71. To Kill a King

To Kill a King

I didn't stand a chance. The horse screamed and went down, flinging me off its back as it fell thrashing to the ground. I hit the ground hard, tumbling across stone and thorned vines. Blood sang across my tongue.

Ithronel stepped out from between two trees, holding a fucking hand-cannon .

I stared at her, boggled. It wasn't a modern gun; far from it. The thing looked like the earliest firearms, a one-shot cannon shrunk down to holdable size—and not even that shrunk down, because Ithronel was an eight-foot-tall powerhouse. But it was still a gun. I'd never expected to see a fae holding a gun, let alone a fae goddess holding one.

She smiled at me, a cutting expression. Her new body looked almost identical to her old one, save that she had no willow leaves in her hair, which had gone from floor-length to close-cropped tight curls. The salty tracks of tears on her face glittered silver in the moonlight.

"Now where do you think you're going?" she asked in a lilting voice.

She looked better than she had facing Cass. Far better. Whatever magic source she'd been feeding from must have been powerful. Ithronel didn't have the same earth-shattering aura that Faerqen did, but I could tell that she was a heavyweight. It was like the earth tilted in her direction, an irresistible gravitational pull like that of the siphons she'd had placed on our thrones.

Moving slowly, I pushed myself up. My skin stung from a hundred scratches, and my cheek burned where I'd bitten myself. The snow was soaking through my clothing, chilling my blood and freezing my skin. Nothing seemed broken, though. Thank god for small miracles.

"Anywhere else. I'm not supposed to be here," I told her, trying to keep my voice pleasant. My breath fogged in the cold air. I had no way to fight a goddess. I had no way to escape a goddess. I was at least a mile from the border, and my ride was lying on the ground, its neck broken and body still.

Her smile grew broader, like someone drawing a sword. "Of course you are," she crooned to me. She strolled towards me, in a sauntering, lazy sort of fashion. "Faery and Mortality once wove together like lovers. Our worlds are both made lesser for their division." Ithronel stroked her fingers down the trunk of a tree. Buds formed and unfurled, fresh spring green in the winter air. "I approved of Sarcaryn's little gambit. Claim a seat of power from the hungry Wolf, make an example of the fae royalty, remind the throngs of why mortal blood is so key to faery survival—"

"What? Why?" I asked, blurting out the words before I could help myself.

Ithronel snorted, her lip lifting in a sneer. "So the world doesn't see creatures like your soulmate," she said in a mocking tone. "Wild magic must have its way, little one. Monarchs, mages, and monsters, and it always seems to devolve to monsters in the end."

My eyes narrowed. "Or gods," I said.

The smile she gave me could have gutted a fish. "It takes far more than a handful of worshipers and a Court to make a god."

"It's a good fucking start," I snapped back, trying to keep her attention on me. She didn't give a shit about me, any more than Talien did. I was a fun diversion, and the bait in her trap.

"Yes," she purred back, stepping closer. "Perhaps, then, you understand why I desire to put a stop to it."

My sense of Cass suddenly redoubled. His magic wasn't affected by distance, not when his blood was mixed with mine—but mine was. Cass had portaled to the border. I'd run out of time.

Ithronel lifted her eyes to the predawn sky with a hungry expression, her grip tightening on the hand-cannon.

"Wait," I said, desperation clawing at me. "Can't we bargain?" I gathered up my will, that sense of pressure inside me, and shouted down our bond as loudly as I could, STAY! AWAY!

"What bargain could you possibly hope to tempt me with?" Ithronel asked, sounding amused.

Cass' tension transferred to my shoulders and spine, bit by bit. Distantly, as if he was barely on the range of hearing, I heard him send back, Not happening.

Fucker. Mother fucker. He had to pick now to assert himself?

Ithronel is here, dumbass! I snapped back, trying frantically to find a way out of this.

Beat her once , Cass replied, though he sounded warier.

This time she has a fucking GUN .

Ithronel's eyes narrowed, and I realized I hadn't answered her question. I opened my mouth to say something, but before I could speak she bared her teeth and grabbed me by the hair.

Pain scorched down my spine as she wrenched me upright. I cried out like a kicked animal, staggering to my feet. She took a sharp step, not looking at me, making me scramble for purchase.

In an instant, we went from the center of the woods to the open ground, snow glittering in the light of the moon. She flung me by my hair into the snow. My body skidded to a halt, bruised and battered and cold.

Don't come , I thought to him. Unbidden tears started tracking down my face. Please don't come.

"Xarcassah Marys!" she shouted to the sky. "I have cut out your heart! Will you leave her to die by my hand?"

Fae don't lie. They can't, and neither can their gods. She knew what I was to him.

So did I.

He couldn't leave me here to die any more than he could hide his heart from me. He'd chosen to risk everything – his healing, his physical form, his very life – to come for me.

I couldn't blame him for that. I would have done the same.

I'm coming, lioness , he whispered to my soul. I saw his wings flash silver in the moonlight high overhead as he folded them and dove for us.

I took a deep breath, setting myself for the battle. Tell me how to help.

He didn't answer with words. In those few seconds as he dropped out of the sky, Cass shoved his memories into me—

—a vial of his blood, left in cold water to keep it alive for longer, a way to survive crossing the border, to find me, to save me—

— carving an eldritch sigil into the back of the limestone siphon, breaking its link to Ithronel but leaving its ferocious hunger—

—using a siphon in battle against a glamor-mage, a weapon more powerful than opals if you could get it jammed against the skin of your enemy and rip out their source—

—and veered at the last moment, flinging a satchel onto the ground and whipping past Ithronel.

She snarled at him, swinging her hand-cannon to track him through the darkness. Trees tore up from the ground all around us, sharp spears of deadly rage.

I took advantage of her distraction and scrambled towards the bag. It had fallen open, spilled its guts—fuck! I pawed through the snow, trying to find the siphon.

Cass' heavy wingbeats slashed through the air. Ithronel started laughing, her bright voice cutting through the predawn light.

My numb hand hit something hard, and pain chewed up my arm. I let out a harsh sob, yanking my hand away, the sense of bleeding so powerful that terror gripped me by the throat. Cradling my arm against my chest, weeping, I dug into my pocket and came out with the opal-studded gloves Tech had worn.

Metal flashed, Cass taking another swipe at Ithronel, baiting her like a songbird attacking a crow, keeping her eyes on him and off of me. The air around her started to glow, a pale dawning light that cast a faint blush across the snow.

Tech's hands were so much bigger than mine, but I managed to get my stiff fingers into the glove. It wasn't around my throat, cutting me off from all magic – I could still feel the strain of Cass' wings and the sharpness of his adrenaline – but my magic shattered against it, making it harder to direct my attention towards him.

When I reached for the siphon again, it didn't bite.

Cass dove a third time, dead on. Ithronel set herself, teeth bared and every shifting black tattoo across her skin turning from branches to jaws.

" No— !" I screamed, in the same instant that the hand-cannon roared into life.

The blast stole my voice and left my vision dancing. Cass hit the ground, hard, leaving a red smear across the snow. He tried to push himself up and collapsed. I could hear his wheezing from thirty feet away.

Ithronel sauntered towards him, her weapon dangling from her hand. "Too easy," she purred, laughter still brightening her voice. "It's such fun having inventive friends. Talien assured me that this delicate mix would be able to take down a King who can defeat an army, and now look at you!" She laughed again, a vicious sound.

I started crawling towards her, my body shaking from cold and anger.

"F—fuck you," Cass choked out, the words wet with blood. He started shoving himself away, one wing hanging like it was broken. His eyes darted towards me, the pain and terror plain on his face. Go, he mouthed, before his eyes darted back up to Ithronel.

Fuck that. I kept belly-crawling.

"Faebane to steal your strength, monk's-tongue to silence your magic, lead shot to break you, and iron filings to drown you in your own blood," she said. "Clever, don't you think? I never would have even known such a thing as this 'cannon' existed, were it not for dear Talien. He has been such a treasure."

With casual malice, she flung the hand-cannon at Cass. His femur snapped with a sound like a gunshot.

"Cass!" I cried out, the sound torn out of me without any chance of holding it back.

Her eyes snapped over to me. "Poor little thing," she crooned, her eyes lighting. "Would you like to take his punishment instead?"

I didn't even have time to move. The slender willow sapling speared through my gut like an arrow, sending sharp agony through me. It hurt so badly I couldn't even scream, curling up like a beetle pinned to a board.

Cass snarled and flung his broken wing at her legs.

Ithronel caught his wing with one hand, the blade of his feathers biting deep but his strike too weak to cut through her palm. "Now, now, Merciful King ," she said with deadly menace. Blood dripped off her fingers. "Whatever made you think you could stand against your goddess?"

She put her foot on his back, fingers closing around his wing to wrench it off.

I drove the siphon into the soil of the Court of Flies.

A Court is a living thing, and its lifeblood is the same power that makes monsters and feeds gods. The siphon in my hand had been made to drink from a Court. It didn't care what Court.

In a heartbeat, the ground under me went from belonging to the Court of Flies to belonging to no one. That circle of unclaimed land spread like wildfire, an expanding ring of no-man's-land, the magic devoured by the siphon.

Ithronel whipped around as the dead spot flooded past her, letting go of my soulmate. In the same heartbeat, I yanked the siphon back off the earth.

The land remembered being the Court of Flies, but it remembered being the Court of Mercy, too, and the Monarchs of Mercy were sprawled on it, their blood and tears wetting it. Power flared. The ground beneath us remembered its masters.

Every pain vanished as the Court of Mercy flooded back into me. The sapling through me crumbled into nothing. Blood wet my clothing. I fought my way to my feet, swaying.

How do you fight a god? You find a stronger one to protect you. You better hold up your end of the bargain, Faerqen.

Standing on a piece of Mercy no more than forty feet in diameter, surrounded by an enemy Court, I bared my teeth at a goddess.

She hissed at me like a snake, and stomped her heel down on Cass' spine.

Everything went suddenly cold and white. A shrill scream was cut off with the finality of snapping jaws. The crunch of bone filled the air.

The whiteout snow drifted away, slowly clearing until I could see the gaunt, enormous form of a black wolf, holding Ithronel's limp body in his jaws. Blood wet his mouth and dripped from her fingertips. Frost crawled down the feathers of Cass' wing, beautiful against the darkness.

"Clever mortal soulmate," Faerqen's voice crooned, curling through the air. He took one step and vanished in a swirl of snow, leaving me alone with Cass.

I staggered over and collapsed to my knees. Cass kept breathing, wet and labored. He didn't move, lying there facedown in the snow.

"Cassie," I said, my eyes burning. I almost touched him before remembering the opals on the glove, then peeled it off and threw it away from me, into the snow.

He coughed. Blood splattered the snow.

Cass was too big for me to move. I got my thighs under his head, though, keeping his face out of the snow. The Court of Mercy practically seethed, acting without my direction, turning all the tiny shards of iron in his lungs to rust .

It didn't help. The rust wouldn't poison him, but it would still slice up his lungs. Even time wouldn't help that. Turning the clock forward would only kill him faster.

"I'm… sorry," he said, his breath whistling. "My… fault."

Tears stung the corners of my eyes. I blinked them away. "Don't be stupid," I said, trying to keep my voice light. "They were going to do this no matter what."

"Not… them." Cass shifted, pain marking his face, and wrapped his big hand around mine. "Us."

"What are you talking about?" I asked. A single tear fell and splashed on his shoulder, making a dark circle on his combat leathers.

It didn't matter what we were talking about. As long as he stayed alive. He just had to stay alive long enough for the monk's-tongue to wear off—to be able to cast again. To heal.

He wouldn't. I knew he wouldn't. He was hurt too badly; poisoned and battered, broken beyond repair. Poisons like that lasted for hours, and he had minutes at best.

I still sat there, hoping.

Cass smiled for me, a trembling expression. "I know… what I am," he said, every word labored. He coughed again, blood wetting his mouth and pain tensing his face. "Dangerous. Broken. You deserve… better." Another wet breath. "I believed that. Still… do."

"Cassie," I said, my voice thick with sorrow.

He squeezed my hand. "Doesn't matter. Didn't, ever." He swallowed, licking the blood off his lower lip. "What matters… is what you want. What… we want. And you always… chose… me." Cass rubbed his cheek against my thigh, lying there, back broken, lungs lacerated, loving me. "Could have… tried to be the man you… deserve. Aspired… to him. But I held back."

"Cassie," I said again. A hot tear escaped to splash on him. Another.

It felt like the universe had me in its grip. Like I was standing on the fulcrum of the world, with everything looking down at me.

"I'm sorry… it took me… so long," he said. "Could've had… more time."

"Stop talking like that," I told him, starting to cry in earnest. "You're not dying. You can't die. I won't let you."

The smallest smile tugged at his mouth. His eyes drifted shut. "Do you still… want me?" he rasped, blood flecking his lips.

"Of course I do." Agony speared through me, clawing at my ribcage. "Cassie. Of course I want you. Don't die. You can't die."

"I love you," he said. The sense of imminence grew stronger, like standing on the peak of our palace, looking at our thrones—like feeling the Court rouse beneath my foot for the first time. My soulmate's beautiful eyes in my soul, and perfection at my fingertips. He coughed, a wet sound, drowning in his own blood. "I… need you. "

Cassie , I begged him through our bond, drowning in his soul. Don't go. Please don't go.

Cass took a whistling breath. He leaned the smallest distance and pressed his lips to my hand. It left a smear of blood. "I'm yours," he whispered, and died.