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Shorter than me by a head, still, when the Night Folk queen locked her gaze on mine, I fought the urge to cower like I’d been kicked. “Look me in the eye, Erik Bloodsinger, and tell me of my daughter.”
Instinct demanded I argue and fight, but there was a fierceness in the queen’s eyes, a brutality. She wanted to know my heart, she wanted to know if I would go to the depths of the hells the way she would for her girl.
“Your daughter—” I cleared the roughness from my throat and swiped my tongue over my drying lips. “Your daughter is my beacon. I will never regret taking her, for she is my home. I love her, Queen. There is no part of me that would choose anything over her. Let. Me. Go.”
A tear dripped from the corner of the queen’s eye. “I believe you.”
“You should,” the second woman said, voice rough. “He did not utter a single lie.”
“Why does your word matter?” I snapped, patience lost.
The woman’s lips curved. “I taste lies, Bloodsinger.”
A bit of stun robbed me of my words until it bled to the boil of frustration. “Then why in the hells am I still here? Let me go. I sought your warriors, I sought your aid, but I will go at it alone if all we will do is sit aroundplanning. You do not know the ways of the Ever, the ways of this . . . bastard who took her from me. The longer we wait, the more power he can gain, the more he could . . . take from her.”
“Do you think I don’t realize that? Do you think all of us don’t realize that?” The docile, soft-spoken queen shattered, and the fiery warrior inside Livia’s mother was snapping free. “Do not for one moment think my thoughts have been anywhere but with my daughter these long weeks, Erik Bloodsinger. This is your doing, and we will do anything to retrieve her, but you cannot come here demanding we set sail within moments. There are protections that must be placed, strategies we must decide. You have caused this delay by taking her, by building mistrust, not us.”
“Then why are you here?”
Elise blinked, her eyes glassy and damp with angry tears. “To hear the truth, Ever King. You will need more than Aleksi to stand by your side. Junius”—she gestured at the lie taster—“and I will speak for you in the hopes it brings us to Livia swifter.”
The queen planned to stand with me? Against her own husband?
I’d hoped but never expected anyone—certainly not Livia’s mother—to believe me. After so long, being unable to leave, I’d begun to think they would never be content until my blood soaked their soil.
Elise turned for the door. “Food will be sent to you. Herbs for healing your wound if you require them. We will send for you when the others arrive.”
I let out a rough breath. “Queen, do not keep me here.”
“My word is not the only voice of power. You must face us all.”Elise’s pale eyes returned to the gash on my chest. “Aleksi called it a heartbond.”
My palm rubbed the wound. “Yes. Old magic of the Ever.”
“Why is it gone now?”
I didn’t truly know how to explain any of it. “I don’t know. It felt as though my heart was being torn from my body. When . . . when she was taken it dulled, but this?” Gods, I could hardly gather the words. “This feels different.”
“Yet you’re still desperate to find her.”
My brow furrowed. “It was not a bond that made me love her, Queen.”
Elise tucked a lock of her golden hair behind her strange, rounded ear. “You should know, Bloodsinger, loving my girl has likely saved your life. For now. I have a final question, and I hope you have enough respect for my position as Livia’s mother to speak the truth. I am not fae, clearly. Would I be a hinderance to my people, or a strength should I sail to your kingdom?”
Well, shit. “Queen, I have witnessed your skill on a battlefield. I’ve not forgotten that day you aided in my rescue, and—”
“You are stalling, Ever King.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. The scars beneath my palm prickled in disquiet. “The currents of the Chasm are fierce for even fae. But mortals drown, yes?”
Elise’s chin dropped. “Yes. They drown.”
“I fear the ferocity of the barrier and the time it takes to sail through. I do not know how you might fare, Queen.”
“Livia has a great deal of mortal in her blood. My husband’s mother is also mortal.”
The earth bender was half-fae? I wouldn’t have guessed it.
“I don’t have all the answers, but Livia was bonded to me when I took her, Queen,” I said with a touch of hesitation. “Unknowingly but bonded all the same. The Ever was already part of her and would not harm her.”
