Sathia glared at him, but the River Queen frowned. “Always making jokes. Always playing the fool.” She waved a hand adorned in rings of shell and coral toward Sathia. “I suppose I should wish you congratulations on your nuptials, but I instead wish you luck. With a male like that for a husband, you’ll need it in droves.”
“I thank you,” Sathia said with such sincerity that Tharion nearly bought it, too. “May your good wishes fly straight to Urd’s ears.”
Okay, maybe he’d underestimated his wife. She seemed more comfortable in this setting than he was.
Indeed, the River Queen seemed intrigued enough by Sathia’s grace under fire that she said, “Well, Tharion. Let’s hear what was so important that you dared enter my realm again.”
He clasped his hands behind his back, exposing his chest like he knew the River Queen preferred. He didn’t see her jagged sea-glass knife anywhere, but she always had it on her. “I am here on behalf of Bryce Quinlan, Queen of the Fae of Valbara and Avallen, to request asylum in the Blue Court for the people of Crescent City.”
Another long pause.
“Queen, is it?” the River Queen said. “Of Valbaran and Avallen Fae?” Her eyes slid to Sathia—the Fae representative, he supposed.
Sathia’s chin dipped. “Bryce Quinlan now rules both territories. I serve her, as does Tharion.”
Eyes as black and depthless as a shark’s slid to Tharion. The same eyes as her sister, the Ocean Queen, he realized. “Am I supposed to be pleased to hear you have yet again defected?”
“I did what my morals demanded,” Tharion said.
“Morals,” the River Queen mused. “What morals do you have other than ensuring your own survival at any cost? Was it your morals that guided you when you took my daughter’s maidenhead, swearing to love her until you died, and then toyed with her affections for the next decade?”
Fuck. But Sathia answered for him with that unflinching calm, “These are the mistakes of youth—ones Tharion has reflected upon and learned from.”
The River Queen fixed her attention on Sathia again. “Has he? Or was that the poisoned honey he poured into your ear to woo you?”
“He brought me before you,” Sathia countered. “Proof that he is willing to own up to his actions.”
It took a special sort of person to talk like that to the River Queen. To not back down one inch, not tremble at her power, her ageless face.
The River Queen’s eyes narrowed, clearly thinking along the same lines. “And this Queen Bryce thought Tharion the best emissary to beg me for such an enormous favor?”
Sathia’s chin didn’t lower. “She remembered how Tharion and your people so bravely and selflessly carried innocents down here to safety during the attack this spring.”
Damn, she was good.
The River Queen waved a hand toward the window overlooking the depths and the monsters prowling beyond. “And does she have a good reason why I shouldn’t kill Tharion where he stands and send his body out to the river beasts?”
Sathia didn’t even glance toward the circling sobeks. “Because he is now in Queen Bryce’s employ. You strike him down, and you shall have the Fae to deal with.”
A flash of little pointed teeth. “They’ll have to get Beneath first.”
Sathia didn’t miss a beat. “I believe it would not be in your best interest to become a city under siege.”
Holy gods, his wife had balls. Tharion wisely wiped any sort of reaction from his face, but Ogenas damn him, if they survived this meeting, he wanted Sathia to teach him everything she knew.
The River Queen scoffed, but angled her head before changing the subject. “How does the girl suddenly wield such power?”
“That is her own story to tell,” Sathia said, folding her hands behind her back, “but she has powerful allies. In this world and in others.”
“Others?”
Tharion dared say, turning his voice into a mirror of his wife’s poised calm, “Bryce counts the Princes of Hel as allies.”
“Then she is an enemy to Midgard. And an imbecile as well, if she is seeking to hide the people of this city from the demons she’d ally with.”
“She doesn’t seek to hide people from Hel,” Tharion said, “but from the Asteri’s wrath.”
The River Queen blinked slowly. “You ask me to take a stand against the Republic itself.”
“What happened in Asphodel Meadows was a disgrace,” Tharion said, voice dangerously low. “If you don’t stand against the Republic for something of this nature, then you’re complicit in their slaughter.”