Page 101 of The Stolen Crown

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The Illusionist

A heavy hand shook me. I startled awake, and if the same hand did not catch me around the waist, I would have rolled into the sea.

Tait, blade in hand, covered my mouth with one of his palms and held a finger to his lips. “There’s a ship approaching.”

“Truly!” I jolted upright.

“It’s not from the Ever.”

I huddled close to his side and looked across the sea. A glimmer of a lantern approached. It hung from what seemed to be a curled stempost, a shape familiar on earth fae longships. No mistake, this vessel bulged in the middle like our ships, but the difference lived in the double level. As though earth fae boats collided with the enormous ships of the Ever Seas.

A dozen oars rowed from holes in the lower deck, and on the second, a figure wrapped in a thick fur cloak hugged the serpentine stempost, lantern outstretched, and a low rumble of a voice said, “Ho!”

One side of the oars pulled in, and the others worked to bring the ship about so the keel aligned with one side of our small vessel.

Tait stepped in front of me, one hand on my hip, the other twirling his knife. A low, satin-smooth hum rolled from his throat. His sea voice. He was combing through the desires of their hearts, feeling their true wants. He would know if they meant any harm.

My fingernails dug into his arm. “Although glamour is weakest here in the Far Seas,” I whispered, “give me the word, and I will do what I can to hide us away.”

“They wanted to find us,” he muttered back. “Now they want to save us from the sea.”

Thank the gods. “They mean well?”

“Perhaps.” He spoke through his teeth, and the way his jaw pulsed, if I had to guess, Tait Heartwalker was not convinced of anything. Not yet. He could trust his voice only so far, but it did not lessen his unease.

Once, he sang to test Livia’s intentions with Erik. She told me that even after he sensed she meant no harm to the Ever King, Tait did not trust her. He was not a man who offered such a thing with ease.

The figure—a man—tossed back the hood of his cloak. “Hej sømand. Alt i orden?”

“I don’t understand,” Tait shot back, voice hard and low. Across languages, anyone would detect the unspoken threat.

The words were rough, almost sharp, but I knew them. The tone felt almost familiar.

“Old-World tongue,” I muttered. “Tait, they’re speaking the old language. The same that we read in the tome from the village.”

Legends spoke of old-world explorers who went hunting for spoils or in search of the gods’ power. In some tales, they returned wealthier and wiser. In others, they did not return at all.

All were stories to teach littles lessons about various magics—alver, elven, fae, and other folk had long turned to myth. But elven did exist in the Far Seas. Skadi was proof of that. Perhaps other clans, like the lost folk of the isle, had settled across the seas and kept ancient dialects within their clans.

The man lifted the lantern higher. His features placed him as my elder by at least two dozen turns. His hair was pale, shorn on the sides with a spiked ridge in the center of his scalp. A long braided beard covered his chin, and two bones dangled in the lobes of his ears.

His smile was not threatening, but the flame gleamed over a single gilded tooth in the front of his smile. “Sea Folk.” His accent was strained, but clearly he’d learned common fae tongue. “We are peace.”

Tait did not loosen his grip in the slightest. “How are we to know? Look at those blades you carry.”

With the point of his knife, Tait gestured at a few of the men behind the leader. They wore sleek swords that gleamed like onyx glass, and some had curved cutlass blades like sea fae. Others held bearded axes like my people.

The man leaning against the stempost chuckled. “Same, sea fae.” He nodded at the knife.

Tait sneered. “I am one blade to many.”

With a sigh, the lead man waved his hand. At once, the others on the ship dropped their weapons in a clatter, hands raised.

“Aeika”—the lead man pressed a palm to his chest—“we come, we fish, we find sea fae.”

My insides flipped. I studied the newcomers. They were curious, but there was one distinguishing feature that was not like ours—their ears. Rounded and shaped like a mortal or alver.