O ne boot propped on the rail, I leaned onto my elbow over my knee, waiting.
“How long?” I snapped.
Tait removed a watch made of gold and silver with cogs that ticked swifter if danger was near, a tell that our time was running short. “Ten chimes.”
Teeth clenched, I faced the empty sea again. Night had fallen over us where we’d hidden the ship in a deep, empty cove near the Chasm border. Now, a sliver of pale dawn was cresting over the horizon and two of my crew had yet to return from their small reconnaissance of the shore.
They were sly. Patient. It would take time.
Still, the desire to act scorched a hole through my insides. The risk of losing my opportunity to impatience grew closer to a reality with every passing breath.
“Oi! There they be.” A thick-necked man with bone rings in his ears pointed into the murk of clouds from the stern.
I didn’t fight the limp in my leg for the crew had seen it; I merely stepped with it to quicken my pace across the deck. The crewman handed over the black gold spyglass. One eye closed, I peered through until I found the shadow of the rowboat breaking through the waves.
I slammed the spyglass shut. “Pull them aboard. Move your asses, you wretches!”
Boots pounded over the damp wood. Heaves and grunts raised the heavy, bone grate over the lower deck. Half a dozen men slid down the ladder rungs through the hatch to meet them belowdecks.
Palms flat on the rail, I peered over the edge, and waited for the hidden door to heave open from the fattest bulge in the hull.
Ships of the sea folk were masterpieces, even the simplest fishing sloop was shaped from the ribcages of powerful whales or corpses of ancient sea snakes. The cracks and crevices were filled with sea oak, a soft wood that bent and gave with the violence of the tides and resisted damp for nigh a hundred turns before barnacles and rot needed to be careened away.
With a skeleton of bone and sea oak, ships carved through tides with speed, agility, and silence.
But the Ever Ship was a vessel made for gods.
A vessel powerful enough to sail through the Chasm without snapping a mast. The red sails were stitched with thick canvas, and petrified scales from deep-sea serpents were staked in the hull. Impenetrable.
The most convenient piece of the king’s ship was the stowaway door in the hull. It opened to take on our scores and rowboats without the delay of cranks and rigging. The door could open, swallow half a hull of water, then lock in place, spitting out the tide it took on as we sailed away.
Larsson rowed, and Celine held a lantern through the dark, guiding him into the hull. They were the two members of the crew who blended best with the earth fae. Celine with her green eyes instead of the pale or red of most sea fae, and Larsson with his lack of a sea voice. The magic of the Ever lived in the voices of its people. Some, like Larsson, had no ability of the sea.
Celine emerged from the hatch and tossed the hood from her head. I dug my fingernails into the meat of my palm until crescents carved into my flesh, all to keep from rushing across the ship to greet them.
Celine crossed the distance over the main deck in long strides. Her dark curls whipped about the frustrated grimace on her face.
“What?” I gritted through my teeth before she even reached me.
Patience wore thin, and I only had so much to give in the first place.
“When you cease looking at me like you will tear out my eyes, I will tell you what we found.” Celine arched a brow. She was the only soul who could get away with speaking to me like that, yet she still had the brains to speak it under her breath.
My throat was thick, but I managed to speak without spitting the words. “What did you learn?”
“There are countless people here. The ship will be at risk of being overtaken by their warriors if we draw too close. We should take the skiffs to the docks on the north side of the isle. There seems to be a festival in full bloom, but with it is also an open trade market.” Celine let out a quick breath. “We’ll be able to dock there and enter as tradesman.”
If this day ever came, I’d always imagined screams and terror when the crimson sails broke through the mist. I wanted the earth fae to know their reckoning had come. I closed my eyes against the wind. What mattered more was finding my father’s mantle and winning it back from the Night Folk king.
It called to me, and I wasn’t leaving without it.
“Leave me at the helm, Erik,” Tait said, voice low. “I’ll keep her hidden.”
My cheek flinched. I didn’t look at my cousin, but I didn’t need to. He already knew the answer. I might not trust easily, but there was no denying Tait held a deep-rooted loyalty to the ship, to our kingdom.
Not to mention he was bound by blood, the way his father was bound to mine, to see to it the Ever King never met his destruction.
Without turning around, I waved a hand and said, “Ready the boats.”
 |
The docks were one pace away. Already, Celine, Larsson, and a few more of the crew were shouting like freshly arrived traders. I was paralyzed.
“Erik.” Larsson cocked his head. “Find a way to blend in before you’re recognized.”
Recognized. Because I’d been here too many bleeding times. Battled these people. Felt their blades in my skin.
My jaw pulsed. This weight in my blood was nothing more than weak, pathetic fear. The crew was blood bound to serve the Ever Ship. Still, if my men saw me trembling like a boy about to piss in his trousers, no mistake, they’d find a way to mutiny.
“You’ve the right to be here.” It wasn’t Larsson. He’d melted into the crowd ten paces away. Celine had her hat pulled low on her brow, and she played the part of a boat hand tethering the already tethered skiff to the
dock. “You have fought for this moment, now claim what is yours before they get another chance to take you.”
My eyes narrowed in a tight glare. Not out of anger for Celine. More that she was right, and I hated she needed to say it at all.
With a tug, I used the rigging of the skiff to haul me onto the dock. For another breath, then two, I drew in the air of the land. Different than the Ever, yet the same in many ways. Sweet and fragrant. Not with the cool winds of my realm, there was more heat here. More savory herbs and cloyingly sweet scents.
I’d left my tricorn hat on the ship and covered the black scarf on my head with a knitted, woolen cap. The gold hoop in my ear was tucked in my trousers, and the ruby-hilted cutlass was in the hands of Tait with a hefty threat he’d lose those hands if a scratch were to be found on the blade.
We’d armed ourselves through the pirated supplies from old battles with earth fae—seax swords, axes, daggers, and a few of the strangely captivating blacksteel weapons had been pillaged across the centuries before the Chasm closed.
“Here.” Celine handed me a small glass vial with murky fluid inside. “For the eyes.”
She motioned dropping a few specks of the vial over her eyes. Teeth hidden, dressed in simple clothes, without my blade, the most notable feature that I did not belong here were my eyes.
I blinked through a sting from the drops, then tossed the vial into the waves.
“Well?” I opened my arms, facing Celine.
“Nothing but a common earth fae.” She adjusted her thick belt around a tattered dress. No mistake, she’d burn the thing the moment she could.
With a sack of stolen grain slung over my shoulder, I stepped toward the flow of crowds.
Larsson drifted back to us, taking a place on my left. Head down, he had a bit of straw between his teeth, and a black strip of leather tied his dark hair off his neck. Celine took my other side. She played her role well. A woman overwhelmed by the vastness of a place. More than one man stopped to help her retrieve the linens she kept dropping.
They were so taken by her praise, they never took note of her hand swiping purses from belts or knives from sheaths.
“Gods, did every bleeding soul on land convene to one damn place?” Larsson frowned when we trekked a slope to the top of a wooden staircase that would lead us into the trade square. Bodies packed the space, haggling, chattering, and utterly unaware the sea had returned.
“Come on. We need to find where he sleeps.”
“How do you know the earth bender will have it with him?”
“The call drew us here, didn’t it? Means it’s here.” I spoke briskly, but my mouth twisted in a grin. The deeper reason was my little songbird wouldn’t break a promise, and she promised to look after it always.
Tall buildings shaded the square. Some made of wood, others of pale stone. Moss and a few shelled creatures dotted the crags. There were carts and tables lining the cobbled paths, stacked in all manners of trade. Pelts from their mammoth forest creatures, gutted eels and fish, bangles made of wood and jade, and bright masks with feathers and ribbons decorating the neutral features.
A wooden spear handle shot out in front of me. Without lifting my chin, I rolled my eyes to meet those of a girthy man in a black gambeson. Two swords lined his waist, one a bronze blade with a raven hilt. By his side was another man, dressed the same, with two scars like fingernail marks on either cheek.
“State your trade,” the first said.
“Grains,” Larsson muttered. His accent had shifted to something refined and strange. Aboard the ship, he spoke with a constant hum of revelry and a touch of darkness.
“At the festival?” The two guards glanced at each other. “Folk need feed even at festivals, do they not?”
The guards scoffed. The first poked at the sacks in our hands. Little time went by before they gestured us forward.
“Welcome to Crimson Festival, grain sellers.”
The guards mocked our measly trade. No ribbons or gold to sell, true, but we’d pillaged long enough, it was always a better disguise to be unassuming. The dull and dreary commoner rarely earned a second glance.
Babbling excitement was everywhere. Even the most common of folk chattered on about games and feasts. What was the celebration?
The more we followed the roads that wrapped around the fort, the more my blood pounded in my head. A pull forward I couldn’t sever. We were close.
As the latecomers of the festival trade, we were forced to set down our sacks near a woman who was chopping off the heads of strange, gangly birds with a bit too much force.
“Ah, thought I’d be alone this turn again.” She used the bloody knife to point at one of her birds. “Not many like the smell of river pheasant. I find it has a nice tangy scent.” She laughed and swiped her dark, sweaty hair off her brow.
“Not afraid of a little blood, lady,” Larsson grumbled.
“Selling oats, are you?” She swung her knife, eyes on our sacks instead of the bird.
“Aye,” was all I said before I turned my back on her.
Celine gave me a significant look. One meant to tell me something I couldn’t read.
When I didn’t move, she sighed, irritated, and smiled sweetly at the woman. “We’ve never come during the festival.”
“Oh. You from the peaks in the Night Folk realm? Bleeding hard to get off those cliffs even once the frosts are gone.”
“Aye,” Celine said. “The peaks. Finally scrimped enough to make it this turn.”
Another whack, the thud of a head, and the woman grinned. “As you should. Everyone deserves to celebrate. Can’t believe the great war ended ten turns ago. Feels like mere months.”
My fists clenched. “It’s felt longer to us.” “Ah, isolated in the peaks, are you?”
“You could say that.” Every word seethed in bitterness.
“Seeing as we’re new,” Celine went on with a glare pointed at me, “what exactly goes on tonight? What’s all the bustle?”
The woman began stripping feathers off her latest beheading. “Hells, girl. How isolated are you in them cliffs? Tonight’s First Night, and that means a masquerade ball at the fort.”
“Ah, yes. Now I recall hearing mention of it.” Celine turned and offered me a wink.
There was our way in. I stepped beside Larsson and handed him a few copper coins from Celine’s cutpurses.
“Find us something to wear so we might blend in,” I told him. “While the front gates are occupied with people entering, we’ll use that time to go around . . .”
My voice trailed off when laughter rose over the chatter. As though snared into some strange trance, I followed the sound over Larsson’s shoulder in time to catch sight of a few discreet guards, three men with blades on their belts, then the source of the laughter—two women stepped onto the road from one of the shops.
Both lovely, but I was drawn to the tallest of the two. Hair dark as spilled ink was intricately braided over her slender shoulder. Soft skin, the shade of damp sand. A slight, tapered point to her ears, less pronounced than mine, but her eyes were what drew me in. I wouldn’t forget those eyes. Blue, like the calmest lagoons of the Ever.
I was frozen. Captivated.
When she laughed, her head tilted back, and the sun illuminated her cheeks until they glowed bronze. I lost my breath, my thoughts, and any words I might have had.
A strange darkness settled deep in my chest, cruel, wicked, and greedy. I had never wanted something so intensely. I didn’t understand it, nor did I try. The pull toward her was like a desperate crawl for water after wandering through a scorching desert.
Such a beautiful little bird. What a shame that her serpent had come to spoil her.
“Ah, taken with the princesses, are you, boy?” The woman and her half-plucked bird sidled up next to me. “If you’re from the high peaks, you’d know Livia, at least.”
Oh, I knew her. A sinister grin twisted across my lips.
“Out of all of us, my brother leaves home the least,” Celine said, likely trying to smooth over my odd behavior.
“Ah, well. Take a good look,” the woman said. “You probably won’t get another chance once the masque begins. With the Night Folk king and queen gone, more than one cocky lad will try to steal a moment with their daughter.”
I spun around. “The king, her father—he’s gone?”
No. That couldn’t be. I was led here. The mantle should be with the king. I needed that damn talisman as much as I needed to destroy him.
“Left before yesterday’s mid-meal,” she said, spitting out a feather that had landed on her tongue. “The rulers of the realms always gather at the Kunglig palace for council during the festival.”
Damn it. My breaths came in short, sharp bursts. An idea began to form. Lines would need to be crossed.
“Woman,” I snapped.
“Beeta,” she corrected.
“Why do the men wait for the king to leave before trying to approach his daughter?”
Beeta snorted. “Because if a single hair on lovely Livia’s head goes astray, her father will have yours. The man would go to war if she asked him to. The king adores her.”
Gods, how I hoped that was true. My next move would depend on it. If I couldn’t go to the king, I’d make him come to me.
Down the road, her laughter echoed through me again, like falling without knowing how it would end at the bottom. From here, I could still see the profile of her face, the curve of her nose, and the sly way she bit that full lip.
A step away from Beeta, I gripped Larsson behind the throat. “How well do you dance, Larsson?”
His sneer showed the glisten of his white teeth. “As well as you need, My King.”
“Then take the coin I gave you and see to it we are suitable for a royal ball.”
I stepped out into the road once more, watching her. Studying her.
She was never theirs anyway. Not really. From the moment the songbird tried to appeal to a serpent, she was mine.
