B loodsinger left no room for argument and led us to a boathouse near the back of the Tower. Tait, Larsson, and Celine were there. Larsson
laughed at something Celine said, a smoke between his teeth as he wrapped ropes. Tait, somber and tense, adjusted a crimson scarf over his dark hair.
On our approach, their levity faded, and Tait’s scowl deepened.
“You’re certain she won’t use all this against us?” Larsson asked.
“Tell me how she might use it against us. Do you suppose it is some great secret?”
How could I ever use anything in this kingdom against any of them?
Celine lifted a satchel to her shoulder, and I drifted beside her, a hazy memory of the night before pounding in my skull. “Celine.”
“Earth fae.”
“I’m not certain if I imagined something.” My gaze flicked to the scar on her throat. “But . . . did that sea singer call you a siren?”
I’d heard such talk of the power of a siren’s song. A lure, a taunt, a power unmatched when sung. No man atop the water’s surface could resist it. If she had such a voice, I’d never seen her use it.
Celine’s mouth pinched in a tight line. “Maybe I was. Maybe I wasn’t. Doesn’t matter much for what we’re about to do now, does it? All you need to know is I can sing a song that causes the water to drag you beneath the depths if I want. Better than lust, don’t you think?”
She stepped around me, cutting off any more questions. I was curious enough to risk asking again, but swallowed my words when Erik insisted we needed to load a boat.
A row of small skiffs and even longboats were tethered to narrow docks. I brushed my fingers over the stempost of one longboat, tracing the fangs of the great sea serpent, and longed for home.
Erik stopped in front of a different skiff, but watched as I practically caressed the serpent. He altered course and stepped into the longboat. “I assume you can row?”
“I can row.”
I settled beside the king on a bench, the other three took places at our backs. I carved the heavy oar into the clear water of the lagoon, and nearly sobbed at the familiar burn in my shoulders.
“You are more adept with that oar than I thought,” Erik said with a grunt and deep dig of his own.
“I fished with my father often.” Long days spent under the sun, atop the water, with uncles, or friends, or just my daj and me, were some of my most cherished memories. The burn of tears sprang behind my eyes. “Does it bother you when I remind you whose blood runs in my veins, Bloodsinger?”
He shook his head. “I’d never forget.”
Willows and overreaching branches of towering trees shaded the passage. Beneath the water were black stones that glistened with crystal chips. We crossed the lagoon until the boat banked near stacked boulders with scars of white minerals crisscrossing over the surface.
The king held out a hand and waited for me to take it while the others secured the longboat. Trees were sparse, but sparkling streams spilled over the rocks in gentle falls, and pale waterfowl nested over along the banks, chirping and cooing as we approached.
There was a beauty here that I’d never seen back home. Water was like glass or emeralds. Foliage seemed to glisten in the sunlight, and the songs of creatures were strangely melodic. When the magic of the sea folk lived in the voice, I supposed it was no wonder even the creatures called beautifully.
“This way.” Erik tugged me up a muddy slope toward a cavern between two white stones.
I tried to keep my hold on his hand loose and uninterested, but the slick surfaces forced me to cling to his strength to keep from slipping over the edge.
Inside the cavern the air thickened and warmed unnaturally and held a rancid scent of scorched fetid wood. I covered my nose. Erik gave me a tormented look, as though he hated this place more than anyone.
Dammit. What if this was where he planned to end me? Breaths came sharp and angry, I tugged back against him. I thought I could face the Otherworld with bravery, with my head high, now betrayal lanced through me, sharp and swift.
Erik pulled me closer as we walked; his lips brushed my ear. “Livia Ferus, blood of warriors, temptation of the Ever King, you have nothing to fear from me in here. I am the one who fears this place.”
I blew out a quivering breath. How he knew the anguish of my thoughts, I didn’t know, but he gave me a subtle dip of his chin and rounded a bend in the cave. I let out a small gasp. White stone was blackened and reeked of refuse, much the same as the scorched soil on Skondell.
The spread marred the crystal chips in the stone and devoured the beauty of it. Fury magic in my veins ached, yearning to heal the land, to hear its secrets. A heaviness lived here, like watching a slow death and being unable to look away.
“What is this?” I whispered.
Erik’s jaw set. “We call it the darkening.” “This is what scorched that isle?”
With a nod, Erik released my hand. “It has been slowly eating away at the lands and destroying our resources. I’ve done all I can to find answers on how to stop it.”
I hovered my hand over a stone. “How long has it been spreading?” “It began a few turns ago.”
My heart dropped to my stomach. I closed my eyes. “Do you think . . . the barriers caused it?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps destroying the natural connection between our worlds played a part. Perhaps it is something else.” His voice hardened. “What I know is you pulled it away. I’ve seen the power that comes from the mantle of the king, and it would have the ability to amplify healing this land. But here you are, with the mark of the king, and you healed the soil in Skondell. It cannot be coincidence.”
Bleeding hells, no.
Erik took my arm with the rune mark. His thumb rubbed over my sleeve where he knew the scar was dug into my skin.
“Erik,” I whispered. “I don’t know how to do this, I’ve never seen—” “You did it already.”
It was strange to hear a touch of pleading in the Ever King’s tone. It shattered my heart. Turns he’d been trapped here, unable to protect his people, desperate to reach the realms of his enemies, desperate to take back what was his. He wanted the talisman he called his mantle, not simply to take revenge on my father, but because he thought it would give him the full strength to save his damn world.
“You feel a draw to the Ever.” His voice was soft, almost broken. “I’ve seen it in your eyes.”
Panic choked in the back of my throat. “I don’t know what this is and
—”
“Songbird. I was pulled toward the Chasm. It was my last chance to find
a way to defeat this, and I found you.”
“You found me,” I repeated, breathless, my head spinning.
“I found you.” One half of his mouth curved. “What you did in Skondell gave me hope that until I have the full power of the Ever again, you might stay the disease, even a little longer.”
I blinked and studied the rot over the stones. “The dark earth in Skondell, it . . . it had a magic to it. I sensed it.”
Erik held my gaze. “And your magic pulled it away.”
It was more. The darker side of my fury pulled it away. I didn’t want to think what would happen should I truly dig deeper into this destruction.
I studied the scorched stones. Nothing was alive, nothing could live. Tendrils of inky black slithered across every stone like gangly fingers reaching for the flame to snuff it out. The Ever Kingdom was dying. Erik looked to some of the darkness overhead, tension written in every groove of his handsome face.
What burdens had he faced? He’d been desperate enough to dive through the Chasm, a last hope, in the realm of his enemies.
A sharp anger drove into my chest. My people often spoke of peace, yet never tried to speak to the sea fae after the war. Almost like we feared any effort to do so might upend the hard-won comforts we enjoyed back home.
My fury magic laced through my fingers, a desire, a call to push back against whatever was happening here. To dig so deep might bring horrors to my mind, but wasn’t it worth it to help the innocent?
I hovered my hand over a patch of darkness and closed my eyes. My skin prickled against the magic. Distant screams of pain echoed in my skull. I winced.
“What is it?” Erik whispered. “You fear this the same as us.”
I clenched my jaw and held my hand steady. If I carved through the shadows, the pain, the screams of the agony that came from this darkness, I could see a shape. A figure, someone in the distance, like a shadow dancing beneath moonlight.
Blood. Flesh. Screams.
I snapped my hand back and opened my eyes.
“Bleeding gods, do you see that?” Celine’s whisper drew me back. A full arm’s length of darkness was erased from the white stones.
My heart slowed when I blew out a long breath. There was sickness here, and I could heal it. Somewhere inside I knew, with time, with effort, I could reverse whatever had devoured the Ever Kingdom.
But it would mean using my fury in every way I feared.
Tait stared in disbelief at the pale stone that had been washed of the dark veins, the first expression other than hatred on his face. Larsson seemed suspicious and uneasy. Who could blame them? How long had they fretted alongside their king that soon their home would be devoured, and their folk forced out or . . . lost entirely?
I clasped my hands in front of my body. “I will help.”
Erik swallowed, a flash of heat glowed in his eyes as he dipped his chin. “But,” I hurried on, “you must vow you will not kill my father.”
“Songbird.”
“Serpent.” I lifted a brow. “You still plan to challenge my father, to kill him. You think that will earn your power back, and I assure you, it won’t. You’ve already destroyed my folk by taking me, so that is my offer. My magic, for his life. You said yourself there could be risks with taking the mantle back.”
“Yes, but the power inside it strengthens the Ever.” Erik hovered a hand over a scorched place on the rock, then made a fist. “Its owner must be defeated by blood for it to be won. There is no other option.”
I had to tell him. “There are things you should know about your mantle.
It might be impossible to reach.” “No. It was there, I sensed it.”
“And you were led to me,” I insisted. “If you’ve been given a different way to heal your land, then take it, Erik.”
He considered the words for a few breaths, then cupped a hand behind my head, both tender and as a threat. “Swear you will tell me what you know of my father’s mantle, and I will stay my hand. Swear it.”
I had no choice. He was vindictive, he’d been a fiend, but he was also fueled by more than revenge. He was a king leading a broken land and had acted in desperation. He deserved to know his mantle was never returning to the Ever.
With a slow nod, I whispered, “I swear.”
“Good.” Erik slipped his fingers into mine. “Then come with me.”
