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Anxious murmurs filtered through the men as they rolled up their tunic sleeves, revealing all manner of scars and tattoos. Some cast wary glances, no mistake taking note that Sewell, Celine, and Tait were not in ranks, and were gathering weapons.
Valen would see the darker pieces, the edges of my soul his daughter said she loved, and I could not hold back despite his presence. It was damn close to a need to make anyone who’d associated with Livia’s harm suffer.
He would accept it, or he would not. I cared little in this moment.
The first man in line was an ancient bastard simply named Scar for the taut, grisly line of mutilated flesh that caved half his face.
I slashed the thin skin on his wrist.
Scar winced; his eyes slammed shut and disappeared behind folds of skin and thick brows. Before he could pull away, I sliced my own thumb on one pointed tooth and pressed the tip to the open wound on his arm.
More murmurs, more unease, came from the crew. No one questioned. No one shifted away, but fewer men met my gaze.
“Done nothing to hurt me bond, King Erik,” Scar whispered, eyes still closed.
I waited ten breaths, then inspected his veins. Blue and protruding through his ancient skin, but no ebony shades, no convulsing. The blood bond of the ship was intact. It was still being honored. The Ever Crew, so long as they were loyal, my blood could not touch them while aboard the ship.
I dropped Scar’s arm and moved down the line. One by one, the men allowed me to poison their blood.
Stormbringer volunteered his arm before I reached him. “I’m no fool, My King. I know what all this is about. Send me to the hells of the sea if I’ve gone and betrayed me king and our earth lovey.”
For the first time, I hesitated. When I’d been rescued from the earth fae as a little, Stormbringer had been a boy of fifteen, serving his first turn on the Ever Ship.
After Thorvald fell under Valen’s axe, to distract me, Stormbringer had taken me belowdecks, snatched a sweet honey drop from a secret store in the galley, and told me tales of his home isle near the Tower until I’d fallen asleep.
I was aloof, rather distant from my crew, but apart from Sewell, Celine, and Tait, Stormbringer was one I did not wish to kill.
“When the truth comes out,” Stormbringer said, leaning close until the strap of the patch covering his lost eye nearly brushed my brow, “best to make them pay in pain, says I.”
His blood did not rot when touched with mine. I might’veimagined it, but I thought Celine released a breath of relief the moment I moved on to the next.
The third man on the second line, I did not know his name. Not entirely uncommon. Tait and Larsson recruited more than me, and over the turns, with the darkening, I’d long ago stopped trying to know much of the new crew, my thoughts elsewhere.
Still, the hair lifted on my neck when I studied the man’s face. “New recruit?”
“Aye,” he said gruffly, giving me a smirk from beneath a wiry, russet beard.
I snatched his wrist and sliced the skin. My blood dripped into the gash. One breath, five. Nothing.
I released the man’s wrist, uneasy, and went to move onto the next when he coughed. The bastard doubled over, a hand to his chest, dark, foamy spittle on his lips. His eyes shaded to a sickly sort of yellow and met my eyes in a shock of horror.
“How?” He gagged. “She s-s-said it’d shield . . . us.”
Tavish barked a laugh across the deck. “Oh, your little witch might’ve promised it, but such protections only work if spells are notbrokenby another.” He waggled his fingers, then winked, as though we were friendly. “Enjoy, My King. Looks like you have one more.”
From the back corner of the line, a man in a heavy canvas coat made a mad rush for the rail of the ship. The twin princes were nearest and blocked his retreat. Eyes the color of midnight, Jonas and Sander stalked the coward away from the rail. Soon, the fae pleaded for some creature, some horror to leave him be.
He whimpered and lowered to his knees. Pressure gathered in the air like an approaching storm. The princes knelt with their victim, saying nothing, but whatever their magic was doing seemed to be torturing the traitor from the mind outward. He screamed, swatting at things unseen.
Nightmare magic. I grinned, all at once pleased I’d taken on a few earth fae.
The bastard at my feet convulsed from the spreading poison. Too simple.
My fingers curled around his throat; I dragged his crimson face to mine and hummed. The sound was low, dark, vicious. His body stopped seizing, and his veins lightened.
Once his breaths slowed again, I tossed him back. “What is your name, traitor of the Ever?”
“Paedar Bladeclaimer, My King.”
