44. Under the Stars

Under the Stars

I couldn't do anything but sit there trembling as my swordmistress walked away. I couldn't stop imagining Cass—remembering him, seeing all the times his expression shuttered when people looked at him like he was a god or a ticking time bomb. Why couldn't they just see ?

Why couldn't he just see; look at himself in the mirror and decide, no more ? He was so strong. He was so beautiful, his glorious wings more suited to the title of Archangel than King, an impossibility that put mere feathers to shame. He shouldn't be curled up in a dark room, those wings hunched and his hands up against his chest. He should be standing in the summer sun—striding into a room with the sunlight of his smile warming everyone in it—laughing and dancing and dressed in beautiful things without caring who saw—

Cass shuddered, and I shuddered with him, unable to pull away, the tears hot on my face. His tears, my tears… I didn't know anymore. I couldn't tell them apart.

"I'm sorry," I whispered in a broken voice, knowing he wouldn't hear me. "I'm so sorry." The silent tears cut tracks across my cheeks.

Along his collarbone, he traced, H-I .

I started bawling. Wracking sobs tore at my throat and wrenched my whole body into a tight ball. I couldn't do anything but cry. I buried my face in my hands and sobbed, and sobbed, and sobbed, my fingernails digging into my scalp and the heels of my hands pressed so hard against the sockets of my eyes that stars danced in the black of my vision.

I felt him moving. Felt him get up, and walk, and put his hand on the wall. If he came here, I—I couldn't—

He stepped through the door the palace made him, and then his shadow was falling on me from feet away, his hand on the back of his throne. "Quyen," he said, sounding heartbroken.

I couldn't even look up at him. I only cried harder, starting to rock in place, too wracked with pain to stop.

"Don't cry." Cass got down onto his knees next to me. He reached out and stopped, inches away, his hand trembling. "Quyen," he said again.

"You don't—deserve this," I choked out through my tears. "Don't deserve… me." I was such a fuck-up. Couldn't stop trying; couldn't stop doing. Couldn't tame my anger, even as I watched myself hurt the people I least wanted to harm.

"No," he said, very gently. His fingertips brushed against my dangling earrings. They swung, a proxy for touch. "I don't."

He said it like I was a treasure.

I dug my fingernails harder against my scalp. Every breath tore at my throat. "How can you say that? How can you think that?"

Cass took a deep breath. You stand up to me, and for me. You defied a goddess for me, he said inside my soul. Every aching fear came with the words. He wanted to touch me, wanted to hold me, wanted us to survive this together—and was terrified that I would flinch away.

He still thought he was too dangerous to be trusted, I realized. Cass had proven himself a man who could stand against a goddess – a starved and desperate goddess, but still a goddess – and he was sure, down to the depths of his soul, that he was something to fear. That I would fear him.

My mouth trembled, but the tears halted. Slowly, moving by fractions, I lowered my hands.

"Lioness," he said hoarsely.

I almost burst into tears again from the pet name, thinking of a dragon and a kitten. Of what it would be like for that dragon to have that little ball of fluff mew at him, and bat his tail, and keep coming back for more on wobbly legs with her tiny triangle tail pointed up, even when he forgot himself and was far too sharp for a cat's comfort.

I dragged my eyes over to him, emotional exhaustion making them heavy, and caught sight of his wounded arm. Blood soaked the sleeve of his shirt and stained the cloth he'd awkwardly tied around the horrific injury. Half his fingers were curled, not like they were relaxed but like they were paralyzed, and dried blood crusted his skin. "Cass, your arm," I said, horror lacing my voice.

He drew it back, shifting his body to hide it from view.

"Cass," I said again, shifting so I could look up into his face. "It's been hours."

He didn't meet my eyes. Shame made my skin prickle. "It's an iron wound. They're difficult to heal," he said, in the shamefaced way of someone who'd been buried under depression trying to explain why there was food rotting in the sink. "I can likely manage it, but it takes a lot of power and focus to accelerate natural healing. Power I have. Focus…" He let out a breath that tried to be a laugh. "Not so much."

I turned my whole body towards him and searched his expression. He looked like a beaten dog does: exhausted, hurting, yearning for kindness. "Does it hurt?" I asked.

"No. I can handle that much," Cass said with another weak laugh. His shoulders slumped, ears dropping down. "Not well, but…"

The space between us ached to be closed. It stood there like a barrier, one we both wanted crossed, but he was sure it wouldn't be welcome and I didn't want to take what wasn't mine to take.

He was fae, though. Bargains were in his lifeblood. We'd made a bargain for touch, as much an intimate exchange of access as giving someone a copy of the key to your apartment, and it was a bridge I could use to span that distance.

"Is it midnight yet?" I asked softly.

Cass looked over at me with an expression of stunned hope slanting his brows and tensing his mouth. There was only one reason why I would care. Midnight to midnight was the term of our deal. "It's almost an hour past," he said, his voice going rough.

I wet my lips. "Would you be able to focus better with me on your lap? Like when we found my buried man together?"

He let out a heavy pant, yearning sharpening the edge. "So much better," he said. Cass kept looking at me like he'd found water in the desert, his breaths growing heavy and heart beating harder.

I smiled at him, because he needed a smile and he was mine to smile for, and held out my hand. "Then let's go sit on a throne and get a little help from our Court for that scratch."

His warm fingers slowly closed around mine. We were already so entangled that the contact only heightened what was already there. The fears of his wounded heart tugged at me— is this too much, am I too much, can you still love me?

"Come on," I said, getting to my feet and tugging him to follow. "Hold me for awhile."

"As you desire," Cass said. He stood with care, holding his wounded arm up against his chest, his eyes never leaving my face.

He didn't make any move towards the throne, so I walked backwards across the snow, leading him there. Cass followed with his eyes on my face and ears canted towards me. I could have led him off a cliff. It didn't matter where I went. He would come with me.

Cass sat with the same expression of disbelieving hope, moving in slow motion. His wings settled behind him, framing the narrow back of the throne.

"Good boy," I said pertly, and hopped up onto his lap.

It startled him into a laugh. Cass wrapped his right arm around me, holding me against his chest, and carefully settled his injured arm across my lap. "I don't know that I've been a particularly good boy this past day," he murmured, resting his cheek on the top of my head. "Or, truly, for a long while. I saw how much you were doing, but it was such a relief to not worry about it that I told myself that I was doing you a favor by letting you be the one people came to. After all, you seem to like it, and I… don't."

I ran my fingers along his paralyzed ones. "I do like it," I said, keeping my voice soft. "I'd rather do it as a team, though." I paused, then added, "Can you feel that?"

His arm tightened around me. "Only the way I feel you touch my feathers."

"Do you think you can fix it?" I asked.

"I should be able to," Cass said cautiously. "One of the major nerves is severed, but I've had some success with making the body attack iron injuries. Once the necrosis progresses past the iron taint, I can usually work directly with the injury again."

Nausea twisted my gut. "That sounds risky."

"It is." His warm breath stirred my hair as he sighed. "If Dani had better control, I would ask her for help, but while she can make clean cuts in pure materials like metals, with something like this…" Cass stroked his thumb along my collarbone in a gentle caress. "My mageling likely won't be able to duplicate the control she has with Vaduin on anyone else for years. It's not even been a year since she came into her power, and I've worn a lot of wounds. I'd be lucky if she didn't shatter me open trying to cut away the iron taint."

"What about a scalpel?" I craned my head up to look at him. "Could you do surgery?"

"Not with one hand, and I don't believe any of the healers in the palace know how," he said wryly. "It's not a skill most healers are trained in, since it's primarily used for cosmetic mutilation." At my horrified expression, Cass made a face, one ear flicking in disgust. "It's common in cities. People have wildling traits like horns and tails surgically removed from themselves or their children, usually with obsidian blades, and the wounds healed over. It's a disgusting practice. I'm not unhappy that my ascension reverted many of those surgeries, nor that I had the power to ban the practice in Mercy."

I rubbed my head back against him. "See?" I said. "Good boy."

He snorted. "Fine. I'll allow it," he said, in the way of someone making a great concession, though I could feel him relaxing underneath me. Cass buried his face against my hair, inhaling against my scalp. "Are you sure you want me to do this while you're here? This sort of healing is messy."

"I wouldn't want to be anywhere else." I traced a heart on the back of his paralyzed hand. "I could maybe even help, if you were willing to let me try?" I offered, my heart rate picking up. "Mercy likes my mortality. When I killed those bandits, it sped up the process of rot so it took seconds instead of years. I can even rust iron and steel."

Cass went still in the focused-predator way he did. "You can touch iron?" He sounded incredulous.

"Not directly," I said, feeling self-conscious about it. "I can just make it older." I kept tracing the heart, over and over, bleeding off the anxiety.

"Do you think you could do that to the traces of iron in me without affecting the rest of the wound?" he asked in a hesitant voice. "Worked iron and steel is brutal enough for faery bodies, but star-iron is much worse. There's more than a millimeter of flesh I can't touch right now on either side of the wound. I know that probably doesn't sound like much, but for nerves that's a significant distance." Cass hooked one canine over his lower lip. "Given how much control Dani has over her power with Vad, you might be able to do something that fine-scale in me. Rust will slice me up, but it won't poison me the way iron does."

I stilled, the combination of his anxiety trembling under his skin and his yearning hope and trust making my ribs tight and breath shallow. "You trust me to try?" I asked, setting my fingers gently on the cloth wrapped around his wounded arm.

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-ting ing 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."

"Together?" I asked, craning my neck to look up at him again.

He gave me a soft smile. His ears canted towards me in gentle focus as he said, "Together."