The room felt airless, and the pit below deepened.Antonio needed to find the right words.Calm the Monarchs down.But he was as angry as he was scared, and the last thing he wanted to do was make nice with anyone who looked at Declan the way they did.
“No pleasure?”Declan scoffed.“Nimai was one of those ‘rash young fae.’And I can assure you he took pleasure in killing humans.I saw it.”
“You speak of a brownie driven mad by his bond’s abandonment of him.”The sphinx sat forward, claws digging into the table Antonio couldn’t see.“A petty, personal squabble.”
“Pretty sure I wouldn’t start skinning people if Declan broke up with me,” Antonio muttered.
“Merely skewer them at the slightest of threats?”The zana’s eyes glinted with cold cruelty.
Antonio sucked in a breath, throat tight with the ghost of mint on his tongue.A field of flowersburned, hot enough to chase away the cold.
“That was self defense,” Declan said, the fierce, reckless bastard.“Kylan pulled away.”
“Are these the matters that concern you?A single human.The crown chosen for a trial.A bit of amusement over dinner.”The tip of the sphinx’s claws dug deeper into the invisible table.“If you truly wish to guide Faerie, you must learn to think bigger, children.None of that matters.Youdon’t matter.Leadership means a willingness to sacrifice yourself.To do what is required, regardless of cost.To reject your darker natures.”
“Antonio and I are not here to resurrect the bloody Winter Court.”
“You may not wish to do so, but onlydisciplinekeeps it from rising.There are those among the fae who cannot help but be drawn to death and lust and chaos.They rely on us, on the Council to save them from themselves.Ordermustbe maintained or chaos reigns.”
With each word, the feeling of airlessness, of a room filled only with stiflingpowergrew.The Monarchs weren’t only fae, they wereancient, so old their names had been forgotten.Maybe even they didn’t remember them.If Antonio weren’t so familiar with the feeling of helpless fear, he would have bolted.
Instead, he sat there above the abyss, with Declan at his side.The sluagh’s hand found his, and that, more than all the Monarchs’ hateful words, was what mattered.
“That’s what we’re trying to do,” Declan said, gone all calm and reasonable again, though Antonio couldfeelhis anger and fear.“Monarchs, that is what I’ve been working for since I first started seeking a voice in the running of Faerie.”
Antonio kept his mouth shut, watching Declan sideways.The fall of those rasped words was careful, each set just so.Fae didn’t lie, but that didn’t make them any more honest than your average human.They were just more canny about shit.
“You believe a being of chaos can stem its tide?Asluagh?”
“I believeonlya being of chaos can do so.I’ve seen what happens when a group of people has no hope for something greater.When they feel voiceless.There are no death aligned on the entirety of the Council.I have the respect of my peers.I am what they wish to be.”Again, that acrid burn, all the sharper now.“A bonded sluagh.And with your leave, a Council member.An unconventional bond, but one I would choose again and again.Few death aligned would ever want for more.”
“Your bond is an abomination,” the zana said, fierce now instead of cold.“The like of which aided in the debauchery of the Winter Court in more ways than one, leading to death and horrors you’d be ill to imagine.It ought not exist.”
“But wearebonded.And as you said yourselves, you’ll be rid of us in a handful of centuries.Less than.Even if you never set another of my kin on the Council, there is comfort in possibility.Wecouldmatter.If you allow us to, we could matter in a way that aids your cause.Ourcause.”Declan was quiet for a beat before adding, “In our oaths, I pledged respect to Antonio.I promised him a status equal to my own.What could I have done earlier, but uphold that promise?I’d have spoken against iron-laced food for a fae, and so spoke against glamoured food for my bond, a Hollow.”
“You could have held your tongue and showed yourself capable of recognizing your place.”The sphinx rubbed the bridge of his nose, like a tired parent.“A word of advice for both of you.If your betters serve you a plate of glass, you pick up your spoon, and youchoke it down.”
Christ.Antonio hated howfamiliarthey seemed.Petty tyrants, only not so petty.Had a whole fucking world at their fingertips.They would get along with Clara just fine, except for the whole ‘not recognizing humans as people’ thing.
“Yeah, you don’t gotta worry on that front.I’ve been swallowing shit my whole life.”Antonio gestured to himself, suspended over what looked like an open pit, in a chair that bit his skin, in front of two completely naked fae.“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Indeed.”The sphinx’s eyes rested on him briefly, before returning to his moon-crowned partner.“Well, dearest one?I cannot say I find the child’s argument persuasive, but it could be good for a jest and a bet.Do we allow this little play to reach its inevitable conclusion, or do we call the curtain now?”
The zana didn’t answer immediately, treating both of them to shimmering study.Antonio didn’t like the way she lookedathim any more than he’d like the way she’d look through him.He sat silent as Declan, still as he could bear.
The both of them waiting, mice in the sights of a snake, bracing for the strike.
“When children reach for the fire after being warned it’s hot, there’s only one way for them to learn, my heart.Either they burn, or they pull back and fall in line.Let them be an example to others who may wish to follow in their charred steps.”She sighed, an echo of every mother who watched a wayward child grab something they shouldn’t but did nothing to stop them.“They’ll be worth more as corpses of their own making than possible martyrs by ours.And far more amusing to watch.”
“And this is why your wisdom guides Faerie.”The sphinx rose to his feet, bringing his junk straight into Anonio’s eyeline.If the fucker was human, he’d be the sort to send dick pics to strangers.“As our visitors seem insistent on spurning hospitality, let us move matters along.I’ve more important duties than lecturing a pair of recalcitrant infants.”
“What a pity they’ll not recognize the truth of it until it’s too late.”
The zana rose in turn, and the scent of new growth almost overwhelmed the ever-present woodsmoke of Declan.She gestured at where Antonio knew the table was, and the sense of it, that irritating buzz beneath his thumb, disappeared.
“Kneel,” the sphinx said.
“Make your vows, children.”The zana smirked, eyes glittering like sun on water.“Pledge your loyalty to your Monarchs.”
