Mere days after I’d shown her the library, I thought she would toss me into the Nothing for daring to mark a place in a book by bending the corner of the page. It took my face between her thighs and an afternoon undisturbed in the washroom for her to forgive me.
Sometimes Skadi could not turn off her mind for the night. I’d grown accustomed to stroking my fingers through her hair until she fell into slumber.
A smile crept over my mouth recalling the morning I caught Skadi in a battle with Ylva. She wanted to learn how to make my favorite savory buns, and Ylva took the request like she was being banished from the kingdom.
In the end, I found the princess muttering curses under her breath as Ylva barked her commands and drank brän while my fire worked.
To think I once planned for my arranged vow to be nothing but indifferent strangers forced into a position we never wanted was laughable.
Skadi was my daylight and nightfall. She was every moment in between.
“She’s calling.” My father’s low, rough voice broke the melancholy. He spun around, eyes blackened with mesmer, and gave me a jerky nod. “They’ve spotted her.”
Pleasant memories were cut away like a jagged blade sliced through me, and made room for the ice of violence and rage. I rolled my shoulders free of the tension and aches of waiting, and took a second dagger into my free hand.
Hooded, blood burning, I faced the shore.
My father raised his palms. The shadows encircling the fleet of longships shifted and spread into one endless wall of inky night in front of each curved stempost on every bow.
Sander adjusted a strap on his shoulder. Aleksi cracked his neck side to side. Von winked.
There were curious bonds crafted by alver folk, simply called alver vows, that went beyond typical vows. They intertwined the magics inthe blood of partners. Through their bond, my father could summon my mother’s fears; they beckoned him to her.
The shadow wall could take in anyone who held a fear if my father opened it wide enough.
I’d yet to meet a soul who feared nothing.
Skadi was not an alver, but when this was over, I wanted alver vows with her. The same as Bloodsinger had said about Livia at my vow feast, any way I could be bonded to my fire, I wished it so.
By slipping through the darkness, we would avoid the shore patrols, and meet my mother wherever she’d spotted Skadi.
A little longer.
My father bellowed for our folk to ready their blades, to prepare for anything. He shouted for them to meet the darkness. Roars and drums and cries of twisted glee were returned across the sea.
Silence mattered little now. The isle could not run from us, not anymore. The elven kings were marked, and we were about to meet them.
“Jonas. This is your crown and your kingdom. You lead here.” My father waited for me to step to the stempost. “We follow you through.”
Damn a kingdom, sink the isle, I cared little if it did not bring me Skadi.
I rolled my short blade in my grip once, then stepped over the rail of the longship as though I would step onto solid ground, and faded into the cold welcome of darkness.
Chapter 53
The Mist Thief
The king was dead.My heart ached in a befuddling collision of hate and affection. Eldirard destroyed my mother and father. He was not alone, but had looked me in the eye, day after day, knowing what he’d allowed.
But without him, I would not have Jonas.
It was a wretched sort of pain. To love and hate the fallen.
Eldirard gave me his throne. I was queen here and needed to stand for all Dokkalfar, but I was tethered like a beast about to strike.
My shoulders ached from the way the guards tied my arms behind my back. Cracked calluses were building on my knees, and blood wrapped around my wrists from my constant squirming and writhing to slip my hands free of the white iron.
“You never did think things through well, Skadinia.”
