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“King Erik?” Joron looked horrified, mouth parted, eyes bewildered.
“What would you like me to do? I think he should bury you within your own lands until we’re finished.”
Mira trailed her fingers over Joron’s shoulder, a chilling kind of darkness written in her bright eyes. “I wonder how long you could live buried in the earth before madness set in?”
Tait’s brow flicked, but he turned his gaze to his pocket watch and cursed. “There is danger here.”
“What is so important about that damn clock?” Mira said in a hiss under her breath.
“Reveals danger,” Tait snapped back.
One brow arched, the princess tilted her head. “Then why haven’t you been staring at that thing the whole time?”
“Danger for the Ever, meaning the crown.” Tait returned the golden watch to his trousers. “A spell from the House of Mists to aid me in finding anyone who means harm to the king . . . andnow queen. The one thing Harald did right by commissioning this.”
“It only works around Bloodsinger?”
Tait didn’t respond, merely offered the princess an exasperated look, like he’d already explained it all in great depth.
I did not need a mystical watch to tell me, the prickle on my flesh and weight in my gut was enough to know there was something amiss in the House of Tides.
Livia stroked the hair of a child. A girl, her matted braids were tangled around her flushed face, and the sickly creature could hardly catch a breath between her coughing spells. The girl trembled, flushed in fever, and toppled at her side was a basket of . . .
“What the hells is this?” I lifted a pome, soaked in blackened skin. “The darkening?”
Livia clung to the child, but a new sort of villainy burned in the deep blue of her eyes. “They’re eating it. This isle is infected.”
It was then I looked to the fields behind the manor. Deadened meadows, crops, and riverbanks. Land that looked as though a wildfire had devoured the lot of it soaked the House of Tides.
“Three hells.” Valen took in the land. “This is what you’ve been healing?”
“This is what has been devouring us,” I retorted, voice rough and more hiss than words. I reeled around the corner, darkened pome in hand, and gripped Joron by the throat. “Why did you never send word? The state of your lands, hells Joron, they’ve been infected for months.”
The tide lord shook me off. “We tend to ourselves in the House of Tides. Our gifts were given for a reason, if we cannot save ourselves, then we do not deserve to be saved.”
“You don’t make those choices formypeople.” I slammed a hand against his chest, shoving him against the wall. “Your folk are dying.”
“Have you been feeding them infected crops?” Livia, furious and harried, came to my side, shaking another blackened fruit in herhand. “You’ve been starving them, haven’t you? They have no choice but to take from the darkening fields.”
Joron’s eyes flashed in hatred. “I never permitted my folk to take from the fields. If they would consecrate and ration, they would not be in this state.”
I let out a growl of building rage and slammed his back against the wall again. “Did you think we wouldn’t notice when we arrived here? Why have you let this go on?” In Joron’s silence, I understood. The laugh from my throat was bitter, empty. “Ah. You were awaiting a new king. The creator of the darkening. You want him to rule, to clear your lands, is that it? So, you sit here like a coward and what? Wait me out? Wait for my death?”
“It isn’t like that,” Joron murmured. “It’s logical. We’ve heard by now who is responsible for the curse. He . . . he will be able to clear it.”
“As can your queen,” I snapped.
“Yes, but it will be swifter if a curse maker breaks their own spell.” Joron glared at me. “If you would not be so proud and simply give up the blood crown—”
My fist crunched over Joron’s jaw. Unsatisfied, I struck him again, then once more until he doubled over. Joron coughed and kicked, desperate to break free when the ground shuddered beneath Valen’s fury magic, a threat of what could come.
Avaline backed away, horrified. Mira went to the woman, squaring to her, voice soft. “You know something is wrong here, don’t you? You don’t want this. Look at your people, they grow ill.”
Avaline let her hand slide off her mouth. She looked to me, then Livia who slammed the rotted fruit onto the stones at our feet.
“Father . . . believes it is a sign of the fates, that a new blood heir is destined to rise.” Avaline winced. “After so many turns with the blight unable to be healed, it was thought this new king might have answers.”
“But you disagree?” Mira pressed gently.
