65. Keeping it Together

Keeping it Together

L iyn didn't need to stay with Cass every minute of every hour to help direct his metaphysical healing, so I had my assistant Kat set him up in the sitting room to hang out between his sessions with Cass. The painkiller effects of his magic wore off quickly, though, and left my soulmate wracked with agony he was wholly unequipped to deal with. He didn't even have childhood memories of being in uncontrollable pain. This was a new and awful experience for him.

I washed the blood off of him and helped him into clean clothing. Once I'd gotten the worst of it off of me, too, I stayed with him in bed, the two of us lying face-to-face on our sides on top of the ruined quilt. I trusted Vaduin to check in if anything critical happened, and if we couldn't trust our guards, we were fucked either way. Nothing seemed more important than helping Cass get through the first vicious effects of burnout. We lay there for hours, breathing in the cadence of meditation, our world punctuated by visits by Liyn every ninety minutes to ease the pain and boost his soul's recovery speed.

Hunger started gnawing on me, and without Cass' magic it only got worse. Sometime around two in the afternoon I finally realized Cass would be hungry, too, and got up to get us both something to eat. Liyn stopped me by the door and told me quietly that Cass would need to eat mostly meat, and that he probably shouldn't have any uncooked greens at all.

The price of the assassination attempt tallied higher. Carnivory, feathers, claws… whoever had tried to kill us had a lot to answer for, and I intended to extract every ounce of repayment a fae would have demanded.

I fed Cass by hand. He was too exhausted to even keep his head up, so I sat there with his head on my lap and fed him bite by bite, unwilling to leave him hungry or thirsty.

He didn't comment on half his food being meat. Maybe he already knew why.

Vaduin came back around six or seven in the evening with the first report from the investigation. The six archers had indeed been reduced to unidentifiable rubble, but some of the bodies of the other assailants had been identified. Two were mercenaries; the price must have been incredibly high to go after Cass. One was a guardswoman from Taeskana known to be a devout worshiper of Ithronel, and another was a soldier in the First Army who'd requested a transfer to the palace nine weeks prior.

There were no interesting scent trails for Vaduin to follow. The approaches the people had taken to their posts led down to Taeskana or into the palace and immediately vanished into places full of people. None of them had any distinctive smells on them, except that they were all freshly washed with unscented soap, and each was wearing a small amount of pine oil to baffle scenthounds.

Someone had been planning this for a long, long time. Someone who knew enough about Cass and Vaduin to have a good chance of success, and of getting away with it afterwards.

Neither Tech nor Yllana had been interrogated. They were both too high-ranking to be grilled by anyone without a Monarch present, and Vad wasn't sure that he would be successful at getting anything out of either of them even if he tried. They were confined to their respective suites, though, "for their safety" while the investigation into the attack that had cost Tarra her life continued.

I made Vad a door to Dani so he could go home. He didn't have any clothes here, and it wasn't like this would wrap up in the next day or two. Investigations took time. He could go home, get things settled at the duchy, and come back with Dani to help.

Long after Vaduin had left, Cass leaned his forehead against mine and asked, "What if it's too late?"

"What if what's too late, sweetheart?" I asked, brushing his hair out of his face.

He let out a sharp breath. "Us. The soulmate bond. It's—we're only supposed to have a year and a day. Liyn said it had been two or three years ." Cass made another sharp sound, sucking his breath in through his teeth. "What if it's too late. If we can't—Quyen, what if—if you're always mortal, if, if—" He started trembling, his wings rattling. "Please don't leave. Please, I'll still love you, I promise, I— I know it's strange, but if you—if we—"

I grabbed him by the face before he could fall into a blind panic. "Hey, hey, Cassie, stop, stop, it's okay," I said, sticking my face up in his. "I don't give a fuck if I have wrinkles and gray hair while you're still the hottest fae on the planet, okay? I'm not her. I'm not Dellaphine. I'm not leaving."

His whole body heaved with a wracking sob, but Cass stayed with me, his golden eyes fixed on mine and his panting breath washing across my face .

"I'm not leaving," I said again, stroking my fingers along his face. "Not of my own will. Maybe time will do it, or assassins, or whatever, but I'm not going to do it. If we can't balance and I don't get your immortality, then I'll turn into a tiny cricket Asian lady and you can carry my wizened self around while I chirp at you. I'm not leaving you. I'm not leaving," I repeated in a whisper. "You're stuck with me, ?ng già. Get used to it."

Cass choked out a wet laugh, just like I'd meant him to, his eyes shining with tears but a trembling smile on his face. "You would be a very cute cricket," he rasped. He swallowed, a thick sound, and leaned his forehead against mine again. "Could we maybe spend our fifteenth anniversary somewhere beautiful together?" Cass asked softly, his eyes drifting shut in exhaustion. "Somewhere where it's only us, and I can hold you as long as I please?"

My heart cracked in two, right down the middle. For one moment, hot hatred for his mortal lover spiked under my sternum. How dare she do this to him—replace the inevitable theft of time with her choice to leave? Give him flowers and a written goodbye, not even say it to his face, and vanish from his life forever?

The anger died as soon as it was born, because of course she had. Of course she had. She'd imagined the slow death of love and beauty, and life as an old woman watching her ever-young lover grow more and more distant. Cass had been broken, and he'd never given her the clear-eyed look into his soul that he couldn't help but give to me.

"We could go camping at Tazajah," I said, trying not to cry when another tear tracked down his cheek. My vision blurred, so I closed my eyes, too, pressing closer to him. If we talked about a future – a future fifteen years hence – maybe we could make it real. "I've never been camping before."

He tugged me closer to his body. His fingers stroked along my back in a soothing caress. "Never?"

"Nope, not ever." I pressed my lips against his in a gentle kiss that showed me none of his heart. "I don't count trekking miserably through the woods for weeks as camping. Before that I was a city girl through-and-through, so. Never have I ever."

Cass smiled against my mouth, breathing my air, relaxing into my touch and the future we were dreaming together. "I can't say I've ever gone camping for pleasure. War encampments are rather starkly unpleasant, and before then I was either living in a city or ensconced in the Asklepion Academy. Maybe it would be fun. It would certainly be novel."

"Novel can be fun," I said. "At worst we'll come out of it with stories."

Before Cass could answer, Liyn knocked on the doorframe.

I pushed myself up and gave him a tired smile. "We're good," I said, even though it was far from true. "You can come in."

The healer came over without commentary and took a seat on the bed, reaching over and setting his hand on Cass' bare ankle. Cass shuddered and relaxed, the tension falling out of him as Liyn eased the pain of his damaged channels.

"How's it going?" I asked softly, after he'd been sitting there for a few minutes.

"About as good as can be hoped for," Liyn said, sounding distant, his eyes unfocused. "I'm doing my best to balance speed and suffering. Amplifying the rate of healing also amplifies the pain, and I know it must be difficult to bear, but I want to give Marys a solid chance at keeping his healing."

"Cass," my soulmate corrected. He sounded exhausted.

"I want to give Cass a solid chance," Liyn said. I saw him give Cass' ankle a gentle squeeze in a gesture of comfort. "We don't know why the Court's not feeding him power, or how long it will last. If he gets hit with all that power before he's healed up enough to handle it…"

Cass swallowed, his shoulders hunching. "Can you go faster than this?"

The other healer winced. "I could ," he said hesitantly. "It would certainly hurt a great deal more, and I'd probably be useless for days after, so if something else happens you would need to find a new healer. I'm not sure it's a good idea."

"I know the cost," Cass said in a hoarse voice. He shuddered. "I'd rather be blinded by pain than be a magicless beast into eternity. Surely I can withstand a few hours of suffering." Cass paused, then added softly, "If you're willing."

"Of course I'm willing." He blew a breath out. "Is that what you want? It will surely be agonizing."

Another shudder, my soulmate's wings hunching higher. He squeezed his eyes closed, then nodded, letting go of my hand.

Liyn took a deep breath, settling his shoulders back. "Clench your teeth, then, Xarca—Cass. This is going to be deeply unpleasant for us both."