AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Agreed.” Sander nodded and faced the sea. “We’re matched with the sky. I think these—” His fingertip edged the opposite side of the bone. “Are stars. We’re aligned, right?”
Stormbringer took the bone, squinting, as he held it against the sky. “Aye. Nothing there be part of any incantation or lore. It’s a position—beneath the star king and his twelve ladies, King Erik.”
The star king, another constellation with the tale of a rather spoiled king who lived in a constant dance with twelve potential mates, swirling around. I glanced at the sky. The brilliance of the center star flickered, and the softer light of the dozen stars looped around him glimmered, like they called to us.
“Aye. It aligns.” Gods, this had to be it.
“All right.” Sander crouched to one knee. “If I’m understanding correctly, we need to begin the incantation, and it should begin to reveal any hidden things. That’s how I understand it, at least.”
The earth bender had joined us, stone faced, but disquiet revealed itself in the way he cracked one knuckle, then another, over and over again. Jonas, Aleksi, and Mira hung near the rails, watching, a bit of desperation in the tension on their faces.
I knew the feeling too damn well.
“Then do it.” My voice was rough and strained.
Sander nodded. “It’ll move quickly once we begin. Give us a moment to ensure we have the dialect correct, but be ready, Bloodsinger.”
I’d been ready. Since the instant I knew Livia had been taken, I’d been bleeding ready to hold her again.
Wind bit at my face—harsh and cold. I refocused on the horizon.
“Is this your first dealing with facing a traitor?”
I looked up, annoyed to be interrupted again, but it faded at the sight of Valen. The earth bender was replenished from tonics and, in truth, I thought he took a bit of delight at the sight of Hesh, like his suffering invigorated him.
“Of this depth? Yes. No one in all our histories has ever tried to usurp an Ever King. I am the first to bear such an honor.”
“You think it makes you less of a king?”
“I am not beloved, earth bender. I am seen as quite weak.”
Valen paused for a few breaths, then after a moment sighed with a touch of irritation. “Look, Bloodsinger. You are not the first king to be betrayed, nor will you be the last. It was a traitor’s actions that finally brought me to accept my own crown because he nearly got Livia’s mother killed. Then later, another traitor tried tosellElise to our enemies. I never would’ve suspected him, and I thought myself quite weak for not seeing it.”
Was he . . .reassuringme?
“And—” I paused, adjusting the cutlass on my belt that had no need to be adjusted. “What did you do?”
“Slit the first’s throat.” Valen’s eyes darkened. “And the other, I tore out his lungs through his spine. No less than what you have done.”
Somewhere in my chest, a baffling sort of longing gripped me. It was a craving that wove its way through my skull down to my heart; a need to ask advice from a king who’d fought for his queen. A king who did not look at me and only measure me against the scars on my skin.
I wanted to ask a dozen things: how did he earn the respect of his people? How did he trust any of them? How did hespeakto his people?
Stay, Erik Bloodsinger.
It felt like, for a moment, I could see what Valen Ferus meant when he’d told me to stay. When he insisted they did not want my crown, merely wanted to stand at the side of a boy king as he rose to the impossible challenge of ruling a kingdom after the destruction of war.
“You might find this shocking,” Valen said, a new calm to his tone. “But I am pleased with the blood on your hands today. I slaughtered men in the most painful ways I could think of forbetraying my queen. Much like you have done . . . for yours. I know how much I love my wife, Erik.” Valen turned away, staring out at the sea, and shrugged. “Take that as you will.”
I was damn well going to take it as the earth bender’s admission he knew I’d overturn worlds for his bleeding daughter.
“Erik! It’s beginning. Look. Gods, it’s there!” Sander’s voice shattered the night.
The prince held up the bone, and like a bit of starlight burst overhead, a fleeting, vibrant blue flickered.
“Skriva till a natt,” Stormbringer muttered. His voice, normally rough and dry, was smooth as a gentle tide. Clear, focused.
My fingers dug into the rough bone of one of the spikes protruding from the hull. I kept one leg propped on the rail, scanning the empty seas.
