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There waspower in the water. Salt and rain and the sweetness of the Ever, all of it seeped into my blood.
My battered leg went numb, almost deadened weight, but at least the pain no longer stole my breath. In my grip, the cutlass was heavy, my shoulders ached with fatigue. Larsson hacked his sword against my middle. There was a slicing sound and a bite over my chest. The point managed to nick the torn flesh over my heart.
Pain, white and hot sliced through my body. Another lull in the waves, and the ship slammed against one of the freshly raised seafloor peaks. Larsson fell face down. My spine struck the back rail and knocked my cutlass from my grip.
Blade lost, I opened my arms, and the deep, poignant hum rumbled from my chest. Turbulent water shot upward, like a tower seeking to touch the stars. When Larsson raised his head, he cursed and shielded his skull as I dropped the crushing tide over the top of him.
The force was harsh enough rails cracked, and half the quarterdeck and back chambers shattered into the Ever.
A whistle sliced through the storm. The burst of the main mastshattered after a burning cinder stone pummeled through the center. Cyclones and whirlpools, ships and blades, from all sides the power of the Ever converged on this moment, this ship.
They were fighting for our world, and somewhere in there was the truth—they were fighting for me. For the first Ever Queen.
I dropped my call to the tides and retrieved my cutlass, refusing to fail them.
Energy seeped from my blood. Fighting eased on the main deck, more eyes turned to us, a final stand. Larsson’s rogue crew gathered on one edge of the quarterdeck. Some looked like they’d joined after the fall of Hesh, and some had the deep eyes of the elven. Movement behind me hinted my own men could be coming to stand at my side.
Larsson found his feet. “Is this how we end, Erik? Fight until no one is fit for the blood crown? This is my birthright. Give it to me, and I will let you live, let you stay as brother to the king.”
“If you had told me that not even a turn ago, I would’ve heartily agreed.”
“You would’ve never given up the crown.”
“I hated the crown. You knew it was my prison!” I used the back of my sleeve to wipe brine off my lashes, bracing as a wave knocked us back against Valen’s cliffs, grounding the ship for good.
“So let it go, Bloodsinger.”
Steady again, I turned, teeth flashing. “Never. Not after what you did toher.”
“Are you so proud you’d destroy the Ever through our blood?” Larsson hunched over, exhausted, bitter, fading.
“We die, and the Ever will not fall.”
Her face cut through the crew on the deck, and my bodyfelt. Warmth, peace—my beacon, my home. Livia was worn, a little bloody, but there was a wildness in those eyes, like the fiercest sea, like she was the true power here.
“It won’t fall,” I repeated, holding her gaze when she was stopped by a thick arm of a crewman at the steps. “For it has its queen.”
Livia shook her head. She struggled against the arm holding her back, crying out my name.
I turned back to Larsson, shoulders heaving. “Its queen is why I will not stop. She is why I will never let you live.”
“Pathetic,” Larsson said with enough disdain he meant it. “Your life for a bitch without a true crown.”
I blocked a swift strike from Larsson’s sword. He’d drawn a dagger from his boot and cut across my middle. I slammed my hilt against the side of his head, forcing him to back away, to give me enough time to stand straighter.
Larsson had enough wounds, and my skin held plenty of my blood, that I could kill him with should I wrap my arms around him. But to survive the endless strikes he’d level against me before the poison took hold?
Not even Murdock would be fast enough to stop me from bleeding out.
Perhaps this was always meant to be my fate. To die fighting for a new Ever. An amends for the hatred I’d leveled against her folk all these turns, for the destruction sea fae caused when we brought war.
The gift of the sea to a queen, to her people, who would tend to it with honor and mercy.
Livia’s cries turned to pleas, hardly audible under the crash of thunder. I took up my blades in a firmer grip, resigned to end this here.
A final stand.
My song was low, lost under my breath, but the sea tossed another wave at Larsson’s back. He swung around, trying to call it off. Whatever voice he’d stolen was not strong enough, or he was not swift enough. The crash of the wave knocked him backward. He landed with his shoulders and head hanging off the shattered edge of the deck.
