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“Erik,” I said, breathless. “It’s beautiful.”
“A true banner for your beauty, your strength, and your resilience. I want folk throughout the ages, I want every future Ever Queen, to always remember the first. You are my heart and my blood.”
I arched a brow. “Your blood makesthe crown?”
Erik nodded, grinning, and stood. With tenderness he placed the crown atop my head.
“Folk of the Ever!” The steward’s voice was a bellow. Strange to hear from his soft condescension. “Do you accept Livia of House Ferus to stand with us as Livia . . .” Alistair let his words fade, a wicked kind of smirk on his face. “Earthmender, Queen of the Ever Kingdom.”
For a breath, a tenuous heartbeat, I was convinced no one would utter a sound. Then, the walls shook with applause and cries of, “Long life to the queen of kings.”
Earthmender. My lips parted when I shot my gaze to Erik. His mouth was set in a smirk, arrogant and wholly pleased with himself. Livia Earthmender. The name settled like scattered summer heat through my veins. I could not keep the smile from carving over my mouth.
Knees scraped over tiles, gowns rustled through netting and satin. Sea fae bent the knee, and one by one, my people joined. Stieg pounded a fist over his chest with a wink. Jonas and Sander elbowed each other as they raced to kneel first, and Mira clapped, rather un-regally, and let out a shriek of excitement before she adjusted her skirt to kneel next to Celine.
Tait took the place in front of us. He placed a hand over his heart and whispered, “To my queen.” And he knelt.
My father and Aleksi were the last to lower. Daj mouthed that he loved me. Aleksi rolled his eyes but fisted one hand over his chest. A prince, but always a Rave.
Erik returned my smile and drew his lips close to my ear. “I wear the blood crown, you wear the bones, love.”
My fingertips traced the edges of my crown, eyes startling wide. “Erik Bloodsinger, what did you do?”
The familiar darkness, the side I’d first seen of the boy trapped in that cell all those turns ago, shone through the glint of his eyes.
“I made a vow, in this very room, should anyone bring you harm, you wear them as a promise of what becomes of those who daretouch the Ever Queen. Peel back the gold, and you will have answers to what became of traitors.”
The bone crown. My fingertips stilled on the circlet atop my head. “Larsson?”
“And others. A sea witch I will never speak of again and a bit of a dead lord.” Erik’s face was stern, his jaw taut with passion. “Too far, love?”
I studied Erik, drank him in, the light and the shadows. I kissed him until I could draw in a breath again.
“No, Serpent,” I whispered against his lips. “To me, you will always be the most beautiful of monsters.”
Wine flowed,dancing couples paraded across the hall, and the moon was brighter than I’d seen before. There was peace here. I’d taken my turn with Alek, my father, and of course, Sewell. Even Gavyn had shoved through, insistent to dance with the queen.
Sander danced with Celine, then Avaline. He’d since grown rather engrossed in conversation with a few witches from the House of Mists, comparing their spell casts to the potions and elixirs used by folk from his realms.
Jonas, for the first time since the man could grow a single whisker on his chin, was not dancing or tangled in the arms of some woman. He was standing near my father and Stieg, but his gaze was wholly trained on the somber features of Skadi.
Palace guards had escorted Skadi to the coronation. If she was to live as a refugee in the Ever, I felt it right that she be doused in the society of sea folk.
She’d remained by the guards, nibbled at a bit of silverfish, and spoken to no one.
Jonas seemed ready to pounce should she take one misstep.Gods, I hoped the bond was not destroying his levity and the fire in his soul.
Time. Changes, shifts, new beginnings: it would all take time.
I leaned against the wall, snickering into a horn of plum wine as Erik was dragged into a dance by Mira. She’d insisted something about undying friendship, to which the Ever King had a great many protests.
“You’ve had cakes aplenty.” A familiar voice drew me to the far end of the table. Tavish lifted a young fae girl into his arms, snatching a glazed cake from her sticky hands.
“Tavish,” I said. “You would deny her such a sweet thing?”
“Not at all, My Queen,” he said, speckling kisses along the girl’s cheeks until she giggled. “If you are willing to run the corridors with her at all the chimes tonight.”
Tavish placed his girl on the ground, ushering her to go play with her siblings who ran amok with a few other littles from the township.
