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“I don’t know exactly. Some say it is in the void of creation. I think the matter merely turns to dust. It is like closing a door. I can leave it open until whatever I summon steps through to me, or I can lock it away, out of sight.” Skadi tilted her head, an eerily vacant look on her face. “This is why my affinity is better off feared by you. Why it should never belong to a man like Arion.”
“Doesn’t seem any different than what Eldirard said.”
“He didn’t elaborate.” Skadi gave me an empty smile. “If Iwanted, I can steal a life, the physical beat of a heart, the draw of breath in the lungs. I take it, then close it away behind the darkness, and there it goes to die. That is what I will do with whatever power lives in that Chasm of yours.”
Shit. “You kill with this mist?”
“I can. Just as you, simply in a different way.” Skadi shielded a yawn with the back of her hand. “I tire of this revelry. Would you permit your crew to lead me back to the ship to sleep?”
I wasn’t certain I even nodded before she turned away.
“Think on what I said, sea king. I can kill this Chasm, and you will give your queen her folk while keeping you.”
It wasn’t until Sander, Narza, and an Alver from the twins’ home realm confirmed there was merit to Skadi’s claims that it was determined on the morrow, we would kill the final wall between our people.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
THE SONGBIRD
This seemed a bit mad.Clearing the Chasm, surely it was impossible.
“Improbable.” Narza had told us before the dawn. “Thereisa power in that barrier. Magic leaves remnants, as you know. It is matter unseen. If the elven has an affinity to absorb physical matter, then it is possible whatever ancient power fuels the Chasm can be removed.”
My thumbnail was lodged between my teeth. My mother’s arm was around my waist, and together we watched Erik, my father, Sander, and Narza stand beside Skadi waist deep in the sea.
Skadi was dressed in a thin chemise, her hair wild around her shoulders and face. She looked like a spirit of the tides. Still strung around her neck were the herbs holding her affinity in her blood.
Jonas was crouched by the water line, Aleksi beside him. They were muttering in harsh tones. Jonas was uneasy, doubtless from theneach-daibond. Our folk hardly knew what to make of the new intensity of the rakish prince, and his unbidden devotion to the sea fae.
I suspected having Skadi so near to so many nobles andthe king of the Ever, added some discomfort to Jonas and his new vow to protect. Much like Erik, I was certain my friend held little trust for Skadi. Then again, he’d only seen her in battle, attempting to slaughter us. He’d not known her before her magic had hardened her.
Despite his melancholy, a gaggle of courtiers from across the realms kept close, a hope that Jonas and Alek might turn to the comfort of their arms. Freydis, clothed in her finest gown, stared with a sort of dreamy look at Jonas when he stretched the muscles of his neck side to side.
I wasn’t the only one who noticed.
Fire red hair braided around a black circlet blocked the gazes of the ladies straining to get a glimpse at the princes. Malin, Jonas’s mother, looked my way, winked, and billowed out her fur-lined cloak to make her slender figure take up more of the line of sight to her son.
“I am not the only one who desires a certain kind of lover for their child,” my mother whispered, grinning at her fellow queen who utterly ignored the straining heads of the courtiers, trying to steal a glance over her shoulders.
“Malin thinks she’s protecting him, but Jonas is the one who will gladly resist love to his dying breath.”
My mother wrapped her arm around my waist. “You know, if this does not take, nothing will change, Livie. I will be here every other week when you come to visit me.”
I snorted. “Oh, is that the timeframe you’ve set?”
“No, I would prefer you take up here, but unfortunately, your father reminded me that yourhjärtais a king with responsibilities and such nonsense. What is that look?”
“You called Erik myhjärta. Daj did once too.” A perfect harmony of my heart. An old, romantic belief of our folk.
“I would hope you’d accept nothing less.” My mother looked to the sea a little wistfully. “We sensed the connection, or at least the intrigue, between you and the Ever King at the end of the war. WhenI learned you’d been taken . . . I was broken, Livie. Never had I felt such pain.”
“But?”
“But there was a moment when my heart knew this was bound to happen. Like it had been a truth I’d chosen to forget. Don’t mistake me, I could do without the kidnapping, of course. But perhaps Erik needed to learn something from you too; that fire overpowered the sea king and burned his hatred.”
My mother snickered and squeezed my waist a little tighter.
“I have a confession,” I whispered.
