Page 137

Halfway through the meal, Erik stood, drinking horn in hand. “We all felt the losses of our crew. Tonight, we drink for Struan Boneseer, Janus Legbinder, Lex Steelcarver, and Espen Fireweaver. May they save us all a place on their crew in the Otherworld. And may our enemies who robbed us of them one day meet our blades.”

Drinking horns echoed against the table when each man clacked his drink to the wood and tossed back long swallows. A common speech offered to fallen crewmen. Erik spoke the threat against the folk who’d killed his men.

I wasn’t certain the Ever King would seek out Eilifur. Our kingdom was still being repaired after recent battles from the elven and Larsson’s treason.

No doubt, Erik would want to keep risks against Livia and the Ever as distant as he could.

After the meal was cleared away, Livia took hold of Mira’s hand. “Come to the cove. A sea witch back home arranged for my folk to speak with you. Aleksi is there and is desperate to see for himself that you’re alive.”

“My sweet Alek,” Mira said. “Was he searching with Uncle Valen?”

Livia nodded. “He’s planning to ask for leave from the Rave to come see you here.”

Mira waved her hand. “The sod. I’ll tell him to remain right where he bleeding is. I’m fine.”

There was a bond between the earth fae royals, one I’d not always understood. Lands, seas, nothing seemed to keep the earth fae clans from rallying to fight together if needed. But the more we interacted, the more I could see remnants of the same devotion in the Ever Kingdom.

Sea Folk might’ve had a sharper bite and preferred to keep proclamations of love free from our words, but there was unshakable loyalty laced through our bones. Even when Erik offered to free the Ever Crew of their blood bonds, they refused to have it done. They craved the kinship, the common vow to defend our kingdom.

Perhaps the earth fae and Sea Folk were not so different as we once thought.

Livia led Mira and the glamour queen to the edge of Erik’s private cove. Once peace was secured between realms, Lady Narza saw to it that any sea witches residing in earth fae realms could manage the connection spell for royal houses to speak directly to the Ever King and Queen through the tides.

The others followed to the water’s edge, but the glamour king remained behind. With me.

Gods, it had been weeks since I’d craved the slow draw of a paper smoke. In this moment, I would kill for one.

“Heartwalker.”

I shoved my hands into the pockets of my trousers. “Highness.”

“I’ve always been a rather observant sort; it is likely the reason I’ve managed to be a king twice. Go on, ask Valen who allowed him to be king of the Night Folk. Me. But that’s not what’s important here, although it is an important fact. The purpose of this conversation is that I have pieced together something rather dreary.”

I shifted on my feet, uncertain what to say, and at the same moment Mira shrieked in glee and waved at the soft glow of the water’s surface. I could hear Aleksi’s voice and Livia’s younger brother who, when the boy was not in the Ever, rarely left his warrior cousin’s side.

Mira’s father faced me. “I feel as though my apologies to you are needed.”

Not expected. I studied the king. He was taller than me, and there was a ferociousness that burned in his gaze that did not align with his busy words. “Apologies? For what?”

“I enjoy unsettling folk. Call it a gift, if you will. At first, I believed it might be a way to soften the tentative peace Livia and Bloodsinger brought, a sort of jest with you.”

“Why jest with me?”

“I would guess because there is a bit of guilt that it was me and my queen who sent you—a boy—into banishment. I remember that day after the war—I’ll never forget it. Battle weary, your impertinent tongue—”

“I was anticipating you’d kill me, so I did not see the purpose of being polite.”

The glamour king chuckled. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t. Still, there was a horrid feeling across our realms. What we did to both you and Bloodsinger never sat right with any of us. Once I recognized you again, I did not think hard on what it might be like if I associated you with your father. Thought it was an aggravating sort of taunt. We tend to do many of those in the earth fae kingdoms. I should not have done it to you.”

“Highness, if this is about my father’s name, it does not matter.”

“I think it does.” The king considered me. “More than you’re letting on. Harald was a bastard, and I ought to have recognized the man who brought the Sea Folk to war against us would be standing shoulder to shoulder with…that creature who stirred your people’s hate.”

He spoke of Davorin, the dark fae. The king’s jaw pulsed. Hatred, rage, all of it rolled off the man thick enough to taste for merely discussing a dead enemy.

“I don’t understand what you’re saying, Highness.”

“Many people don’t.” The king waved a palm. “I should never have associated you with Harald alone. I do not know what your life was like growing up with such a father, but I cannot imagine with those two men leading your kingdom that it was pleasant. From now on, you will be known to me for your merit. There was no choice in who you had for a father, but he will not define you. Not to us.”