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When Rorik was taken in by Stieg and three more Rave guards assigned to the youngest prince, Jonas approached with arms open.
“Let the festival begin.” He clasped Alek’s forearm. “Welcome back. Now that you’re trained to cause violence, may I place a request to have you as my personal guard at the masque tomorrow? I have a feeling I will need doors protected from any snooping. Don’t be alarmed by any noises you may hear.”
“No,” Alek said. “And maybe, just once, you might actually dance on your feet.”
“Gods, how boring. I’ll keep my way of dancing, thank you.” Jonas twisted his grin into one of his devious smirks, the kind that added an attractive dimple to his cheek. Tonight, Jonas’s schemes must’ve fallen to me, for he turned his dark gaze to mine. “May we finally begin celebratingourway.”
“Is it wise to go so near the Chasm with a storm on the horizon?” Mira was the one who asked, and I was glad for it. My heart was restless, a constant thrum of trepidation, and for the first time in turns, I didn’t want to think of that day the sea fae were locked behind the wards of the Chasm.
“Yes,” Jonas insisted. “More so, since Livie is nightmaring again, and from this moment on there is no more fretting during Crimson Festival. Now, come on. Let’s see if we find any of those sea singers.”
CHAPTER3
The Songbird
When we were littles, Aleksi and I would spend nights in sprawling forts we’d build out in the gardens. My fury connected to the earth like most Northern fae. I was able to thicken shrubs, brighten blossoms, even heal deadened soil.
Our forts used to look like something out of a storybook forest.
There we’d huddle around a lantern, and Aleksi would tell me scary stories about the sea singers and their proclivity to hunt the land folk for our strong bones. He had a knack for description, and I was still a little convinced every blade and necklace owned by a fae of the deep was made from the bones of their enemies.
If Jonas and Sander were visiting, the tales grew even darker. Their magic was different than my bright fury—they worked in nightmares and darkness.
Anyone who did not know the twin princes would never guess they could create such fearsome images, then force it into one’s mind. A fear that had not existed before, after they were through, would never be forgotten.
Once we all matured into our abilities, we didn’t use them against each other like we had as children. So, the fear clinging to my heart like a leech didn’t come from a trick of the twins. It was nothing more than my own cowardice.
I sat stiff on the bench of the longboat, one knee bouncing. Mira untied her thick, auburn hair and let the sea wind run through it like the fingers of a tender lover. Aleksi and Jonas rowed. No mistake, a subtle competition was underway with how they kept glancing at each other and digging deeper with each stroke.
I folded my fingers on my lap and kept a firm watch on the approaching shore of the jagged isles that marked the boundary of the Chasm of Seas.
Strange, sometimes, to think there was a world beneath the waves. I could read all the texts from poems, to sagas, to lore, and the truth was, none of us truly knew what lived in the Ever Kingdom.
Was it nothing but wet all the time? Did eels and fatted whales enter sea cave homes?
Black currents thrashed against the skiff as Aleksi and Jonas carefully guided the boat into a cove. Fear was heady, like stones piled in my belly, but there was a pull to the water. A fascination I couldn’t dull. The mightier I tried to turn from curiosity, the mightier came the pull to the sea. Like a thick rope around my belly, it yanked me back to the edges between two worlds.
“Out.” Jonas waved his hands at us and reached into a black leather satchel shoved under one of the benches. From it, he removed a bottle with rich, amber ale inside. “Tonight, we start the revelry off the way it should be done. Honey brän.”
I used the scratchy rigging to heave myself out of the skiff and onto the sun-heated stones. “Only you’d get sloshed so close to the Chasm.”
“This is why we’re here, Liv,” he said. “Hells, I’m half convinced Bloodsinger’s dead. Probably beheaded by his folk after they tossed him back into the sea.”
I ignored the way the thought burrowed like a thorny bramble in my chest. It’d be best if the heir of the Ever was dead and gone. I laughed, to prove to Jonas—and myself—I felt the same.
Sander built a fire on the shore. Mira handed out small sponge cakes with toffee syrup filling the center.
“Krasmira Sekundär,” I sang out her full name and popped a small cake onto my tongue. “Did you take these from the cooking roomsbeforethe festivities began? Against the rules, my friend.”
She huffed; her stormy eyes narrowed. “Yes, I shall go down in the sagas as the vicious princess who stole some cake.”
Sunlight bled across the horizon like a streak of blood as night came to swallow the day. Soon enough we’d all be pulled by members of our unique courts, vying for our attention. The first festival we’d missed each other, and stole away to hide and celebrate amongst ourselves for half a night. Only us.
Ever since, we always spent the first night together as friends, away from duties and propriety.
We danced, laughed, and taunted Jonas about his confusion over how to handle two women in his bed. The way he finished off the last of the brän, I was certain he took our taunts as a challenge to take no less than three at once.
“Jonas, I beg of you, don’t do this.” I laughed; my head spun a bit in a lightless ale haze. “You’ll just get injured, and your father will have to get you un . . . unstuck.”
