52. Family Dinner

Family Dinner

W e'd kept Tech waiting for at least half an hour, but all it took was the sight of purple hair and two distinctly Cass-related women for him to reconsider any display of irritation. The man knew how to assess an opponent, too; by the time we'd gotten through the necessary introductions (though apparently Tech and Pelleas had met before), our duke had pinned Tarra as the easy mark. She didn't seem to realize that his courtly attention had nothing to do with her ample bosom or lovely face, but the fact that she was as dumb as a box of rocks. Cass had gotten all the brains and talent in the family.

Pelleas and crew had been in the palace for more than an hour before we'd arrived, so at least the staff had gotten warning that they'd be serving dinner to six instead of three. The formal dining room had a properly-sized table and six settings, complete with thronelike formal chairs, and hopefully the advance notice meant that everyone would be able to be served the same dishes, even if they weren't the original ones planned for.

They'd changed the decorations, too, I noted as we started arranging ourselves. There was probably some sort of fae protocol about that, even though I didn't know any of it. The usual paintings of flowers had been replaced with a set of three tapestries depicting different vistas in the Court of Mercy along one long wall and a set of non-floral still-life paintings on the other. I spotted our crowns, a set of stones stacked in a cairn, and a ruby necklace draped across a dagger before I had to focus on figuring out where to sit down.

Seating arrangements, so simple with three, became a complex dance that ended with Cass and I at either ends of the table, with Yllana to my left and Pelleas to my right. Tech positioned himself at Yllana's side across from Tarra, a position that had my sister-in-soul practically glowing with avarice. With darling Pelly-welly to her left and a rich and powerful duke across from her, she was swimming in suitors.

"It was very kind of you to accompany our princesses," I told Pelleas as the servers brought out the appetizers and started pouring glasses of golden wine for everyone. "I would have expected Raven Court to supply the Merciful Heirs with a lesser retinue—though you were the ambassador for the months before King Omahice's death, too, weren't you?" I asked, as if it didn't matter at all.

Even though it felt like playing a role still, I'd spent enough time in the company of fae courtiers to put the right lazy lilt in my voice and use properly formal language. Weirdly, it helped that I'd spent so much time working at the strip bar. The girls all had personas that they used, and I'd picked up some of the tricks of the trade, myself. It was nice to be able to put on and take off the queenliness.

Pelleas gave me a sultry smile and picked up the glass of wine, giving it a swirl. His long nails clicked on the glass with a metallic sound. "As crown prince and heir apparent, I like to be involved with the more interesting events that might affect my Court." He took a sip of the wine and made a pleased sound. "Glamor-mages of my caliber are quite rare, which gives me a certain amount of security even in deadly situations. As far as I understand it, the only glamor-mages on the Western Continent who can rival my strength are Dain Sundamar and Faerqen himself, and of the two, I dare say only Faerqen would surpass my skill."

Brass fucking balls, goddamn. I had to admire the boldness, and I appreciated the sly way of both talking up his abilities and letting me know that he was well aware that Faerqen was currently roaming the Western Continent instead of the northern wastes.

"I've heard you wear glamor on every inch of your skin," I crooned back, flickering my eyes down his lean body as if I could see under his formal clothing to his pale skin. I picked up my fork and impaled the savory pastry on my plate, then started slicing through it with a smile. "I take it King Sundamar isn't nearly so profligate."

His smile went cutting. "Sundamar has never needed to rely on glamor as I have. The Beast that destroyed Phazikai has little to fear from the rest of us."

A city, once in Raven Court and now a shattered ruin in Stag Court. Sundamar destroyed it personally , Cass said silently, making me jump. He smirked at me across from the table, where he was being heartily ignored by both his companions. Tech was watching Tarra with a smirky little smile, and Tarra was rambling about something with her long lashes batting at the duke.

I wet my lips and gave Pelleas the most pleasant smile I could dredge up. "Is it so dangerous, being a prince in Raven Court?"

The shadows in the room darkened in a manner I found distinctly uncomfortable. Yllana cleared her throat, a polite sound. "There are always dangers, your majesty, even for gods and monsters," she said in a level voice. Her eyes lifted to Pelleas' with a genteel smile. "I never expected to be able to spend so much time with a prince of the blood, but I must admit that I'm delighted for the opportunity. Is it true that you design all your own clothing, your highness? "

Pelleas eased off on the shadow-glamor, leaning back in his chair and spearing his own pastry with the tip of a knife. "Not entirely," he said, seeming to relax. "While I am an artist, and do much of my own designing, I have several people on staff who assist with tracking fashions, building base designs, acquiring new cloth and gems for me to study, and other such things."

Cass gave me a physical heads-up before mentally speaking again, tracing a heart next to his hairline as if he was scratching an itch. Pelleas is the last of the four Raven Princes , he sent me, his expression going grave for a moment. He lost his older brothers days apart. Raelix fell in battle, and his corpse was so mutilated that he almost couldn't be identified. Sundamar— Cass had to take a careful breath, looking down as the servers brought out the first course, a creamy soup with tiny daisies floating in it. Sundamar ate his eldest brother Elion. Literally. He's moon-called, and his second form is enormous, and monstrous.

An image flickered into my mind as I mechanically polished off my appetizer and took my first sip of the soup. A beast even larger than Faerqen, something like a cross between a wolf and a dragon, with snow and ice all around him and a pair of winglike limbs on his back. I swallowed carefully, barely hearing Yllana and Pelleas discussing the designs of the latest fashion, and how to reproduce certain glamor-looks in actual cloth.

The fourth is Ayre? I asked silently, though I remembered Dani saying something to that effect. The manticore King—the one who made you.

The same , Cass sent back, sounding sad. Both Ayre and Pelleas lost all their brothers in that war in the span of a week, with little hope of reconciliation. Not as long as Tathalin lives.

The Raven King?

Cass gave me a slight nod, then turned his polite attention to Kettekh and offered the required comment to the conversation. I kept eating my soup, trying to maintain a placid face as the conversation of the table washed over me. Pelleas seemed to actually be enjoying talking with Yllana, and I managed to ask a question about his cloth-of-gold embroidery that sent him and Yllana down an entire tangent as to the specific qualities of cloth-of-gold and golden thread.

We made it through the first and second courses without incident, but during the third course, Tarra casually called Cass her "hulking brother," which made Cass flinch and my teeth clench.

The skies in the tapestries darkened towards storms. I hoped no one noticed.

Tech breathed a disbelieving laugh. "Ravens never can seem to resist tweaking the tails of gryphons," he said, smirking at her. "Luckily, those birds are clever enough to escape the inevitable snap of the jaws."

Tarra kept looking at him with the same eager, vapid expression, clearly not getting the joke, or that she was the butt of it .

Pelleas leaned over, his violet hair tumbling across his shoulder. "Tarra darling," he purred. "You're supposed to laugh when handsome men make jokes while flirting with you."

"Oh? Oh!" Tarra laughed, a bright, shining sound that had to be practiced. "Oh, Kettekh, you cutie. Do you want to be my kitty? I might even let you bite me."

I very nearly choked on my wine, managing to keep my laughter to a sharp snort. Pelleas smirked at Tech and turned back to Yllana, who wore the blandest expression I'd ever seen.

I waited until Cass had his drink at his lips to send, She's really not very smart, is she?

Cass actually did choke on his wine. Tarra frowned at him in the squinty way people do when they're not sure if someone is laughing at them or not, and Pelleas cast me a sidelong glance that suggested he knew I was at fault, and found that both deeply amusing and dangerously interesting.

"Are you quite alright, Xarcassah?" his mother asked, looking at him with a reasonable approximation of motherly concern.

Cass gave me a dire look as he used a napkin to wipe off his face. "I'm fine, Mother."

"Are you certain?" she persisted, frowning at him. "Your bodily control used to be so much better."

A sudden spike of terror jolted through me. Cass went very still, every one of his physical responses locking down. I felt the blastwave of that reflexive action flare through the palace, animals cowering and every flame and candle in the Clement Palace snuffing out. In the back of my mind, a little boy begged, "don't, don't, Mama, don't, I'll try harder to be good, I can be good—"

"I didn't hurt anyone, Mother," Cass said quietly, breathing with care. "I haven't hurt anyone like that in a long time."

Her upper lip tightened. "I thought I taught you better than that."

Rage grabbed my heart in its fist.

I set my utensils down on my plate with deliberate care, hitting the porcelain just hard enough that the sharp sound would yank everyone's eyes towards me.

She was my mother-in-soul, the matriarch of Cass' family, and I decided that I didn't give a shit. Elders like Bà deserved respect, but this woman? She'd surrendered all rights to my respectfulness or submission the moment she'd left those opals bound to her son's hands.

"It's funny how easily people slip into old habits, isn't it?" I said in a pleasant voice, as if I was discussing the weather instead of considering whether I wanted to stab her with the cutlery. "Maybe you should try to remember, princess , that your rank comes from His Splendor, and not the other way around." I leaned forward; she leaned away from me. "My soulmate's behavior isn't yours to dictate. Don't forget it."

Her chin lifted and nostrils flared. "What do you know of it?" she asked in a tight voice, her lips pinching. "A mayfly mortal like you. He can cause an eternity of suffering. How can you even hope to imagine it?"

Cass voiced a snarl, his wings mantling.

The lights didn't dim. Nothing broke. The palace didn't have to show his anger, because he was doing it.

God, I was so fucking proud of him.

"You see?" Yllana said sharply. She turned towards Cass, her expression hard. "Is it the animal in you? The monster? Is that why you've turned into such a beast?" she asked, her words striking him like knives.

I caught flickers of the memories – the sneers and taunts, all the reasons he'd left his old life behind after the war, monster beast animal freak – and had to dig my fingernails into my palms to keep from slapping her. Across the table, Tech looked paler than usual. Even Tarra didn't move, holding herself still, like a rabbit hiding from a fox.

"Well?" she demanded. "It's not even been a century since I saw you last, Xarcassah. You would never have been allowed to be so undisciplined when you were in my home." Her nostrils flared again. "It's shameful."

The memory of that little boy still wept in the back of my mind. Wept because of her .

"Yllana, shut the fuck up," I said with deadly calm, enunciating every word. "You don't get to talk about him like that, ever again. If I hear one more word like that from you, you won't set foot in this palace again."

Yllana's ears lifted in outrage. "I am his mother —"

"The only thing that wins you is my Court's protection, not my affection nor fealty," Cass said in a low growl, his remembered terror transmuting into cold, implacable anger as he leaned into the shield of my rage. The gold in his eyes gleamed. "Don't forget why I became a Fury, Mother. You wanted me to become a soldier when Father died so you didn't have to lose your little luxuries. I became a monster for you , and you were perfectly fine with me sacrificing my body when you gained the honor and income of having a son in the Raven Army's prized strike force." Cass' wings slicked down into a blade with slow menace, the feathers catching the light.

Her hands closed so tightly that her knuckles went pale. The corners of her flat mouth trembled.

"It was the first time you ever said you were proud of me," he snarled. Pain tensed his eyes and made my chest ache, an ocean of it. "I gave you every fucking penny of the King's blood-money so I could hear you say it again, and you never did. The Furies are a better family to me than you've ever been. And now you dare— "

"Cassie," I said, softly, my heart breaking for him.

He snapped his teeth shut so hard my jaw ached. He furled his wings and turned away, the muscles in his temple jumping.

Pelleas smirked and lifted his wine glass to his lips, taking a desultory sip. "Now, that?" he said to the air. "I'd say that's well worth the trial of the journey."

I gave him a sharp look.

He smiled back with the lazy consideration of a well-fed cat, his violet lashes shrouding his ice-blue eyes. "I do so love watching soulmates interact," he crooned to me, as if we were alone in the room. "There's a pair of soulmated enemies in the Raven High Court who are truly a delight to behold. I hope I get the chance to see the Archangels again while I'm under your hospitality. I find Danica's company quite invigorating."

Tarra took a deep breath, as if settling herself, then pouted, slouching forward in a sultry pose worthy of a magazine cover. "Who's Danica?" she asked, making calf-eyes at the prince. "Should I be jealous, Pelly-welly?"

Tech narrowly kept from bursting into laughter, instead coughing sharply into his hand.

Pelleas looked vaguely nauseated, but he said in a pleasant enough voice, "Hardly, Tarra dear. Danica only had eyes for her soulmate."

Downgrade from 'Tarra darling,' I thought.

Cass leaned his elbows on the table. "Oh, I wouldn't say that," he said in a low purr, his anger still burning in my bones. He flicked his tongue across his lower lip. "Dani likes to look, Pelleas. She just didn't like looking at you ."

Pelleas didn't move or speak, breathing in the same careful cadence I associated with Cass at his most controlled. The shadow of a pair of batlike wings spread from the foot of his chair in slow, secret menace.

Cass , I said sharply through our mental bond. What the fuck are you doing?

Shame flickered across his face, my cheeks warming as his flushed darker. Cass shoved himself to his feet. Everyone but me followed him up, forced by fae protocol to rise when the King did, like people did for judges in a courtroom. "Why don't we take dessert in the Lilac Room," he said, his wings rising and falling as he breathed. "I could use a change of venue."

"We'll join you there," I said, still in my seated position, holding Cass' gaze. Please , I sent him mentally.

He met my gaze, breathing too hard, and didn't challenge me on it.

Our duke recovered first. "Of course, your majesties," he said, not looking at Cass, but keeping one ear pointed at him, clearly wary. "Would you do me the honor of being my escort, lovely raven?" Tech smiled at Tarra, an expression full of invitation. "I'll only bite if you ask for it."

She laughed, a practiced sound, and dared her brother's wings to go around the table and hook her arm through Tech's. "Of course, Kitty," she said, beaming up at him, then cast a winning smile at Pelleas. "You'll have to be faster next time, Pellyness. "

The prince merely smiled and offered his arm to Yllana, who took it silently, moving like an automaton.

Neither Cass nor I moved until the quartet were out the door, and until the sound of Tarra's girlish laughter no longer stained the air.