AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“With my life, Mir.”
What a strange sight, seamen from the Ever Ship marching aside earth fae royals. I shoved it away and clung to the tepid peace we’d found. Livia would need it.
“Make ready to dive,” I shouted. “Get us into the wind.”
No hesitation, the ship bustled with movement. Men shouted a ripple of commands down the deck. Sails snapped, dropping to full cover. Rigging was tied off and doors were sealed.
Celine, at last, allowed us to gather at the helm. I curled one palm around the handle, embracing the rumble of power in the connection of my ship.
“Hold tight,” I told the royals. “You will not like this part.”
Another flick of my hand, a burst of wind filled the sails, bulging them outward like great, blood-soaked clouds.
The seas licked at the hull as though each current were a reel, pulling us down. I breathed in a long draw of brine and salt and home, then faced the main deck.
“Hoist the banner!” I shouted. My men bustled about, grunting and yanking the rigs, until the banner of blades crossed behind a serpent’s skull snapped and whipped in the mounting wind.
“At the ready to swim, me boys!” shouted a hunched man with holes in the points of his ears from too many fights with jagged teeth. The crew roared and hissed their approval and met their positions on the deck.
I clasped the helm through a violent shudder that rolled through from bow to stern like a wave of the sea.We’re coming, Songbird.
Great heaves of thrashing waves and foam tugged the bow beneath the surface. With each level of tides devouring the deck came the haunting voices of the crew:
A man he’s not, we work we rot.
No sleep until it’s through.
A sailor’s grave is all we crave.
Icy sea swallowed me whole as they finished the final line.
We are the Ever King’s crew.
Water thrashedin a frothy torrent when the jaws of the sea serpent on the bowsprit carved through the surface. Pale sunlight broke over the dark wood of the deck in a prism of warmth as the ship pointed toward the sky for long, drawn breaths. Another heartbeat and the keel slammed back onto the surface of the sea, swaying the ship in violent dips until it leveled again.
I drew in a long breath through my nose. The Ever.
Waves tossed the ship side to side, the sails whipped, and crew below shouted commands for the rigging and securing crates and casks.
From behind the helm came deep, guttural heaves of someone spilling their innards into the tides for the snapping jaws of silverfish to devour.
Tait finished licking the edge of his paper smoke. “You did well, Prince.”
As a reply, Sander vomited again. Jonas clapped his back a few times in reassurance, a little pallid in the face himself.
The twin royals were not the only discomfited earth fae.
On the main deck, Sewell kept barking at Aleksi and Mira to, “toss into the tides,” and Celine translated with a fierce, “Retch on the deck, you scrub it clean, you sods.”
I’d sailed beneath the tides as long as the royals could tolerate. We were near enough to my desired destination, through the haze on the horizon I could make out the towering cliffs with the endless falls of the House of Bones.
“Tidecaller, send word to Lord Bonerotter. Tell him the king demands a meet.”
Celine’s eyes went wide, but she dipped her chin. I did not know if Gavyn resided in his lands, or if he remained lost in the Ever, searching for Livia. He was the only other in the kingdom who knew of our predicament.
I needed something—some direction, some plan,some hope.
The Ever Crew understood we’d been betrayed. They knew my queen was taken, but they knew nothing of Gavyn’s involvement. To them, this would be a private meet between a house lord and their king, nothing more than new ale, new women, new respite.
