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Merry

Like a slain god, he smashes to earth. One moment, her beloved anti-hero has evanesced, launching toward his demise. The next, his limp body drops back through the gaping chasm he’d torn in the ceiling, the tremendous crash ear-splitting. The foundation shudders, dislodging rubble, a blanket of gravel and dust vaulting into the air.

Merry staggers in place. Wonder, who’d risen upon Anger’s departure, fights to maintain her balance. Malice hisses a serrated “Fuck!” from someplace unseen, as though a piece of debris has struck him.

Andrew rams Iris against the wall where she’d been shackled until moments ago. Using his body as a shield, he hunches over his mate, cradling her head against his chest. Despite Iris being rescued, and despite their inability to decipher the surrounding chaos, they’ve been too shocked to move, much less flee.

Also, it hasn’t been long. Maybe three minutes. Yet it’s the longest span of time in Merry’s existence.

Dust settles, flaking to the broken floor. Coughing, she spots the crater burrowing into the ground, sizzling tendrils levitating from its belly.

In the god’s absence, Merry had been choking Iris’s longbow in her grip. Now the weapon rolls from her fingers.

His name shreds from her mouth. “Anger!”

Merry bolts toward the cavity, stumbling down bits of rock. Half twisted on his back, the god lies still, his face contorted away from her. Dark streams of hair cover half of his features. Bloody dribbles from the gashes into his shirt and pants, blisters coat his skin, and the flame tattoos glint with heat.

The markings are still there. But the wings are gone.

With an anguished cry, Merry slams to her knees beside him, draping herself across his chest and clasping his face, wrenching it into full view. “Anger,” she sobs, tears leaking down her face. “Anger.”

She can’t say to whom she’s pleading. To destiny, to The Stars, or to him. Maybe all three, because fate has stolen enough from them. Their origins. Their homeland. For mercy’s sake, don’t take this away too.

This must be a pivotal scene when love conquers all. Together, they have made a formidable effort to defeat the villain. Iris and Andrew are safe. Malice will soon burn in infamy. And while there’s destiny, there’s also free will.

Anger can fight like he’s done all his life. And so can Merry.

Which is why she cranks her hand back and slaps him across the face. “Anger!” she growls since he responds to rage over lamentations. “Dammit, Anger—”

A resonant, baritone groan. Her eyes snap from his wounds to those graphite eyes, which gaze upon her features, the irises teeming with life.

“Fuck, Merry,” he grumbles. “That hurt.”

He might mean the crash. But then he rolls his bleeding jaw, referring to the slap.

Merry pauses, then bursts into laughter. Chuckling and weeping, she plants kisses all over his face. “Curse you,” she grits out. “I could kill you for that stunt!”

Although Anger tries to reciprocate, he seethes in pain. To compensate, his weak hands grasp her face, framing her in rough fingerless gloves. He steers her head toward him, the hoops flashing from his earlobes, his petrified eyes burning into her.

“You’re injured,” Anger slurs.

Tenderness pours through Merry like honey. “I’ve had worse.”

Like him, lacerations cover her skin from where Malice’s arrows had skimmed her. One of them is deep and oozing, but it isn’t fatal. The Celestial City has had its share of brawls between exiles, some of which she has participated in, allying with her kindreds against Malice’s cult.

The pierce of an arrow can be a death sentence for deities. Apparently, a fall from grace isn’t as perilous to an immortal. Still, that’s something none of them had known.

Anger had taken a risk. For her and his crew.

He winces as Merry helps him sit upright. Twisting, they examine the twin slashes in his shirt, revealing two charred red scars where his wings should be.

“Icarus,” he jokes somberly, turning back to Merry. “It is an accurate description. I’ve been just as foolish.”

Merry takes a moment to think about that. “Maybe Icarus was a fool,” she concurs. “But maybe he was also brave for taking a leap of faith. The outcome doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth trying.”

“Beautiful optimist.” He tucks a lock of pink behind her ear, then rests his forehead against hers. “Or perhaps I was aiming for the wrong light.” His lips brush hers. “But not anymore.”

Smiling, Merry slides her digits across his stubbled jaw. “Hi, my soulmate.”

He pulls back, his pupils riveted by the sight of her whole and breathing. “Hello, my hero.”

A frayed gown splattered in blood appears in Merry’s periphery. Wonder kneels on Anger’s opposite side, her brows knitting in relief and displeasure. “Don’t you ever do that again, dearest.”

Anger meets the goddess’s stare. “Which part?”

But Wonder just narrows her eyes, indicating he can fill in the blanks. He kept the wings a secret, made a bargain with Malice, attempted to break Merry’s heart, and gambled his life by flying toward the sun.

In the short span of minutes he’d been gone, Merry had rattled off his intentions in a panic. In any case, Wonder has enough reasons to upbraid her comrade.

Chagrined, Anger inclines his head. “Apologies.”

A mortal snarl cuts through the vault. “Fucking hell.”

They wheel to see Andrew wrap Iris in a fierce hug. Although they can’t see the deities, they’d witnessed part of the mayhem, including the weapons firing midair, the ceiling’s collapse, and the explosion as Anger crashed from the sky. Based on the way their squinting eyes had jumped between the combatants, the couple must have heard faint voices, echoes of the conflict. As Merry had suspected, the pair must be getting closer to restoring their memories. Whatever tactics they’re using are increasing in promise.

Regardless of the battle, they’re a resilient pair, recovering swiftly. Anticipating Iris’s next move, Andrew holds back his mate just before she leaps, her arms flailing, her fingernails scratching at nothing, trying to attack the room.

“Let me at ’em!” she yells. “Let me at the fuckers!”

Andrew isn’t about to compromise her safety. Unable to identify their audience, he snatches Iris’s fingers with one hand and his fallen weaponry with the other, then hauls the former goddess out of the crypt.

As her mutinous protests travel from the stairwell, Anger huffs. “Some things never change.” But when he transfers his gaze back to Merry, his features soften. “Yet some things do.”

Wonder casts a wistful glance toward where Iris had slipped from sight. They’d been kindreds, and Wonder hadn’t had the chance to check on Iris, to see if the erstwhile goddess was all right.

Though in her defense, she’d been busy feuding with a demon. Speaking of which, Malice lay in the corner, one of his legs bent at an unnatural angle, which prevents him from rising. That explains his bellow during Anger’s descent, one of the stone blocks having struck Malice’s thigh.

He isn’t going anywhere. Yet instead of howling in vengeance or agony, he makes no sound. Instead, his nostrils flare, that manic glower alternating between Wonder and the scattered letters that have survived the wreckage. While some envelopes have burned to cinders because of Merry’s earlier shot, the rest languish out of his reach.

For the time being, witnessing the asshole’s turmoil is enough for Merry. But not for Anger.

As the rage god’s eyes tick over to Malice, his retinas blaze. Injuries be damned, Anger catapults off the ground and takes a murderous lunge toward the demon god, ready to shred the enemy limb from limb.

However, he’s not fast enough. Surging to her feet, Wonder cannons toward Malice. The goddess hammers into her target, then drives her fists into his face.

“How dare you!” she screeches. “Demon! Imposter! How fucking dare you! How could you!”

Anger halts, doing nothing to stop the attack. Whereas Merry grapples Wonder’s shoulders and drags her off Malice, who hadn’t put up a skirmish, who’d merely taken it. His bloody countenance dissects Wonder with the intrigue of a viper, as if he prefers to study the goddess first and then strangle her in retaliation.

He spits out a wad of crimson. “How could I what?”

Wonder opens her mouth to reply, but then she goes quiet. The question stretches between them as she traces her scars, and Malice’s taloned thumbnail draws across his newly fractured wrist, which also hangs at a warped angle. This fiend had ensnared Anger, kidnapped Iris, and tried to kill Wonder and Merry. Yet that’s not what Wonder had meant.

How could you!

The accusations don’t align with his actions. It’s a string of words with a haunted meaning, as if he’s betrayed her.

Merry swings her head between the pair. She has dealt with Malice long enough to know he detests ambiguity. To that end, the god is struggling to make sense of Wonder’s outburst.

“Careful before playing dirty with me,” Malice warns, his canines stained red. “Normally, being hated is such fun. But in this case, I find it insulting. Your face looks about as tight as your cunt, and that sort of repulsion smacks of the personal, Wildflower. Do I owe you something?”

Wonder’s eyelashes flicker. Treachery flashes across her eyes, the emotion tinged with guilt. She wrenches herself from Merry, rips several lengths of fabric from her skirt, and kneels before Malice. They stare at one another as she rearranges his wounded leg, ignoring the god’s grunt of pain while she binds his ankles. But when it comes to securing his thick biceps to his sides and avoiding the broken wrist, Wonder’s hands tremble.

Malice’s pupils dilate with fear. Not from her but the restraints.

He growls like a wolf caught in a snare. “Hands. Off. Bitch.”

“Mouth. Shut. Monster.” Wonder makes quick work of the dressing, then marches to her archery and collects her weapons from the ground. While she focuses on the task, Malice’s eyes follow her stoic movements. In particular, the motions of her scarred hands.

Merry trades looks with Anger, but her bewilderment fades as a thought strikes her. “How did Andrew know to find Iris here?”

While arming herself, Wonder verifies, “It wasn’t me, dearest.”

“Somehow, he figured it out for himself,” Anger concludes. “Perceptive mortal.”

“Yes. At least one soul has acted wisely of late,” a new voice interjects. “Though, it’s a pity that person is a mortal. Care to elaborate?”

From anyone in their crew, this would be a request. Yet from the source of that voice, it’s an order. Each word forms the shape of a command, with corners filed to points, spoken from a patrician tone as infinite as The Stars. The inquiry is delivered cordially, hence dangerously.

A gasp presses against Merry’s throat. A pair of ancient figures stand before them, green and blue moonstone archery harnessed to their backs, their timeless eyes glowing as if pigmented by lunar light.

The Fate Court.