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"I always loved ghost stories. I can love yours, too."
"Let's not keep General Xilsatra waiting."
General Xilsatra proved to be an unassumingly handsome man, with smooth brown skin and a gentle voice. His companion, conversely, was shockingly beautiful; his ice-white hair, lavender eyes, and sculpted face and body made him look like a marble statue or Tolkien-esque elf, and he seemed perfectly comfortable with being stared at. They both apparently knew Vaduin, because they greeted him like an old companion, and he didn't seem to take it amiss.
The white-haired man, as it turned out, was Kaeden's brother. When he found out that I knew his sister, he spent the next half-hour enthusiastically grilling me about her, while Vaduin looked on with aloof amusement.
We were joined by Lady Gweyir Rynsandoral, whose name I remembered from Vaduin's first monologue about people in the Court of Mercy. She was a marchioness from along the border with Stag Court; a powerful woman who bred war-dragons and who knew the Stag King personally.
"The name I was given is Yuvaenan Omahice," he said, his voice like ice. "My mother was Kyva Sharae, and my father is Daesarys Omahice."
—you're so much braver than I am," Vaduin murmured, his nose buried in my hair and his breath hot against my scalp. His voice eased the agonizing tension in my throat—drew me away from the clawing memories. "I've run away from all the worst parts of my life, but you plant your feet and face them down like a dragon against a knight," he continued. He'd been talking for a while, I realized; talking me out of my panic. "I was furious that Faery had torn my scarred soul open again for you, so certain I would have to protect you when all I wanted was to flee. But you protected me. You fought
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His breath hitched. Vaduin burrowed closer, tucking his knees up higher, pressing me against his chest. "I should have been there with you," he whispered hoarsely. "I'm so used to you holding your own. You walk these circles almost like you were born to them. I let you walk into a nest of vipers alone, when I knew exactly the venom in their bite. I—"
"I could have killed them all, too, without injury or remorse. But you fought your way to me to keep them safe, and no matter my… my rage, and terror, and horror, at seeing a sword drawn against you…" He had to stop and pant, his claws digging into me. "You were willing to die by the sword rather than surrender those who would harm you to their deaths. Who was I, then, to slaughter those you saved?"
"he was always looking for the next escape," Vaduin had said, looking at his own portrait.
"People get to change," I said. "You get to choose. Sometimes what we need is to burn who we were to the ground and start over. I'm a phoenix, and so are you."
"I don't think you want what I want, and I don't know how to want anything different."
The gift of the sword is mortality, I thought blankly, one of the common sayings about the Raven Court patron god slipping into my mind. Of course a mortal's crown would be made like a sword.
"I can control myself, but I must keep the leash tight, or I'll… break, Dani, I'll break. If I join the litany of men who've taken from you what wasn't theirs I won't deserve to take another breath."
He shouldn't have to ask to be loved.
Don't you dare steal from a basilisk."
"Dani," Cass said when I got to my feet. He spread his wing with a wince, the effort it took to move that much obvious from the strain on his face. "Take one of my feathers with you. They'll surely have bound Vaduin, too." I set my fingers on the cool metal of his wing. "Your feathers don't grow back." "Friends don't rise from the grave," he said in return.
A sneer lifted his lip. "I have no desire to see war consume the Court of Mercy, nor another Fury fallen," he said in a cold voice. "Why would I want to hand the Court to a monster like her, or to bring home another broken Fury as my father's pet? They fought, bled, and died for us. Their freedom was justly won. My father may choose to forget such things, but I do not." Pelleas lifted his chin, looking down at me with disdain. "I didn't know, Danica, and if I had, I would have helped you, not her."
"What dragon's-hoard is frightened of his dragon?" He swallowed, then added in a thick voice, "You came for me."
"Then I'm yours," he said in a fragile voice. He took my hand and set it on his throat, his pulse under my fingertips. "Yours to harm or to harbor, and yours to succor or to strike. Set a collar around my neck, and I will submit. Set a crown on my head, and I will stand sovereign. But I beg thee, set thy hand over my heart, and claim what longs to be claimed." Vaduin's fingers traced over my face, seeing what his eyes could not. "Because I love you," he whispered, trembling, "and I'm already yours."
I couldn't even speak, struck dumb by his surrender, a man who'd defended every corner of his heart handing me the keys and trusting me not to hurt him.
I leaned my face against his. "I take you, to have and to hold, and to love and to cherish," I told him, my throat so thick I could barely say the words. "For better and for worse. In sickness and health, and in poverty and in wealth. Whatever name you bear and whatever road you choose, I will be with you, and I will never forsake you. You're mine, and I'm yours, for as long we both shall live."
"Give the healer a mark he can fix."
Esther Pallache,
"She fought a land-duel and destroyed a castle for me," Vaduin said dreamily. "It was very romantic."
"I've done as I swore to do," he said, his voice pitched low. "I did what I thought best for Mercy and those within her, and I kept your Court from war and your people safe." His pale eyes flickered over to Vaduin, who had one ear tilted towards us, listening. Pelleas let me go, and stood, moving away from us. "Remember that, in the light of the dawn."
"It's time to come back, now, chevalier," he said, using the French word for a knight. "Come back for me, as I came back for you." "Come on, Cass," I whispered. "Don't get lost." A smile touched Vaduin's face. "Une chanson douce que me chantait mon ami," Vaduin sang, like they were all alone, changing the words so that they reflected what Cass had done for him, all those decades ago. "C'était nous deux, et tu m'aimais quand je dormais. Cette chanson douce je veux la chanter pour toi…" A sweet song was sung to me by my friend. It was just us two, and you loved me even when I slept. This sweet
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"Technically, I suppose that's true for the next day or so. I imagine he'll still be part-Omahice for that long," Vaduin murmured. He smiled down at Cass, his ears canting forward. "It feels nice to be his family."
