M y leg roared in burning pain by the time we approached the upper room. The Tower was a mere five levels, but by the end the pain
scorched deep enough I wanted Tait to lift me onto his back.
I clenched my hands to keep from rubbing the knot.
Tait’s scowl deepened. “Blister Poppy is here. She might have that peppercorn oil you—”
“Utter another word, and I will stitch your tongue to the top of your mouth.”
Tait snorted his disdain but had the brains to shut up. Few people knew how much trouble the wounds from my childhood caused, and I didn’t need reminders that to most of my people the visible scars were marks of a broken king. A weak king.
On this level, the debauchery in the pub on the first floor was nothing but a muffled commotion. The tower was made of chipped wood, a few crystal sea stones, grime, and dust. It suited us well enough. A window adorned each side of the upper floor, giving us the vantage of watching every horizon for threats.
A floor below was where lords from noble houses would take the finer rooms with furs and silks. The middle floors held the washrooms and simple bed chambers with straw mattresses and tattered quilts. Finery mattered little when the rooms were meant to serve as a quick thrust into a lover’s hole, then move on back to the pub for more.
Tait knocked on the door once, then stood aside.
“Keep watch, but if time drones on, turn your sights to the princess. No one is to touch her.” The need for answers regarding Livia Ferus was
potent. As though my fight to save the Ever Kingdom had somehow shifted to a battle for her.
The room wasn’t large, but there was space enough for a table with two chairs and a single cot against one wall.
Near a table lined in seed bread loaves, pungent herbs, and herring oil, a woman in a tattered black cloak devoured a corner of the bread. Loud movements of her tongue lapped and slurped at the dribble of oil.
“Hail to the king,” she said, voice rough as though she’d been screaming for days.
She faced me. Milky eyes flicked wildly in her head, never seeing me, yet trapping me in her gaze all at once.
“No need for disguises, Lady Narza.” I kept a distance, holding my place by the door. “It’s only us here.”
Little by little, the marred skin and tattered robes bled into a new form, until Narza stood upright, shoulders back, her skin blemish free and pale enough there was a touch of blue to the tone. Her gown hugged the slender shape of her figure, and on her waist was a silver dagger crusted in blue clam shells that glowed in darkness, giving off light.
A muscle in my jaw pulsed. “I didn’t think you’d come.”
“How can I refuse when my king insists he has discovered the answer to the Ever Kingdom’s toils?”
“I saw the deadened land heal.” With a stiff step, I sat at the table, brushing away a layer of what appeared to be centuries-thick dust.
Narza drew in a labored breath through her nose. “How?”
Under the table, my fist tightened, the skin on my knuckles pulled white. “The daughter of my father’s killer.”
“You fool.” Narza’s gold-glass eyes flashed. “You’ve started a new war when we are already broken.”
“I’ve started nothing. There is no way the earth fae can come through the Chasm and live.”
“So sure?”
Unease burned in my gut. No, I wasn’t certain. I tossed the thought to the back of my head. When we returned to the royal city, I’d see to it Livia’s folk would never find her.
Narza frowned when I kept quiet. “Why did you call me?”
“I assure you, Lady Narza, you are the last summons I’d want to make. I have need of your gift to better understand what power the princess is
wielding, so we might continue to heal the kingdom.” Narza was silent.
“Did you not hear me?” I asked after the pressure of her quiet seemed to cave in over my shoulders.
“I heard.” Narza scooped the flatbread through her oils again without taking a bite. “I do not understand why you took the woman. You’ve believed for so long the only way to be the Ever King is by claiming the trinket your father left behind.”
“Trinket?” I shot to my feet. “The mantle gave him the power of the Ever. A gift from you, yet you lessen its value when we need it more than ever.”
“My question remains unanswered. You believe all this, and returned not with the trinket of Thorvald, but with a woman.”
“She bears the mark of the House of Kings.” I ground my teeth together. The words were said without thought, and I would do a great deal to snatch them back again. The fewer who knew of Livia’s rune the better. My temper had a grip on me, as it always did around Narza, and now I’d informed the woman I didn’t trust with the truth of my songbird.
“You’ve seen this for yourself?”
“I would not have said it if I hadn’t,” I grumbled.
Narza tapped one of her pointed fingernails against her chin. “When you went through the Chasm, tell me, why did you go to the shores you chose? Out of all the land of the earth fae, why did you go where you did?”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“You asked for my help,” she snapped. “I will decide what matters.” I glared at the wall for a dozen breaths. “I was drawn there.”
Through the frustration pounding in my skull, I nearly missed her sharp draw of breath. Before I could press her on the stun, Narza’s flat expression returned. “Drawn? To the woman?”
“To the mantle. The earth bender had been there but had only just left. I took his heir as ransom.”
“You took his heir, a woman with the mark of the House of Kings?” Narza’s brow arched. “You feel nothing for her?”
What did I feel for Livia Ferus? Anger, aggravation, lust, passion, a tangle of conflicting emotions always swelled in my chest whenever the princess came too close. As though she’d unlocked some hidden cavern in
the scorched edges of my heart and released the sunlight, shattering a prism of light in endless directions, in endless thoughts and feelings.
“She is a pawn,” I lied. “A means to an end until my birthright is restored.”
Narza chuckled bitterly. “You kings are all the same. Always looking for more power, more strength, when you do not see what you already have at your fingertips.”
“I am the king,” I agreed. “I have the power of the Ever Sea, but it is not enough. You know the power of the king is not limitless, or you would never have given Thorvald an amplifier like the mantle.”
“You think you know things about the gift I offered King Thorvald; I assure you, there are pieces you do not understand.” Narza looked out the window. Unspoken burdens shadowed her features. “I will meet the earth fae, so you can know her magic. But only if you’re certain it was not a trick of the eye—see that she does it again.”
“I plan to,” I said. “It’s the reason we’re here.”
Narza hummed softly in her throat. “Good. Then I will remain. Do not make my presence known.”
I was hardly listening. My scalp prickled, and somewhere in my chest a foreign sensation burned. In the beginning I dismissed it as my own irritation, but the longer Narza studied me, the more focused I grew on the slow building tension.
A slight quiver inside shifted to something more potent.
I tilted my head, lips pinched. “Are you doing something to me?” She narrowed her eyes. “Of course not. What is it?”
“I feel . . .” My hand pressed to my chest; breaths came in sharp, haggard rasps. My shoulders tightened, as though I were bracing against a force unseen. Sweat dampened my palms, and my pulse quickened to the point my head spun.
Fear was a weakness, one I fought to conceal, but this fear . . . it was detached. It didn’t belong to me.
A sort of maddening power clung to me where an emotion separate from my own had taken hold as though I should be feeling it, but I wasn’t afraid. The room grew musty, like damp soil burned my nose. I coughed on the grit of it in my throat. The musk of sweat followed. A hot breath of apple rum filled my lungs.
“Erik?” Narza studied me.
“How is this possible?” My head throbbed; I rubbed it away. “I feel
her.”
Narza’s painted lips turned down into a frown. “Gods of the tides. You feel your pawn?”
My fists pressed into my skull as a flurry of moments flashed through my mind. Music, a slow, eerie tune. Need. Desire. All around me was laughter and slurred, ale-heavy words. Then a face—a haunting face. I was terrified and captivated all at once as he played a pan pipe. He whispered something. I couldn’t make it out.
“What have you done, Erik?” Narza’s countenance was one tangled in both heady concern that dug into the smooth angles of her face, and anger, like I’d damned us all.
I startled back, but the moment my hand reached out for the latch, a heavy knock sent my blood to my head.
“Erik!” Larsson spilled into the room, Tait behind him. “Come quickly.
There’s trouble.”
I yanked a knife from my boot, uncertain what was happening here, and pointed the tip at the sea witch. “Keep your word and remain at the Tower, and I will prove what I say about her magic. Until we meet again, Grandmother.”
