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“Hear me out, your majesty. I know you’ve tried a lot, but you haven’t tried everything. You haven’t tried me.” Rowena smiled at him. “I’m the best witch in the world, and I promise you, I can get you a result. Try one more spell.”
Sam sighed. He wished he could believe her. All the confidence in the world wouldn’t matter if she couldn’t deliver, and so far, no one had been able to. Ever since John’s will had unexpectedly named Sam his heir over his older brother, there had been a scramble to find him a mate. Things always found a way to fall apart – Sam refused to compromise on certain values, negotiations over terms of alliance stalled out, Rachel turned out to be a former mistress of Dean’s, Ruby eloped with the queen of a rival nation, Madison fell victim to a highly unlikely wolf attack. Even magic had failed to produce an appropriate candidate. “What exactly can you do that other witches couldn’t?”
Rowena threw her head back. “I can find you your soulmate.”
A soulmate would cut through most of the crap. Recognized soulmates not only were permitted to marry, they were all but required to, so negotiations couldn’t stall too badly. It was highly unlikely that a soulmate would require compromise on Sam’s principles. The wolf attack, well, what were the chances of that happening twice? There was just one problem. “Fewer than one in a thousand people have soulmates. What if I’m not that miniscule chance?”
“Well then, dearie, we’ll just have to make you that miniscule chance,” Rowena purred. She stepped closer. “You do know that everyone is meant to have a soulmate – or two, or more – but the church paid a coven of powerful witches to destroy the system, don’t you? They hated that they couldn’t dictate who could marry whom. And then, instead of the promised payment, they turned against the Grand Coven, killing as many as they could catch. Driving witches from their rightful place as healers and counselors and helpers to those in need. All because they feared that if it was known what they had hired the coven to do, there would be rebellion and they would lose everything.”
“And you know how to undo that, at least for one person?” Rowena nodded, and Sam leaned forward. “How?”
“I was one of the Grand Coven. One of two who escaped. I know how to undo my own work, long enough for a few soulmates to slip through the barrier, and I can make sure yours is among them. Then it’s a simple matter of following the red string.” Rowena took another step closer. “I don’t mind undoing my work, not in this case, because of how they screwed us over.”
“Let me guess. If you help me, and this works, you want me to revive the office of court mage, and you just might know a candidate to fill it.”
Rowena held her hands out to the side. “Well, if it works, then I’ll have proved that witchcraft can solve a problem as stubborn as this one, and I am the best witch practicing today. I know you have your problems with the church, and I came to offer help because you’re already working to purge the corruption from the leadership.”
She was right. Sam had been considering bringing back the court mage, thanks to experience with friends who were practitioners. All he’d been waiting for was a candidate that would cause more problems for the church to oppose than to tolerate. If Rowena could find his soulmate, she’d be perfect – especially if she were telling the truth about being a member of the Grand Coven when the church destroyed it. “You have a deal.”
The good news was that the spell worked. The red string wrapped three times around Sam’s left ring finger and started tugging Sam toward his soulmate. The bad news was that the tugs were faint, indicating that his soulmate was far away. The ugly news was that somehow, his string reached up into the sky, where Sam couldn’t follow it. He stared at Rowena. “Explain.”
“I’ve only heard of this happening once before, and in that case, the man in question’s soulmate was an angel. An actual angel.” Rowena’s eyes traced the string as far as it was visible, and then she turned back to Sam. “In which case, the only thing to do is to wait until the angel comes to you. You can’t go to them, not without rendering this whole point moot by making Dean king.”
Sam huffed a laugh and turned around. “Father Zachariah. Why am I not surprised you’re here.”
“Well, I had come to tell you we had a lead on a potential wife.” Zachariah shot a sour look at Rowena. “But I see you’ve made your own arrangements without feeling the need to inform the church.”
“You’re right, I have.” Sam tugged on the red string. “Of course, now that we know I have a soulmate, the church says I can’t marry anyone else. This must be why we had so much trouble before.”
Whatever retort Zachariah planned to make disappeared as they all caught sight of the bright light descending from the sky. Sam held up a hand to shield his eyes, just barely able to make out a humanoid form at the center of a glowing ball of blue fire. His soulmate?
The humanoid form landed, and as the blue fire faded, Sam could see him more clearly. Handsome, but if Sam hadn’t seen the grand entrance, he’d never have suspected the being in front of him wasn’t human. When he spoke, his voice was deep and rather rough, but there wasn’t anything otherworldly about it. “Hello.”
“Hello?” Sam echoed, face lighting up in a smile. “Aren’t you supposed to say be not afraid?”
“If it will make you feel better, then fine. Be not afraid.” Sam’s smile got even bigger. “I have come to my soulmate, for lack of a better term. It’s good to meet you. Sam Winchester, the Boy King.”
Sam froze in extending his hand. Yes, that term had been used derisively when he’d first been named as king. Everyone had expected Dean, who was twenty-six at the time, rather than the twenty-two year old younger brother who hadn’t finished school yet. It took over a year of hard work to get his advisors to realize that yes, he was capable of ruling, he wasn’t the boy they all took him for, and two more to get the rest of his people on board. Even then, Sam wasn’t sure whether they had truly changed their minds about him, or just accepted that at twenty-five he was old enough. “That’s me. Who are you?”
“My name is Castiel. I’m an angel of the Lord your priests claim to worship.” Castiel glared at Zachariah. “They often have an odd way of showing it, undoing a system he put in place and then betraying their collaborators.”
“You know, I never quite understood why the Lord who’s so big on free will would create soulmates in the first place,” Sam said. “Do you?”
“The Lord created soulmates to guide humanity toward happiness, and of course, to maintain certain bloodlines of special significance. However, he is not the one who said that you must be with your soulmate and only with them. That’s the church’s doing, and it was never my Father’s will.” Castiel shot another glare at Zachariah. “Nor does he care about a human’s sexuality.”
Sam repressed the urge to laugh at the look on Zachariah’s face. “Zachariah, you’ve witnessed that I’ve met my soulmate, go talk to your people and figure out what we need to do to set up an official wedding to an angel. I don’t imagine I’ll need my people to negotiate much, so pick a date.” Zachariah bowed and walked away stiffly, and Sam turned to Rowena. “How soon can you begin work as court mage? This is even better than I’d hoped.”
“I’ll just need to talk to your treasurer about my pay.”
Sam nodded and handed her the notice of hiring he’d written out while she was preparing to work the spell. “Take this to him and tell him that he’ll also need to dust off the wedding budget. Thank you, Rowena. I look forward to working with you.”
Rowena bowed and headed off to the palace, leaving Sam alone with Castiel. “So an angel for a soulmate. How does this work, exactly? No one’s going to be happy about this, the only reason anyone could figure out why Dad chose me over Dean was because he thought I’d be more likely to have church-approved heirs, and that’s obviously not gonna happen.”
“I could shift to a female form, but nephilim are discouraged for a reason. Putting one in charge of your kingdom would likely be inviting trouble.”
The church would have a meltdown, and while Sam would enjoy that, there were easier ways than trying to raise a nephilim. “You can shift?”
“Yes. This is not my true form. As my soulmate, you could see my true form safely, but it would burn any other human’s eyes out. Therefore, I need this.” Castiel waved a hand at himself. “It was chosen to appeal to you. As an angel, I don’t have a gender as you think of it. If you preferred a female consort for political reasons, it wouldn’t matter to me.”
“No, this is great, you did a good job,” Sam said. "What pronouns should I use for you?"
"He/him is fine, if you want me to stay in this form."
“I kind of like the idea of tweaking the Church by making them accept you as you are. I can name one of Dean’s kids as my heir easily enough, if he ever gets married. If not…”
“Then you name one of his illegitimate children as heir. Another snub to the church.”
That was exactly what Sam had been thinking, with one rather large exception. “Wait, children? I know he’s pretty sure Ben is his, but that’s the only one we know of.”
“He has a daughter, Emma, whose mother has deliberately kept Dean unaware. I would recommend seeking her out so that she can’t be used against him later. You also have a half-brother, Adam, that your father never told you about, so that would be another option.”
Sam closed his eyes, letting the irritation pass. “Dad was kind of a secretive bastard. You’d think he could have warned me and Dean about him picking me. What did he do, flip a coin?”
“I can’t say for sure, but there’s a theory in Heaven. Up there, they believe that your father knew that whichever of you or Dean he picked, the other would quickly get over any resentment to support their brother.”
“Yeah, that didn’t exactly happen. At least, if Dean ever resented me being picked, he never let me see it.” Sam had been worried about it when he got called home from school to take the throne, concerned that Dean would feel he deserved the throne for being the one who was right there with John all along. Instead, in public, Dean said all the right things about respecting John’s choice and supporting his brother’s reign. In private, Dean had expressed relief that it wasn’t him. He was used to the right-hand man role, and he was good at it. Unless Sam was planning on kicking him out and replacing him with some fancy school friend, he was perfectly happy with this arrangement. Sam was quick to reassure him that he had no intention of kicking Dean out.
“Exactly. Dean’s agenda, had he become king, would be to keep the kingdom running and growing as it has been. He would have been a good king. You, on the other hand, had ambitions of taking on the corruption in the church. Dean can manage the kingdom as your right hand perfectly well, because you support him fully. You need the authority of the crown behind you if you want to have any hope of succeeding.” Castiel paused. “I don’t think he saw me coming.”
“No, probably not, but if I weren’t on the throne there’d be a lot less handwringing over me not being married. Dean’s probably going to start getting pressure, but up until now, no one’s bothered him.” Without that pressure – or the authority to help her in return – Rowena would never have helped him find his soulmate. “So I take it you’re here to help keep me on track and reform what needs reformation without throwing away the good with the bad?”
“I’m here because I’m your soulmate. That’s all. If my Father had a purpose in making us soulmates, he didn’t share it with me. Of course, I am happy to help you plan your battle against the corruption. I’m sure Rowena will have ideas as well.”
“Yeah, probably.” Sam looked up at a rumble from the sky, furrowing his brow in confusion when he saw the thunderclouds building. The sky had been perfectly clear while Rowena did her spell and they waited for Castiel to arrive. “Where’d those come from?”
Castiel gave an exasperated sigh. “That would be Gabriel’s doing.”
“The archangel? Is he not a fan of church reform?” From the way Castiel was talking, he’d assumed Heaven would be on board, but maybe not. If an archangel was against him, that would be something for him to consider before pushing forward.
“If he were allowed to intervene directly, he’d burn the church to the ground and reinstate worship of pagan gods appropriate to the region.” That was an even bigger surprise for Sam. Castiel wasn’t even done. “That was Gabriel telling us to stop standing around and go be soulmates.” There was another rumble from the sky. “I am not telling him that, Gabriel. Leave us alone.”
“You might as well tell me, now I’m curious,” Sam said.
Castiel glared at the sky. “He didn’t appreciate my euphemism of ‘being soulmates’. He would like me to correct it to the more accurate but far cruder and more invasive of our personal decisions ‘go get in bed and don’t come out until morning unless it’s for water to keep hydrated through the exercise.’”
“Oh.” Sam glanced up at the clouds and then stared pointedly at the ground. “How safe is it to ignore him?”
“He won’t hurt you beyond my ability to heal, but I would still recommend we at least go inside.” At another rumble from Gabriel, Castiel rolled his eyes. “Now Gabriel wants to know if that’s a rejection of the idea or just a choice to exercise free will to do it on our own terms.”
“The second one. Come on, let’s get inside before he can ask any more personal questions.” Sam took Castiel’s hand and started back toward the castle.