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“As do I.” He slammed his fist over his chest. “Fione rivals Narza.”
“I doubt that.” I lowered my voice to a dark purr. “More importantly, I wear the blood crown and have no need to steal it. The Ever answers to me. She will never answer to you, a bastard who had no home, no birthright despite claiming to be from two royal lines.”
Larsson’s chest heaved. His body trembled like his skin might split beneath his fury in the next breath. “We shall see soon,brother.”
“I’m terrified.” I waved him away like he was nothing. “Here I am, standing in front of you, and you can do nothing. You will always be nothing.”
“Nothing?” Larsson spat. “We shall see who is nothing. Look to the seas, Bloodsinger. I will come for you with armies of land and sea, greater than the ones you think you possess. You will never see us coming until it is too late.”
Erik Bloodsinger. Come back to me now.
Songbird.
Livia. She was there. I felt her, deep to my bones, as much as I’d felt her before the heartbond was stolen from us.
Gods, I even felt the stun from my response. Had she heard me? I wanted to hold her, touch her, see her eyes gleam in the sunlight a great deal more than I wanted to stare at Larsson’s face.
The room dulled, grew somber and gray.
“Consider our parlay at an end.” An echo soaked my voice. “You will never bear the weight of the crown, Bonekeeper.” I paused, sneering one last time. “It would crush you. Best to leave it to the true king and keep cowering in your shadows.”
Larsson lunged forward, but the room drowned into the endless sea.
I was tossed back, clawing my way through thrashing tides, until light burned behind my eyes. I snapped upright, gasping. In the next breath, arms wrapped around my throat, holding me like I would never be free again.
No mistake, that was the sort of freedom I would never want.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
THE SERPENT
I pacedin front of the cove, waiting for the boil of water to appear. My skin still drenched in sweat, my bones aching. I’d hardly oriented myself with the surroundings of the great hall before demanding a meet with a sea witch.
Livia stood close, eyeing me like I might tumble over and fade into the mind walk spell again.
“I’m fine, love,” I said, sharp and biting. With a deep breath through my nose, I paused, faced her, and used a knuckle to tilt her chin. “I’m all right. You pulled me back exactly as Avaline said you would.”
The fading sun added a touch of gold against her blue eyes, like the skies were freeing the fire she kept inside.
“I heard you.” Livia guided my palm to her heart. “Here.”
“Same. It’s how you brought me back.”
“What happened, Erik?” She worried her bottom lip between her teeth. “It was horrid.”
She’d clung to me the instant I woke, trembling, drawing her palms over my face, my arms. Celine told me with less tact that I’dthrashed like a dying eel and moaned like a mournful haunt on the wind.
“I’ll tell you everything, but first I need to speak to the Lady of witches. Maelstrom, where the hells is she?”
Maelstrom stood in the cove, water up to his knees, and stopped waving his palm over the sea’s surface. “Takes time to summon the connection, King Erik.”
“You know,” Tavish said, back against a thin spindle of a tree, “if this sod told you something about Lady Narza, I’d take it with a hefty dose of mistrust.”
I curled my lip, ignoring the others watching me with trepidation. The earth fae kept a distance, uncertain what had me in tangles, Celine, Gavyn, and Tait had seen enough of my anger to naturally stand aside until it faded.
A glow on the surface of the water pulled me to the edge. Like before, light rippled through the tides, warping Narza’s features, but she was there.
I wasted no time. “You knew Thorvald had another son.”
