Page 111 of The Stolen Crown

“I’ll cover us as long as I can with glamour.” Mira opened her palms and summoned her magic. “Can you sing to find him?”

“Aye. Don’t exhaust yourself. Swear it.”

“I’ll go as long as I’m able.”

It would be the best vow I’d get from her. We crept across the room. The door was not locked. Both unsettling and convenient.

“Tait, are you certain we must go? It might’ve been nothing but a nightmare.” Mira looked longingly at the unmade bed.

“No.” I brushed my knuckles over her cheek. “Fight it. They’ve done something to us to make us complacent. Think of your folk, think of the alvers, of Livia. They are likely scouring the seas for you.”

“Us, Hearttalker. Don’t think you don’t have half the Ever searching for you. Erik is likely losing his damn mind.”

She was so determined to ensure I felt wanted, and if the moment were different, I would kiss her long and hard to show her my thanks. Instead, I peered through a narrow crack in our door. The corridor was empty. Perhaps whatever they did to enhance our desire to remain left them confident to leave us unattended.

Our steps were feather-soft along the woven rugs over the floorboards.

“Dammit!” said Mira.

“What is it?”

“Nothing,” she said in a sharp whisper. “My glamour is weak here, so instead of looking like an empty corridor, I’m afraid we look like a moving shadow.”

There was a dark haze surrounding us. It would have to be enough.

“I might be able to craft projections of our likenesses, perhaps running in an opposite direction, if they catch us.”

“Do that, Vicious,” I whispered. “But I prefer not to be caught.”

Mira’s brow set in concentration. I drew the heat of my voice to my throat, my chest, singing softly under my breath.

New desires spun through me with each doorway we snuck past—life, power, food, home. I drew to a halt in front of a narrow door toward the back of the house. A window was nearby, and below was the strange golden garden.

The fruit. Bleeding gods.

“Mira.” I nodded at the garden. “On the isle…there were those golden berries near the hidden village lake.”

Her features paled. “Good hells. We didn’t want to leave the isle.”

Damn the cruel gods. That mystical fruit had to be part of the desire to remain here. If it was on the isle, then it might’ve been part of our contentment to remain, even before the land attempted to entrap us. What did the isle have to do with Eilifur?

What did Eeva do to us?

Our steps were soft on the stones. The corridor was dimly lit and the lack of firelight aided in concealing Mira’s shadowed illusions from appearing too odd.

I kept singing in a low hum, searching for Swordeater’s desire again, but when we rounded the next corner, my song found the hearts of two mortal guards. Mira released a short gasp but clapped her own palm over her mouth to muffle the sound.

Poor lighting, a dark night. All I could do was hope it would be enough to convince the guards the thick darkness near the corner was nothing of note.

The two men strode shoulder to shoulder. Furs added broadness to their builds and heavy blades lined their belts. I didn’t understand their words, but it was not difficult to figure out they argued over something.

Each step brought the men nearer, nearer. I curled my hand around Mira’s arm, if only to toss her out of the way should they strike. Their boots slapped on the stones, heavy and undisciplined.

Five paces away, two. Mira’s body trembled in my grasp. Her fists were balled, desperate to hold her glamour. The breath she drew in didn’t release when the two guards strode past us. They didn’t look at the new layer of darkness, didn’t question it.

Steps went by, two paces, five.

“Hold.” The first guard paused at the corner, a fist lifted.