Blood was in the air. Pale sunlight had barely clawed through ashy sea mists around the shore, but the hot tang of blood filled my lungs with
each breath.
I pulled back the thick, woven shades to see if some gory death had taken place at the base of my family’s tower. The dirt roads carving through the wood and stone fortress we called home for two weeks every summer were filled with loud merchants and courtiers preparing for the festival.
No bones. No flesh. No blood.
I let the shade fall back into place, my thumb tracing the roses and ravens embroidered in the threads—symbols for our Night Folk clans in the Northern realms. The Eastern, Southern, and Western realms would have their own unique markings.
I was losing my damn mind. Brutal nightmares of snakes devouring little birds took up my sleep. Now, I was bringing the blood and death from dreams into reality. Maybe it was because the Crimson Festival marked the end of the war. Or maybe it was because this festival was the tenth since our enemies, the sea fae, were locked beneath the tides.
With every fading summer, the haunting dreams grew more vivid, like a waking nightmare. A distant promise from a lanky boy locked in a cell had become a poison in my mind, an endless image of monstrous serpents rising from the sea, night after night.
I was a fool. There hadn’t been a single whisper of sea folk since the great war ended. This summer would be no different.
To soothe the tension in my blood, I opened a drawer in a table beside my bed. Inside were three lumps of what once was the rune talisman. Since
the disc shattered, the pieces had grown more brittle, as though returning to nothing but sand on the shore. They were hardly shapes anymore.
I slammed the drawer closed and climbed back into the wide bed, pulling the heavy fur duvet over my head. Alone, I could succumb to the race of my uneasy pulse, the damp sweat on my palms, and the nervous tremble in my veins.
The fortress was designed to house all four royal families of the fae realms. To the sea folk we were all earth fae, but in truth we were made of clans with different magics and talents.
All the clans fought together to win peace during the great war against dark fury—what my clan called magic—and the folk of the Ever Kingdom
—the sea fae. His people. The festival was an excuse to celebrate the victory and gave reason to see everyone I loved through days of field games, archery, lively balls, and too much sweet ale. I couldn’t puzzle through why this summer felt so . . . different.
“Livia!” A heavy pound on the thick, oakwood door rattled the rafters overhead. “You’re needed and yet are nowhere to be found. I noticed your absence first, in case you ever wondered who cares for you most.”
It must be terribly late in the morning if Jonas was the one sent to fetch me this time.
A strategic move. Well played. That vulgar tongue of his was equal parts charm and weapon. He knew how to use it well.
“Woman troubles,” I shouted, muffling my voice into the pillow. “Best to move along.”
“I’m up for the challenge.” A pause, then a few clicks came from the door latch, and the door swung open.
I shot up in the bed, frowning. “Jonas Eriksson, I warned you about picking my locks.”
Jonas flashed the roguish grin that won too many hearts in his court. “I do recall you once said I was forbidden to do so, and I simply forgot to care.”
Bastard.
Jonas filled the doorway with his height and width. Busy as a child, and even more active as a man, his body was made for battle while still being lithe enough to slip between shadows like a thief in the night.
His agility around locks and small spaces would be unsettling if he was sinister. The truth was, Jonas and his twin, Sander, couldn’t help their
proclivity to sneak. They’d been raised by a rather cunning king and queen who’d both thieved themselves a time or two.
Jonas strode to the tall window and tossed open the heavy curtains. I blinked when the sunlight burst through the room, and a gust of wind followed, carrying with it more imagined blood, more hints of the sea.
Jonas spun around, facing me, his hands on his hips as he smirked. “Pleased with yourself?” I scratched my scalp through wild tangles of
my dark braids.
“Immensely.” As the eldest of the twin Eastern princes, Jonas’s bright, verdant eyes and devious grin beneath the dark scruff on his jaw kept more than one lady slipping into his rooms. If they knew the goodness of his loyal heart under all his schemes and wit, they’d never leave him in peace. “Get up. The coaches are about to leave.”
Gods, how late did I sleep?
“Hurry, Liv. I mean this with love, it’s going to take some time for you to get presentable. You look like a goat swallowed you, then tossed you out with its shit.”
“Have I told you that you’re not charming?”
“Many times. You’re still wrong.” Jonas dropped one knee on the foot of my bed. “You seem distressed, Livie. Tell me what’s troubling you.”
“Nothing is troubling me except you.”
“You wound me.” He pressed a hand to the emblem of a sword encircled in shadows stitched to his dark tunic. His court’s seal. Jonas’s face sobered a bit as he studied me until I wanted to sink under my quilt from his scrutiny. “No teasing—are you all right?”
My shoulders slumped. A downside to having friendships built from infancy was knowing every tell and every flinch of each other’s faces. We knew the other’s weaknesses and strengths. Their fears.
I fell back against my pillows, eyes locked on the rafters. “I had the dream again last night.”
“Well, dammit.” Jonas tossed aside the three knives sheathed to his belt, kicked off his boots, and crept over my bed. “Why didn’t you say so?”
The idiot positioned himself against the wooden headboard, crossed his ankles, and opened an arm, beckoning me to his side.
I didn’t move.
Jonas raised his brows and flicked his fingers. “I’ll wait all damn morning, Livie. You know I will.”
“You’re wonderfully wretched.”
Jonas chuckled. I gave in and nestled against his side. He kept his arm tight and protective around my shoulders.
For a moment, we were silent. Then, his deep voice rumbled from his chest against my cheek. “I know the festival brings a lot of memories, I know those sea sods left with a lot of threats toward your daj and family, but they’re never coming back. And if they did, it’d be my honor to cut old Bloodsinger’s head clean off.”
I smiled and hugged his waist. Only my friends knew about the dreams I’d had since the end of the war. When the serpent in my dream came for me, when its jaw unhinged and swallowed me whole; somehow even in my dream, I knew it was sent by Erik Bloodsinger.
The Ever King.
He blamed Valen Ferus, the Night Folk king, for the death of his father. It was true, my father had killed King Thorvald of the Ever a turn before
I was even born. But he’d had damn good reason to do it.
Erik had been a boy during the wars with nothing but threats and unattainable promises.
I knew all this and still couldn’t shake the heavy weight of something dreadful on the horizon. As if peace were some fragile bit of ice, and it was only a matter of time before it all cracked.
“Now.” Jonas wrapped his other arm around me, sank a little against the headboard, and rested his stubbled cheek against my forehead. “Let’s get your mind off things, shall we? You know Lady Freydis—”
“Jonas, I swear to the gods, if you keep talking—”
“No, listen. Something happened, and I can’t quite wrap my mind around it.”
I sighed. “Fine, what happened?”
“Last night we arrived at the fort, and everything was going as usual. Sander hurried away to be strange and stick his nose in books. I had delightful plans with Freydis arranged from last turn’s festival, so it wasn’t a surprise to find her in my room.”
I rolled my eyes but grinned. Jonas genuinely seemed befuddled by something. If he had any sense, he’d realize Freydis had an interest in his title, much like his interest was in her body, not her heart.
“What happened?” I asked, pinching his side. “Did she demand a crown yet?”
“Not at all,” he said. “You see, she wasn’t alone. There with her was Ingrid Nilsdotter.”
My eyes widened. “You’re not serious.”
“Oh, I’m very serious. Now, my question comes because at one point there was a position where we—”
“Gods. Stop!” I shoved him away, scrambling out of the bed.
“What?” Jonas gaped at me. “I thought you’d want to help. Freydis did this thing with her legs, then Ingrid—”
“Jonas, if you say one more word, I swear I’ll cut out your tongue.” I dashed to the corner of my room, yanked open the painted wardrobe door, and began rifling through gowns, tunics, trousers—anything to escape from this fool and his scandalous affairs with courtiers. Behind the dressing screen, I struggled to pull on a pair of black trousers, hopping on one foot in my haste. “Go talk to Sander about all this. Honestly, what made you think I’d ever want to hear about…”
My words trailed off as his laughter drew my attention. Peeking around the screen, I saw Jonas reclining with his hands behind his head, a smug grin plastered across his handsome face. “No, don’t stop dressing. You’re doing such a good job.”
Clenching my jaw, I hurled one of my ankle boots at his head. “You did all this just to get me out of bed.”
“I keep my promises, and I promised you’d be downstairs with us. Don’t question my methods when they work, especially on a day like today.” Jonas slid off the bed, picking up my delicate silver circlet shaped like a vine of blossoms. “Did you forget the new Rave officers arrived this morning to see our parents off to council? Alek is among them. Remember him? Last I heard, you were like beloved cousins, but perhaps that’s changed in the six months he’s been away.”
I couldn’t help but smile. Aleksi was more like a second brother to me. He’d earned his rank in the Rave Army and had spent the last half year training in the frosted peaks of the North.
“I haven’t forgotten, you snob.” I’d looked forward to this moment where we could all be together again and one dream had tossed me into unease, distracting me from the Rave caravan that arrived to escort the kings and queens to their annual council.
I scrambled to finish dressing, rinse my mouth, and resorted to Jonas’s help in smoothing my braids.
A quarter of a clock toll was all it took before I abandoned my bedchamber, my blacksteel dagger sheathed on my waist, and an arm laced through Jonas’s.
“I bow to you, my friend,” I told him once we reached the winding staircase to the great hall of the fort. “That was one of your better lies to get me moving.”
He pressed a kiss to my knuckles, grinning. “Ah, Livie. Who said it was a lie?”
