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He was here. Hells, the nudge, the voice, had been leading me to my king, to my serpent, all this time.
Fierce wind snapped and whipped the skirt of the shift aroundmy legs. Then, the crimson sails turned, aiming at the wrong side of the damn isle.
“No! Erik!” I screamed his name, knowing the tides, the wind, the crack of sails on the Ever Ship would swallow the sound of my voice before reaching him. I struggled against the call to succumb to the tether tying me to this land. “Erik!”
I held my breath. A light in the darkness—Nightfire. Erik was my Nightfire searching the seas and skies for his lost love.
I needed to draw him closer with light. Gods, I wished my uncle Tor, a pyre fae, were here. He could spark a flame with the flick of his hand.
Frantic, I looked about. Around the bend of the isle, I could just make out the tip of my failing wooded wall. Most of it still held, though it would not be long before it fell.
Some elven guards had forgone patience and were half walking, half swimming in the tides to get around the edges of the wall. One held a lantern over the surf.
I needed those flames.
Energy was spent, but I knelt on the soil and scooped it into my palms. A little more. Once more. “Light his way to me.”
For a moment, there was nothing. Then a cry of stun broke the night. The elven holding the lantern was ripped from the water. Far enough, I could only make out the smallest shape, but his cries rippled across the beach, distant but there.
Something moved around him. Roots? More branches? I didn’t know, but in the next breath, the flicker of his lantern skirted across the beach, out of the grip of the guard, and hurtled into the wood.
Shouts of confusion followed. Elven sprinted toward the trees, chasing after the stolen flame, likely expecting to find me there.
I spun around, looking to the trees, waiting. My fingers curled, then stretched and splayed, over and again until my pulse grew so frantic it hurt.
Up the slope, near where the wood had stolen the lantern, a spark leapt across the treetops. Golden flames licked up atowering oak in the center of the hill. Then, another leapt to a slender spruce. Another onto an aspen. One by one, flames leapt and danced across branches, leaves, and shrubs.
A slow blaze built. But it was more. The trees were not still. They shifted and bent. Shrubs leaned into a distinct shape. My blood burned, but not what it ought to have been for a feat as this. I’d expected to collapse, to overspend my fury magic until I lost consciousness. I remained standing, fatigued, but ready to move when needed.
I was the Ever Queen. It was as though my fury accepted it, as though it were proving it to the sea and land. As though my fury were fighting as desperately as me to find the Ever King.
I backed away, watching in a bit of awe, as fire licked through the trees, coiling and spiraling into the darkness. A grin split over my face when fearful shouts from my hunters faded beneath the roar of wildfire.
Light in the darkness, leading two lost hearts home.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
THE SERPENT
The bell was a warning.Something had gone awry.
“Full cover, you bastards,” I roared. “Light those damn spears.”
Another boom, another cinder stone, peeled toward the dark isle. True to the word of those we’d met along the way, this land was not of the Ever. A dark cloak of mist hovered along the edges, and it seemed to be locked in a violent storm.
It seemed to be fighting against revealing itself, like it was pulling away.
The ashen sails of Tavish’s vessel reeled ahead. Shouts of his crew rippled over the Ever Ship as the House of Mists came about, the hull aligned with the shoreline of the isle. Pressure, like a warm wind before the violence of a storm, billowed the sails.
From here, I could make out Tavish’s form. He stood on the rails, one hand on the rigging, the other outstretched.
“He’s breaking the wards!” I shouted. “Keep aiming at the shore. When those wards shatter, I want no man left alive on that damn isle.”
“King Erik!” A man reeled back off the rail. “The sea witches are sayin’ these wards be trying. No telling if they’ll break entirely.”
Dammit. “Keep firing!”
Repeated calls for more spears echoed down the deck. The Ever Ship jolted before it reached the shallows, forced to go still.
