40. Feast of Willows

Feast of Willows

C ass dumped me onto the ground almost before he'd landed, snapping his wings down with an audible shing! My feet skidded in the snow.

"Your majesties," Paloma said without preface, her eyes hard. Her breath fogged in the frigid air. The silver tears painted on her face glittered. "Are you aware that the cultists have built a temple to the King?"

"It's not a temple," I said, still spitting mad and still with my body locked under Cass' control. "It's a town hall. It's on the goddamn architectural map, labeled and everything."

Her lip lifted in disgust. "So you knew," she said, half-sneering. "You gave that rabble of sycophants a land-grant. You. "

I took a deep breath, hating that my body was calm against my will—hating that it would help me; that calm was the right appearance to have in front of a Royal Seneschal who served her goddess first and her Court second, if at all. "I know you dislike them, but they're harmless," I said, trying to paste a smile onto my face. "They've been quarantined, haven't they? It's not like Cass listens to prayers. Ithronel does."

Paloma's nostrils flared. She looked like she was contemplating throwing me off the parapet.

"I wasn't aware of my Queen's misstep," Cass said in a dangerous rumble, stepping in front of me. "I intend to find out precisely what that collection of misled fools is doing, hierarch. I want no temples in my name."

"See to it that you do," she said sharply, as if she could command a King. "Tonight is Ithronel's night. My goddess grants mercy to petitioners, not apostates. Don't think she fails to notice what happens in her Court." Paloma wheeled on her heel and stalked away.

My hands fisted. The Court answered me, rising underneath my skin, a promise of death and rot. No , I whispered to it. No, it's fine .

But it wasn't. I knew it wasn't.

Cass gave me a flat look, his eyes like chips of obsidian. "Let's go," he said, the words cutting. He turned and stalked away.

He expected me to follow, like I was some sort of tame pet. For one feral moment I wanted to defy him ; to crack the walls in half and cleave the ground—to prove that I was no one's slave. That was the reaction of a child, though, the sort of destructive tantrum that I imagined would be met with opals at best and arrows at the worst.

I could see Auntie's disapproving look, that sharp frown she seemed to reserve for me at my worst. "You have too much fire in you," she'd say, shaking her head. "If all you add to the pot is chilis, soon all you'll taste is tears."

I bit down on my anger, and followed Cass.

He strode through the palace like a soldier, wings half-mantled and spine ramrod straight. Paintings turned ugly as he passed. Flowers withered. A vase shattered, the pieces tinkling to the ground.

I had to trot after him. It felt ridiculous, like I was a little kid instead of a Queen and soulmate to the angry man in front of me, but I did it.

I waited until we'd made it into the receiving room of the monarchal suite, Cass slamming the doors open so hard objects rattled, before snapping, "That's quite enough, your splendor."

Cass stopped. All his feathers slicked down in slow menace. He turned, his eyes hard and sharp with anger. "I think you're the one who's done enough, your majesty," he said, spitting out the honorific like it was a curse.

"No," I said, matching him glare for glare. "You don't get to be mad about this."

His wings mantled like an angry hawk. "This is my Court," Cass snarled. "They're my people. My responsibility. What gives you the right to make decisions without me?"

I almost laughed at the audacity. "You don't get to play that card, either," I said. Feral anger limned my bones. It felt like we were a pair of junkyard dogs about to tear each other's throats out. "I'm your soulmate. My throne's up on that mountaintop, same as yours, and the seats are at the same height."

His lip came up in a silent snarl.

"You made it crystal clear to everyone around you that you wanted nothing to do with ruling this Court," I continued mercilessly. "You made it a misery for people to come to you with problems, so they came to me . You abdicated all that so-vaunted responsibility, and I stepped the fuck up." I took a step closer to him, my hands fisted at my sides. "You don't get to be King when it's convenient , Cass. You don't get to bitch about the outcome when you refused to be part of the execution."

"Shall I be punished for giving you free rein, then?" he said silkily. The gold in his eyes gleamed. "Is that it?"

"You don't own me. There's no rein to give," I said, the words dripping in disgust. "I answer to no one but Mercy. You put that fucking crown on my head yourself."

"You agreed," Cass said, eyes hardening.

"Yeah, I fucking did," I snapped right back. "I stayed for you , and you threw me in the deep end and left me there to sink or swim on my own. Are you seriously trying to make it my fault that I made a mistake when you weren't even there ?" I shook my head, barely able to look at him. "You didn't give a shit about where all those people went, as long as you didn't have to look at them. If you cared so fucking much, you should have said something."

Cass' hands curled into claws. I could feel his hurt and bitterness clawing at my spine like vultures tearing at a carcass. "We're the Monarchs." His jaw clenched, the muscle jumping. "We're supposed to be a team. Should I have argued with you in front of them? Squabbled with you like an old hen?"

I made a harsh sound. "You had weeks , Cass. A thousand times you could have told me what you thought. All you had to do was say 'no.'"

"I wanted you to like me," he gritted out.

"Oh, yes, because what I love is when men expect me to do all the work for them, and then get mad at me when I don't do things according to their secret specifications," I said, pouring on the sarcasm. "Get over yourself. You're the King. This is your job ."

"I have done everything I've been asked to—"

"I'm not your fucking manager!" I shouted, loudly enough that he reeled backwards, wings flared. "Neither is Paloma, or Killaren, or any of the other people on our fucking staff! If you don't want to be surprised by what's going on in your own fucking Court, your splendor , then maybe pull your head out of your ass for one second and try to act like a King!"

He snarled, an animalistic sound. "I am trying — "

A whipcrack cut through the air.

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.

She laughed, raising her sword. "No answer for me, thief?" she asked. "No pleading? You made my Court your bones and its power your blood. You have spared nothing for me. I have bitten and bitten, and you have denied me."

He was always channeling. Always casting. They'd bound him with opals, and it had felt like bleeding out.

She was the Court's vampire, and he couldn't bear to let her feed .

Ithronel's face went hard. She came to a halt in front of us. "I demand what is mine by right," she said with low menace. "If you will not bleed for me, I may see fit to make you bleed. The red in your veins will satisfy me as well as the power of this Court."

He just stood there, watching her come for him. He wouldn't fight, I realized. He would rather die than accept what he'd been born to be.

No.

With terror freezing my bones and blood, I stepped in front of Cass. My hands shook as I held my arms to the sides, blocking her way to him. "Don't," I said.

"'Don't'?" she asked with silken hatred. Her tear-reddened eyes gleamed with eldritch light. "You dare to challenge a goddess in her own Court?"

My eyes burned. A single tear fell from my trembling lashes. "Please. I beg mercy."

I didn't care about the price. She could have whatever she wanted from me. I couldn't stand by and watch Cass die, no matter what it cost me.

Ithronel pulled her arm back, with the point of the sword pointed directly at my heart, unmoving. "I have no mercy for you," she snarled.

No—!

Bronze flashed between us in the fraction of a second before her sword impaled me. It struck Cass' wing with the sound of a bell, making my ears ring.

Cass looked down at me for one heartbeat, his expression tormented.

"Cass," I whispered.

"Hide," he said, and threw himself into the fray.