AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Prince? Another damn royal.
“Skadi,” I said. “Clearly, something is keeping you bound to them, but we can—”
“You cannot help me,” she said with venom. “You do not understand the elvish ways. Listen to me, fae. There is nothing more I can do for you, so long as Arion holds to agreements made, he is the voice of Natthaven.”
So many words were being left unspoken. I wanted to shake her, wrench them from her throat, but in the next breath, we were met with the two guards we’d left at the doors.
Skadi’s shoulders slumped. “I will be by your side. He seeks blood, fae. Not your life.”
She linked her arm through mine, much like Mira or Celine might do, and gently nudged me up a serpentine path where Larsson Bonekeeper awaited.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE SONGBIRD
Beautifully carvedbeams and rafters lined each corridor. The runner along the hall was mystical and intriguing, with scenes of cliffs at night, brilliant purple blooms against the moonlight, and midnight seas beating against a shoreline.
Skadi kept her chin lifted, her pace like a dance over the floors. Regal, but in the twitch of her jaw was her unease.
The room was wide and oddly terraced in an upper level, with a long wooden table on a lower level. Half the walls were stone, as though this part of the palace was built into the side of the dark cliffs outside.
A river stone inglenook billowed with the savory scent of woodsmoke and ash. Some walls were made from the natural rock, others were insulated with clay and soft lumber speckled in rain-soaked moss.
Along the blackwood table, runners with blue frosted peaks and bind runes I couldn’t read in the design were laid out on the surface. A feast of simple smoked fish and tart jellies piled on silver plates, and a simple candelabra flickered from ebony wax candles overhead.
Seated at the far end of the table, a man with a blue tricorn atop his head scooped mashed roots and fleshy bits of fish into his mouth.
My heart burned for Erik. He had to know. He needed to be warned.
“Lord Hesh.”
Hesh, the lord over the House of Blades, slurped another bite. A warrior-strong body, with an impossibly square jaw, the bastard was more ogre than fae. “Earth fae.”
“I believe you know me as Queen.”
Hesh laughed, deep and menacing. “I think we both know that title was always doomed to be short-lived,earth fae.”
I clamped my teeth to keep my breaths from coming in short, stilted gasps. He had no fear, no trepidation for Erik’s retaliation. What the hells did it mean? Was the whole of the Ever against my serpent?
Somewhere in the numbness of my heart, terror split through to the surface.
This fear takes your thoughts, and I will not tell you not to let it, but I will remind you of who you are. For you are a formidable foe.
Erik proved his trust in me with his words and actions. I could die here. If that was my fate, I would do so protecting the Ever King, standing for him, fighting for the life we’d dreamed of living together.
It was a beautiful dream and deserved a fight, even to the death.
From a back door, Larsson entered. My stomach twisted. Once a friend, once a man who’d laughed with us, who’d helped rescue me from a sea singer, now was cruel and wretched. His handsome grin split over his stubbled chin, and his dark hair was mussed around his face.
“Hello, Lady.” Larsson took a high-backed chair at the head of the table. “How glad I am you’re awake, though I’m disappointed I was not informed sooner.”
His gaze shot to Skadi. The woman did nothing but pop one shoulder in a lazy shrug.
“So indifferent?” Larsson clicked his tongue. “We’re nearly kin.”
“Not yet,” was all Skadi said.
With more bluster, the same doors which Larsson had used clattered against the wall. More guards, more swords entered, and between them was the elven prince, and on his arm, Fione.
