This might’ve been too reckless.
Back home on the isle of Natthaven, I was not allowed a great dealof independence to wander. In the palace of sea fae—former enemies who trusted few things about elven folk—I certainly was not left alone without a watchful eye.
I blew out a long breath. No mistake, I was merely overthinking, unsettled by the noise and being alone for the first time in turns.
With all the shuffling, I was now three seats away from the drunkard at the counter.
He likely wouldn’t even know I was there. Still, I shouldered him out and took my place on a crooked stool.
“What’ll it be, lady?” asked the aleman, scrubbing the same horn when he approached.
I cleared my throat, lowering my voice to sound like a smoke-soaked rasp to match many of the sailors. “Brown rum. And a few pieces.” I tossed over the only coin I had—juvel—elven currency.
If the aleman cared, he made no note of it. Then again, with the approaching alliance, more and more Dokkalfar elven had stepped foot on fae lands whenever the king came to visit me, his somber granddaughter.
I was the caged creature when all I had done was try to keep my folk safe. I should’ve known, if I fought and revealed how my mists could swallow entire lands, the fae folk would see me as the fearsome princess the same as many elven.
What was I to do? My grandfather had been bespelled by one of Arion’s minions into a sleep during the battle. He was defenseless, vulnerable. I had to stand between the fae warriors and the king.
“What’s a wee lady doin’ out here in a place like this?”
It took me a moment to realize the drunkard hunched three seats down had spoken.
I frowned, scanning my disguise. “Do I not look like I fit? Just got off the sea.”
“Did you now?” He chortled, thick and rough. “Most folk come here when there’re troubles on the heart. What’s troublin’ you?”
“There is nothing troubling. Merely want a drink, if you please.”
The drunkard slapped the table. “Drink for milady, Tonguetaker!”
Tonguetaker. The aleman perked at the name. Sea fae had thestrangest surnames. Each one different and named for the magic they kept in their song or their prowess with a blade.
Tonguetaker could be skilled at anything, but none sounded entirely pleasant.
“I was getting to it.” The aleman clapped a horn in front of me in the same moment the drunkard scooted down a seat.
I swallowed, embarrassed how the hair lifted on the back of my neck, and raised the drinking horn to my lips. Gods, it burned. I winced against the satin fire, feeling it drop down my throat to my belly.
“You runnin’ from something, lady?” asked the drunk. “Looks like you might be.”
I forced down a second sip. “There is nowhere I can run. I came to enjoy my last moments of independence. Not that I had much of that before.”
“Always the good girl then?”
“Always.” Another drink. It was getting simpler to stomach.
“What be so horrid that you chose to spend your last bit of independence, as you say, in a piss-hole as this?” The man waved his hand at the aleman. “No offense meant, Tonguetaker.”
I clapped the drinking horn over the tavern counter, gasping through a swallow. “I’m to be sold off in vows.”
“Hmm.” The man paused. “Thought most of the lady folk liked the notion of a mate.”
“Ha.” The laugh broke from my chest like a kind of warbling sea bird. “A mate? More like a jailer.”
“Now that’s taking it too far.”
Was it the rum, or did the drunkard’s voice shift to something smoother, something dark and deep?
