Daj patted my cheek. Hard. “I expected a quiet reprieve when you allwere going to the South. You think I would let something as trivial as battles stop me from claiming that with my wife?”
“I’m never looking at you again. You’re heathens. No regal blood in your veins.”
“Thank you,” both said in the same breath.
“Hopeless.” I shoved into the great hall. “Bleeding hopeless.
The hall was bursting in sea fae, alvers, thieves, and elven. A strange sight, but one I planned to see again and again. Dokkalfar guards were shaken to learn of their fallen king. Elixists handed over strong mesmer-brewed draughts for the nerves while Mediskis tended to the wounded alongside elven healers.
Treetop folk had ventured from their nests and gawked at the towering rafters and spires of the palace. A skittish bunch, but once Raum convinced a few of their elders to taste brän and Gavyn Seeker encouraged the younger elven to tip back sea fae honey rum, the hall had grown as boisterous as a Black Palace feast.
Skadi was not the same woman I observed at our vows not so long ago.
She’d taken up a seat beside Sander and Von and laughed across a table with Livia and Celine. Bloodsinger kept a possessive arm around Livia, but once or twice, the slightest smirk teased the Ever King’s lip.
“I’ll never forgive you for killing that light bastard,” Erik grumbled. “He was mine to kill.”
Skadi propped her chin onto her palm, grinning at the Ever King. “I suppose you should sail here a little faster next time.”
Laughter followed, and Erik Bloodsinger lifted the horn in a mute acceptance of my wife.
Aleksi spoke with Tait through deep gulps from their drinking horns.
Alver blood smelled like piss, and the hall was rank with it, but no one minded. For a moment, it seemed the collision of worlds was content to sink into peace together.
Even for a night.
Skadi was wild and radiant. Her hair was bloody and tangled, but she held her shoulders straighter than before. Pain was there behind hereyes—pain we could face side by side—but relief and joy burned brighter.
I took my place beside her. The moment I came into her sights she curled her hands around my arm, drawing me as close as possible without sitting atop my lap.
How many turns had I lived fearing this? Someone who cared, and loved, and wanted me. To imagine missing this bond with Skadi because I feared losing it was nauseating to imagine. I held her gaze for a long moment, ignoring the taunts from my friends that I was a lovesick sod.
I was. Skadi promised to watch me burn if I tried to ignite the blaze in her soul, and she kept her word.
From those first moments, she swallowed me whole, and I never wanted to be set free.
The shadow elven did not protest Skadi’s ascension as their queen. I wasn’t certain if it was the glowering clan of alver folk standing at her back, or the silver glisten of the royal brand that flowed over her brow for her people to see, but the Dokkalfar were quick to bend the knee.
We found her lady’s maid hidden in her chamber beneath the bed. Panicked and convinced the alver clans would never allow the woman to live, it took a hefty touch from Lynx and his mind calming before the woman slumped over, relaxed enough she could not keep her eyes open.
“Cara will insist on remaining with me.” Skadi shook her head at the door once the woman was taken to sleep off her fears in another room. “Tending to royals is all she’s done since she was a girl. To tend to a queen has always been her ambition.”
I pressed a kiss to the top of Skadi’s shoulder. “She’s welcome if she accepts propriety and etiquette mean crass words and overstepping personal boundaries amongst the alvers.”
Skadi laughed and wrapped her arms around my waist. “She will bein a constant state of gasping in horror. I think we should introduce her to cook Ylva.”
We crawled into the bed, bodies aching, Skadi unbothered by my fetid blood from the nicks and scrapes I’d earned in the fighting.
We spent clock tolls curled beside each other in her old chambers she’d used as a child, talking of the truths she’d learned before Eldirard was killed.
“You deserved more, Fire.” I kissed the tip of her nose. “But I am pleased he saw his mistakes in the end.”
“I do not know how to feel.” She laid her cheek to my chest. “I hate him for the role he played in the death of my parents, in keeping me fearful of my own affinity, but he was good to me in many ways. He gave me a home.”
“It will be his regret that he did not love you as you deserved, but you can hold to the love he did offer and hate the rest.”
Skadi was silent for a moment, long enough I thought she might have fallen asleep until she whispered, “I am heartbroken over Dorsan.”
