasure, reveling in the focus of the High Court on its Monarchs.

Cass gave me a deep bow, still holding onto my hand. "I love being a mage. It's been one of the few sources of joy in my five centuries of life," he admitted. "I dislike being viewed with fear and awe, but…" A smile lifted the corners of his mouth. "They're not looking at me, and I'm not looking at them."

"I'm not afraid," I said, bowing back faery-style, with one hand over my heart. I stood and stepped back into his embrace. "Maybe a little awed. But only a little." I flashed him another smile. "Thank you for the flowers, Cass."

Cass settled his hand on my hip again. "My pleasure," he said, and swept me back into motion.

We danced until dinner wore thin. Under ordinary circumstances, I wouldn't have lasted nearly so long, but getting footsore was no longer in my physical lexicon. Dressed as I was, I barely even sweated, though at one point Cass dragged his metal gauntlet-claws through my hair to bare the sweat on my neck, and asked if I needed anything to drink.

I probably could have used a glass of water or three, but I wasn't about to tell him that. Maybe if my hair got sweaty enough, he'd do it again, and I could feel that streak of adrenaline pleasure from having sharp claws raked across my scalp again.

The courtiers couldn't mill on the sidelines forever, and bit by bit, they crept their way back onto the dance floor. By the time midnight rolled around, people were laughing and dancing and outright fucking again. They didn't come close to us, though. We moved across the dance floor in our own little bubble, people staying well out of range of Cass' wings and touch.

As Cass had suggested, I took some time to dance with the dukes and lords. I almost jumped out of my skin when the Misted Duke set his hand on my bare back. It was the technically correct position, but Cass had so chastely kept his hand on my clothed hip that I didn't expect the contact.

"Is this lovely dress a compliment?" he asked, dragging his fingers through the mist dropping from my arm before taking my hand. "Talien gets your smiles, Aeskanai your kindness, and I, your beauty?"

I leaned back into his warm hand. "You make me sound so mercenary," I said with a girlish pout. "I'm just mortal. I can't help it if my courtly manners lack intrigue." I hadn't thought about the implications of the dress at all, but I wasn't about to let him know that.

Tech laughed, with what looked like real humor crinkling the corners of his eyes. "A swordsman is often better-served by executing simple moves with perfection instead of sloppily exercising his imagination," he said, settling us close together to match the slow throb of the music. "A word of advice, though, your majesty? When you dance with Talien, don't purse those soft lips at him. I may be aggressive, but he is hungry ."

"Dance with me, Kettekh," I said, my eyes dropping to the scar on his cheekbone. A duelist , I thought again. "Show me a swordsman's footwork."

"As you like," he said with a smirk, and did.

I'd danced for long enough with Cass that I'd picked up the steps of the common dances, thank fuck, so when the duke took me onto the dance floor I didn't disgrace myself. Even though it was harder to follow Tech, I could tell he was the better dancer. Cass moved with confidence, but simplicity; Tech knew exactly where to put his body, and a hundred variations of every step and turn.

He handed me off with a bow at the end of the song. I took the opportunity to check on Cass, seated so ostentatiously on the decorative throne. Vaduin stood at his side, but Cass was pointedly ignoring him, instead watching the knots of courtiers along the side of the ballroom as they shifted and talked. Now that I wasn't dancing, his tension transferred to me, a discomfort with being displayed that trespassed deep into self-consciousness.

I leaned into my sense of him to get him to pay attention to me. Pressure from the weight of metal hanging off of his shoulders, the slight shift of chains against skin a constant sensory buzz. The feathers of his wings resting against the floor. Pleasant contact from the leather against his thighs—I'm not going to talk to you, Vaddy. Just go away. Go away. Fuck, I hate this, stop trying to make me feel guilty—

Eyes on me, I thought at him. Those had to be his thoughts. I was leaning into him more than I ever had before, the connection of his reflex healing and our mutual tie to the Court of Mercy transmuting into something else.

Cass frowned. I did, too, enough of my focus on him that my body automatically mirrored his.

Quyen, I thought, leaning into my sense of him a little more, letting myself get swept up in my soulmate. Look at Quyen.

His eyes slowly skimmed across the crowd to land on me. He started breathing too hard, heart pounding and lips parting. Quyen? The thought wasn't spoken clearly, so faint and fuzzy that I might not have been able to parse it if it had been anything other than my name.

I could never have left, I realized. Not with this on the table. Not with him on the other end of the line.

I tapped the corner of my eye, smiling at him. Eyes on me, I said again, elation flooding my veins. I really was touching his soul. Six weeks of swimming through wild magic had turned the bond between us into a canyon.

Fear spiked through me. Cass shoved himself to his feet, still staring at me, but with his ears pinned back. The claws of his gauntlets drove into his palms, sending pressure radiating through my hands. Stay. Out. Of. My. Mind , he bit out, the sharp focus of the words hitting me so hard I reeled backwards.

Cass, wait—!

Every light in the ballroom cut out, plunging the room into black. People shrieked in surprise. Something crashed to the ground, the tinkling sound of glass skittering through the perfumed air.

I hit the wall. It recoiled , terror skidding through my veins. For one hideous moment, I stood in a bubble of pure nothingness, the world so dark my vision sparkled and no sound reached my ears, before all the lights came back on, blazing even brighter than before.

The courtiers milled, uneasy laughter ringing in sharp bursts across the room. Musicians struck up again with determined revelry.

My eyes caught on Vaduin, who stood with his hands on the back of the decorative throne and his head bowed, breathing hard.

No one stood next to him. Cass was gone.