Chapter 33
A PRETTY GOOD ENDING
Azrion
“Mhot, how long is this going to take?”
Azrion was dying.
No, he was already dead, and this was the deepest of the hells. The blazes was where he belonged, devastated, suffering, alone. That was what being away from Katarina felt like anyway, so what was the difference?
She’d been avoiding him for just two days, but it felt like a lifetime.
The only upside was his work. Not at the scholar’s hall—no, even his father’s prodding didn’t inspire fear or anger anymore.
But he did lock himself away in his office to suss out his seven plans to infiltrate the council and assure the safety of the humans, each slightly different and somewhere on the spectrum from useless frippery to total chaos.
“It will take as long as it takes,” Mhot snapped from behind the curtain in the mercer’s shop.
It had been hours, bits of which were tolerable, specifically the bits where he got to pick out trim and try on pants and swish his tail around for the right fit. But now he only slapped his tail against the floor as he sank in his seat and wallowed in despair.
But then, he was here because Kat had ordered him to come, and when Kat told him to come, he came.
Unfortunately none of this had to do with spilling seed.
He was meant to be fitted and then meet her elsewhere.
As much as he enjoyed clothing, he enjoyed her company more, and he was terrified to be late.
The mercer’s shop was closed, and Azrion sat in it alone, but he imagined Kat dancing across the floor from dress form to fabric bolt to thread shelf.
She wore that wholly delighted look she’d first shown him when he introduced her to this place, and he had since learned to coax that look out not with fabric and needles but with kind words and a soft touch.
But then he’d lost the magic, and she had gone away.
“One more button,” Mhot called, and Azrion sat up with an inhale of satisfaction and fear both. Thank all the gods and stars and needles and thread, the outfit Katarina hinted at in her ambiguous letter was finally on the verge of done.
At least she wanted to see him again after so cruelly hiding herself away.
He would tell Kat everything this time, even if he hadn’t completely figured out which of his seven plans would save them both, but together, he was sure they could resolve anything.
They had to, they were bonded, and without her…
he couldn’t even think of that possibility.
“Here we are!” Mhot threw back the curtains and held out the coat she’d been working on.
“Well, that is spectacular.” Azrion stood, equally enamored of the fine detail and thrilled to be leaving. “I hate to grab it and run, but—”
“You will put it on,” Mhot snapped, and threw the bundle of clothes in his face.
Azrion grumbled, stripping and redressing in a chaotic hurry while Mhot fussed and snipped loose threads and tutted at his lack of care. When he was done, he was forced to take at least one look in the mirror while Mhot made sure the hems were pristine.
Well, Kat had taste just as good as his own, but of course she did, she liked him. Then again, maybe she didn’t. Gods, he was a wreck, but damn it all if he wasn’t going to look absolutely stunning while harboring an utter disaster in his soul. His bonded soul. “Oh, fucking hells.”
“What was that?” Mhot hummed from his side.
“You’re still here?” Azrion looked about, but they weren’t in the mercer’s shop anymore. He vaguely remembered leaving, then his mind just sort of jumbled up with every bad and good feeling at once, the anticipation of seeing Katarina and the dread at what she might say.
“I’ve been walking with you the whole time. I told you, we’re headed to the same place. It is a…coincidence.”
Azrion shrugged. Lots of demons needed to go to the apothecary, he supposed, and since Kizros had relocated, it was more popular than ever.
It didn’t matter, so long as Katarina was waiting inside and would be willing to hear him spill his heart.
The public location didn’t bode well for pleading the case for their love, though.
Except that maybe Kizros could help—surely he at least had some tonic that would calm Azrion’s rapidly increasing pulse.
Inside, the shop was dark. He hesitated on the threshold, peering between the shelves of tinctures and potions, only a faint lantern on the counter casting a dim, unwelcoming light.
“Come along now.” Mhot took him by the elbow.
“I think they’re closed,” Azrion said, his nerves worse than they’d ever been, which was rather simple considering how infrequently he experienced anxiety. It certainly wasn’t something he nor the author would recommend.
The mercer ignored his worries and guided him past the counter to a door at the back. Azrion found using it dubious, but he was so panicky and forlorn, he let himself be led.
And then there was a light so bright, Azrion was sure this time he really had died.
Not before I get to tell her, he pleaded of the gods, but as the white brilliance eased and his eyes adjusted, figures and plants began to take shape.
He hadn’t been thrust into the afterlife just yet, only the greenhouse with that magical human sun shining brightly down on so many demons and humans and easels.
Huh.
Azrion surveyed the crowd for Katarina. There were many horns and a smattering of human crowns, but not his golden-haired love.
Strangely, her sister was there with Ozirax in tow, and of course the blue-haired Aofe and Kizros sitting on a bench with the charming atteapir at her feet.
Bubbly Brioni hung off the beastkeeper’s massive arm, chattering at Azrion’s new friends Severath and Ember.
Even Rosalind who had clandestinely accepted those torn ledger pages from him was refilling cups with wine while chatting with someone blue, though he would have recognized her from panicking in that closet weeks ago in the council chambers.
That was an awful lot of humans in one place for his Kat to not also be present, and yet there were even more demons to parse through.
The Naevas clan was mingling with Fenthorn and—shit—of course Melora, but she was engaged with Fioran and her new spouse, and three excitable demons who had to have been in the guard looked to be arguing over some painting that their burlier frames blotted out.
A prickle at the back of Azrion’s neck pulled his attention to an arbor covered in magenta vines, and below it stood Zaiya giving him the most malicious of smiles. Elliran wore a sweeter look, sitting at Zaiya’s side and gripping her hand tight. Behind them stood—
“Fuck,” he hissed under his breath and immediately averted his gaze from his parents.
“Here we go,” said a friendly voice, and a red demon who looked strikingly like Severath winked at him.
“Remember to stand up straight,” a less-friendly voice demanded, and the gray demon at his other side gave him a push forward into the center of it all.
Azrion was no stranger to attention. In fact, he often craved it, if not demanded it.
It came easily when one was so charming and intent on pleasing everyone in the room.
When demons were laughing, they couldn’t be arguing, and even if they were confused by silly antics or outrageous verbosity, they were rarely left unamused when Azrion walked away.
But the many eyes on him did not inspire a showy production this time because there was only one he deigned to please, and when he finally saw her slip through the crowd clinging to the post mistress’s arm, he could do nothing but stare.
Katarina was clad in a striking dress as blue as Arder Pond, the perfect complement to those glorious rings in her eyes.
Embroidery circled the knee-length hem, all her own work, and all of it perfect even at a distance.
Her arms were bare, skin glowing under the sun, and her hair was gathered at the back of her head by a braided crown of gold, the long fall of it swept behind her, face unhidden exactly as it should have been.
Alamar gave Kat’s shoulder a pat, and the human sucked in a breath, scurrying across the greenhouse.
Not in Azrion’s direction, which made his stomach lurch, but then when he saw her step up onto a bench, his stomach flipped back the other way with utter confusion.
Of all the possibilities in every hell, he would never have seen this coming.
Every eye turned to Katarina as she loomed above the humans and at an equitable height with most of the demons.
Red blotches broke out immediately on her neck, and her eyes ceased blinking, but she smiled warmly at the assembled and cleared her throat.
“Thank you everyone for coming today. I know it was on short notice, and you were given pretty much zero details, but I’m so grateful that you trusted me enough to be here.
Or, I mean, that you trusted, uh, someone else who convinced you on my part…
or maybe they lied and didn’t tell you a human was involved, but I’m appreciative either way!
” She took a frazzled breath and scratched at one of the blotches on her throat.
“Woo, Kitty Kat!” shouted Kalypso as she raised her glass. “This party’s fucking great!”