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“That I do, Alek. Afraid it was a rather frantic time, and memory of my grandeur slipped my mind.” The king sneered and made apoint to remove a serrated dagger made of bone and gold. “Isn’t that right,Harald’s son.”
“My name is Heartwalker,” Tait grumbled.
“Ari,” Mira’s mother said, a sigh in her voice. “No threatening.”
“Threatening? I am intimidating, which I will do to my heart’s content, especially when we have a damn lovely girl and there are princess snatchers about.”
“Daj.” Mira’s voice trembled, not from unease but from a muffled laugh. “They brought us back.”
“Bloodsingerreturned his snatched princess. How do I know Harald’s son would do the same?”
Tait blanched. “I’m not here to snatch anyone.”
“Why?” The raven king’s golden eyes narrowed as he leaned closer. “Something wrong with my girl, Harald’s son?”
“What? No.” Tait’s face burned in a wash of red. “I didn’t say that.”
“So, youwouldsnatch her?”
“No,” Tait shifted on his seat, eyes wide. “Gods.”
In a bout of decent timing, the earth bender banged a horn against the table, drawing eyes down the table as he stood.
“It has been rather trying these last months. I cannot express my gratitude to you all for standing beside us in the search for Liv.” He smiled at his daughter, then studied his horn of ale. “If anyone would have said we’d be seated here with sea fae—the Ever King—without bloodshed, I might’ve thought you mad. But I’ve had the honor of fighting beside folk I thought were enemies, only to be shown their devotion, their bonds to their people. The same bonds that run through us. I am proud to sit with you all.”
Horns clacked on the tables across the hall, loud enough I could not hear anything else.
Later, while Livia was passed around the royals, I was cornered by the Night Folk queen.
“Bloodsinger.”
“Queen.” I dipped my chin.
Elise Ferus’s head reached my chin, but when she squared to me, I wanted to take a step back. Until her face softened. “You brought them back to me.”
“I vowed I would.”
“Valen told me everything. He is not easily impressed in battle, but he has admitted more than once that he does not know how you steadied blades on a rocking ship.”
I fought to remain insouciant but failed when a grin spread. “He aided in the killing blow.”
Elise seemed pleased to hear how her people fought. Not only Livia, but the other heirs. To the Night Folk queen, they were as much her children as Livia and Rorik. She asked of the battle but pressed more on the changes in the Ever Kingdom.
Her eyes glazed in a bit of longing. “I wish I could see it someday.”
The Chasm would always be a divide for Livia. She spoke of the Ever like her home, yet her mother would never witness her atop her throne, would never see her daughter seated as a queen in her own court over sea fae.
Elise, surprising me, rested a hand on my arm and squeezed. “I am glad you returned to us, too, Ever King. There are those here who are much better for it.”
The words Valen had spoken to me that day I’d been tossed into the sea rattled in my skull. Turns, war, hate, all of it had happened to bring us to this moment, to make the words truth. I nodded, silent as the queen returned to the crowd.
“That current divides your worlds?”
I startled. Skadi, shadowed by Tait, materialized from a doorway. She was dressed simply. Half her hair was pulled behind her head with a leather strip, and she wore an ashen gray dress that fit her terribly, two sizes too large. She was meant to be a princess, yet did not play the role.
“The elven speaks.” I turned away from her, content to watch my queen smile and laugh until her head fell back, exposing herthroat I planned on licking and biting the moment we were alone.
“I speak when there are interesting enough words to say.” Skadi stepped beside me. “I overheard the mortal—”
