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While others inquired of Gavyn’s journey, I searched my soul, my heart, any crevice of my insides where I might hear her voice.
Songbird, answer me.
I closed my eyes. A heady sense of dread stacked in my gut. The bond, the bright tether that kept my heart from descending into despair, was utterly dead.
“Where was she when youlefther?” I said, opening my eyes and glaring at Gavyn.
“You say that like I had any other choice.”
“You did. Take her out of his hands.” I took a step closer. “That was what you were to do if you found her, instead you left her.”
Gavyn shot to his feet. “It wouldn’t let her go. Did you not hear me? There are spells keeping her there.”
I slammed a palm on the table, knocking aside an unlit candle and an old compass made of gold. “I did not ask for excuses. I asked forher,no matter the cost.”
“Bloodsinger.” Valen—to the stun of everyone—knocked my shoulder, drawing me away from attacking one of my only true friends. “Hear him out. He is our connection to Livia. Keep your head.”
Gavyn was forgiving. When I faced him again, his expression was sullen, not hateful. He dropped his chin, running his fingertips along the rim of the tin. “I tried to get back to her, Erik. I’d planned to shiftwith her at the sea, but the moment I stepped through the wards, the isle began to fade from me. Like a shield kept building until it was lost to me. I don’t know how long she can hide or fight them off should they find her.”
Ice flowed through my veins, growing more and more frigid and numb the longer Gavyn recited his tale of unwittingly discovering this fading isle. His tale aligned with Pesha’s. Not long after the House of Mists had arrived at his manor, Gavyn felt an unnatural pull to shift, as though his voice was acting of its own accord.
He’d retired outdoors—for air, as he put it—then, unbidden, he was forced into the tides until he spilled out of a washbasin and into Livia’s chamber.
“What sort of power can do that?” Celine coiled a lock of her hair around her finger, knee bouncing from where she sat near her brother.
“I am telling you,” Gavyn said, “there is something strange about this isle. Livia was told they’re elven folk.”
“Elven.” Sander shook his head. “There’s a great deal of debate over whether or not they are extinct.”
“These folk were different,” Gavyn said. “Then, this isle, I swear to the gods of the seas it called to me. It drew me there.”
“How did you both get free of the fortress?” I asked.
Gavyn described their escape through the strange palace built into a hillside, and how they’d slaughtered guards.
Part of me did not want to ask more. I didn’t want to imagine her chained, frightened, harmed. “What has Larsson done to her?”
Gavyn gave a wavering glimpse at Valen. Dammit. He feared the earth bender’s reaction.
“Tell me,” I demanded.
“Larsson and Fione used one of the women on this isle to remove your heartbond. I don’t know how it was done.”
I yanked the neckline of my tunic, revealing the gash over my chest. “I’m aware. Why? Did he claim it from her? Did heforceher to bond to him?”
“No. There was purpose behind it. Something about wards over the blood crown. But he also thought it might make her hate you, as though the only reason she loved you at all is due to the bond.” Gavyn held up his hands. “It failed, I assure you. Your queen is even more determined to find you.”
“Tell us what you’re not saying, Gavyn,” Tait said. “I feel it, your desire to keep something from the king and the earth bender.”
“You better tell us everything you know,” Valen answered in my place.
“Boy, speak truth,” Sewell told his son softly. “Kill the lies.”
“I’m not lying. I’m omitting.” Gavyn hesitated. “When I arrived, it was shortly after Larsson had . . . attacked her. She fought him off, but he’d wanted to . . . claim her, brand her body.”
The corners of my vision blackened. Each word blotted out the final pieces of light in my heart, leaving them filled only with hate, vengeance, and rage. Through a haze, I heard Valen’s rant, his spitting anger and demands that we get to his girl.
On this, the earth bender and I could not agree more.
