Chapter 12
The Songbird
I’d anticipated the waves tossing us about, but it was more like a fierce wind.
My hair whipped around my face; pressure collided around us at all sides.
Bloodsinger’s muscles tightened in his shoulders, his arms. He wrenched the handles of his wheel to one side abruptly, and I had to throttle his neck to keep upright.
A good plan if I wanted to strangle the man, but the rumble of his laugh danced through my belly. He took pleasure in my fear.
I hated him a little more.
A muffled scream ripped from my chest when the ship tilted. By the hells, we were rolling, tipping, going to be plunged into the deepest parts of the Chasm. Was this his bleeding plan all along? Secure his crew to the deck, then let me go?
I never fell. My head knew we had tipped, yet my feet remained planted on the deck. I cracked my eyes, peering over Bloodsinger’s shoulder.
Not possible. The sea was as clear as thin ice, and through ripples above us, soft golden sunlight brightened the shadows.
Faster than we dived, the bow surged to the surface. I lost my breath when a cool gust of clean sea air replaced the murky pressure of the undercurrent. My footing slipped when the bow slammed back onto the sea, swaying the deck wildly for a few heartbeats.
One of Bloodsinger’s arms wrapped around my waist and hoisted me back upright. Locked in our horrid embrace, I was forced to press firmly against him and rest my chin atop his shoulder for my fingers to swipe the brine from my eyes. I blinked against a sun that had not been there moments ago.
“By the gods,” I breathed out before I could stop myself.
Bloodsinger scoffed. “Welcome to the Ever.”
The Ever Kingdom.
We were on a new sea, one made of cerulean glass and distant cliffs, and coves, and fjords. The dark storm that had surrounded the hull of the ship when it ventured to my side of the Chasm had faded. Now the laths and boards and spikes of the deck glistened like polished onyx.
Overhead was a rising sun, pale and brilliant. Not gold but soft ivory. To one side of the sea were distant shadows of land. The other way, the direction Bloodsinger led his ship, was nothing but open water.
The woman tilted her head back, absorbing the sun into her brown skin. “Do we make the call?”
Bloodsinger peered to the sea, tension in his jaw, but nodded.
With a wink to me, the woman held out a vial.
Bloodsinger didn’t shove me aside. He made his movements with me as a fixture around his body.
The glint of light on his teeth brought me to pause.
Much the same as he’d done when he faced Stieg, the king dragged his thumb across the sharp point of his canine tooth until a bead of blood rolled over the tip.
Poison blood. He had poisonous blood, and I was pressed to him like moss to a tree. I stiffened, drawing Erik’s gaze.
“No worries, love. Needs to mix with your blood before it boils your insides. Best not to swallow it though.”
“Maybe I have a taste for blood.” Gods. Nerves had a way of drawing out nonsensical, ill-timed words.
Erik did the unexpected. He gawked at me for five breaths, the blood on his thumb dripping down the curve of his hand, then he laughed. Not forced, not cruel, a true laugh that rumbled through his chest into mine.
He was a fiend, a tyrant, and his smile should fill my head with hate and bitterness. I could not look away. The man had a dimple in his cheek when he smiled, and it did something to his eyes. They burned like fire in the brush, wild and free.
He was a wretch, and hate for him burned with every pump of blood in my veins. The trouble was, hate was passionate and walked a fine line beside other passions—desire, lust, obsession.
When his laugh died off, Erik scraped his bloody thumb over the top of the woman’s vial. The swirl of red tangled with the shade of blue in the water like a whimsical dance.
“Wait.” Erik gripped the woman’s shoulders and leaned toward her ear. He whispered something, so low I couldn’t make out the sound above a rough rasp.
The woman arched one brow. “What is all that?”
“Just see that the supplies are there.”
“Will Alistair even know what it is?”
Bloodsinger frowned. “That old fool knows everything from every realm. See that he has it waiting for our return.”
“Aye, My King.” She leaned over the rail of the ship, whispered words I couldn’t hear against the glass of the vial, then tossed it into the current below. A shudder dipped the ship, and a ripple flowed over the surface of the sea. What did they do?
“Larsson!” Bloodsinger shouted. “Man the helm. I have a guest to see to.”
The crew laughed in such a way my blood chilled in my veins. Bloodsinger took hold of my arms and lifted them over his head. Once again, he had the scarf gripped and tugged me toward the stairs.
My breaths came sharp and desperate. No mistake, he’d slaughter me in front of his crew and send pieces of me back to my family, or he’d rape me, batter me, then do the first two things.
“You don’t need to do this,” I whispered.
“Ah, but I do.”
“Please.” Gods, I sounded pathetic, a fool to show how terrified I truly was. I clenched my teeth until they nearly cracked and straightened my bent spine. If I died, I would die with a blade in hand and a great deal of Bloodsinger’s deadly blood beneath my fingernails.
The crew moved aside for their king. I refused to meet any stares, refused to give them the satisfaction of my distress.
His pace was swift, but he had a pronounced limp.
The corner of my mouth twitched. In the cart, I’d kicked him hard enough that he’d reeled back, and I took a bit of pleasure knowing it had done damage.
Beneath the deck with his wheel—or helm, as he called it—was an arched door. He shoved me inside a small chamber. Modest, with a narrow table covered in maps and quills, and a cot. No quilts or furs, only a stretched piece of canvas tied with thick twine to heavy logs spiked into the floor.
Erik had to crouch to avoid striking his head on the doorframe. There he paused, and faced a few curious eyes of his crew. “Anyone enters without my say so, they lose their tongue.”
With that he slammed the door behind us. He removed the hat from his head and tossed it onto the cot.
I took a step away from him. Night Folk fae were not small in stature, but Bloodsinger was a force.
Broad, formidable. The scars peeking out from his black tunic brought a thousand questions I was certain would never be answered.
Scarred and battered, he still moved like a man capable of lunging and striking without hesitation. A true serpent hiding in the surf.
I flinched when his hands went to the scarf. With an unexpected gentle touch, he unbound my wrists as he spoke. “Do you know why I took you, Songbird?”
“You lost the war and can’t accept it?”
He sighed and tossed the scarf aside. “I figured you were naive, but I did not know you had no brains at all.”
The insult cut like a lash. I didn’t let it show. “Pity I can’t find a way to please you.”
The bloody sunset shade of his eyes shifted to something like a fiery night. “I’m sure you’ll find a way. May I suggest watching your tongue around the one who controls how long you live?”
“Then you shall be disappointed.” I regretted the words straightaway.
Bloodsinger moved like a spark catching fire.
His firm grip found my throat. I let out a breathless gasp when he touched the tip of his straight nose to mine.
“Why fight me? You called to me.” He ripped my sleeve apart and traced the mark on my arm with his thumb.
“It’s no coincidence that I find my emblem imprinted on you. Like you belong to me.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. An accidental touch of—”
“Touch of what?” He grinned, the rough callus on the tip of his thumb tracing the side of my throat.
“Did you call to me through the Chasm? The only way I could sail through was if the wards were gone. I think you had something to do with that.” From under his tunic, Bloodsinger removed the silver swallow.
“We’re bonded, you and I. From the moment you began your little tale. ”
Acid burned in sick waves in my gut. “That was nothing but a foolish girl’s attempt to protect her folk. There is no magic to it, there is no bond. I feel nothing for you but hate.”
He shrugged one shoulder as if utterly unbothered. “Admittedly, I don’t understand how you have the rune, but it led me back to you. Face the truth, love, you fastened your own chain around your throat.”
I lifted my chin, heat flushing in my face. “I know you believe you must take vengeance on my family. I will not deny my father killed yours; we all know the story.”
“You know the story?” His voice rose to a near bellow. “The death of the Ever King is not some tale you read in your little books.”
“You despise us for the war, when it was your people who attacked first.”
“Only because your people slaughtered a king of the Ever.”
“Twenty turns ago, and only after Thorvald attacked one of our own.” Anger heated my blood. Thorvald had attacked an innocent woman, a cousin of mine, to be exact. I’d seen the scar left behind. Thorvald’s act of unprovoked violence spurred my father’s ax to find the sea king’s heart.
“I know well what my father did.” New shadows darkened Erik’s eyes. “I also know it was done after your folk spent weeks torturing his heir.”
My retort dried like ash on my tongue. The scars on his neck, his lip, the ones clearly hidden beneath his shirt. Thorvald was killed before I was even born, ten turns before the Great War. If what Erik said was true, then as a tiny child, he’d been tortured.
It couldn’t be true. The kings and queens, my family, they’d never do such a thing to a little.
“You’re lying,” I said through my teeth.
“What would be the point?”