Chapter 30 #2
“Erik. She would lust after anyone, but she desired you. Tait saw it.” Gavyn studied his hands for a few breaths. “It can’t be helped, and you know it. The song reveals the truth.”
“What is the point of you saying this?”
“I speak as a friend.” A rare admission. Men like us could not afford to have friends. “A new fate seems to be at play for the Ever with the mark, but perhaps there is more than one purpose the Chasm drew you to her.”
Part of me wanted to agree; another wanted to stab Gavyn to get him to shut his damn mouth. Lust was physical, but a sea singer’s voice amplified a heart’s desire. I refused to see Livia’s behavior as anything other than the physical draw for a warm body in hers.
In my silence, Gavyn let out a long breath. “It’s not my place to offer conjectures, merely something to consider. Tell me what I am to do. It’s been too long since you’ve utilized my more remarkable qualities, and I was beginning to think you’d forgotten me.”
Needy bastard. “I will guard against threats here, but I need you to dull the threats on the other side of the Chasm.”
Gavyn’s brows arched. “A visit to the earth fae again?”
“A subtle one, and it must be done by you alone. Understand?”
“Ah. You wish violence upon me, I see.” With a grin, Gavyn tried to shield the unease in his eyes, but there was hesitation there.
“Can you manage it?”
“I’ll manage just fine.”
I wasn’t certain if he said it for my assurances or his own. “Bring the Night Folk clans word that their princess belongs to the Ever, she cannot be taken, then see to it they cannot find their own way through the barriers.”
Gavyn tilted his head, bemused. “You think they’d risk so many lives by attempting to cross through?”
I lowered my voice. “I think her father would burn every bleeding world to the ground to get her back.”
By taking Livia, I’d thrust a blade into the earth bender’s heart—a deep, gaping wound. He’d owned my father’s power for two decades. He’d fight to take my songbird back with even more ferocity.
Now that I had her as mine, I’d never allow it.
“As you say,” Gavyn said. “I’ll prepare to leave as soon as possible.”
“You’re certain you can do this without your ship?” I watched for any hint of deception or false bravado.
Gavyn’s jaw flinched. “It will be taxing to attempt the Chasm after so many turns, but I’ve done it before, as you know. Hopefully, this time I’ll do so with fewer shattered bones.”
Gavyn last traipsed the Chasm during the war. An attempt that nearly cost him his life. Nearly cost us both our lives.
“If you cannot, then pull back,” I said. “We’ll find another way.”
No one knew Gavyn’s true ability. I called him by the name of Seeker, but to the kingdom he was known as Gavyn Bonerotter, thought to have an ability where he could crush bones with a touch.
He couldn’t, yet he served as the lord to the House of Bones.
It was a ruse to keep him breathing. True sea seekers didn’t live long before they were killed by blade or their own reckless magic.
A man like Gavyn didn’t merely use the tides to carry his voice like Celine.
He could become as mist and slip through any body of water in an instant to wherever he desired.
Be it from one isle to another across the sea or from one pond to a pond in the private courtyard of another lord.
Perhaps he might materialize in a washroom, knife in hand, ready to plunge it through a rival’s throat.
Seekers, to most high-ranking nobles, were too great a risk to keep alive.
A journey through the Chasm without a ship was damn near fatal for anyone weaker than Gavyn.
“The earth bender king,” Gavyn said after a long pause. “He’ll truly fight for his daughter?”
I faced Gavyn. “I know he will.”
His dark eyes burned in the hidden rage he kept locked beneath wit and charm and his title. “Does it not trouble you how rare that is here? So few fathers would raise armies for one daughter. Even for a son, I suppose it would depend on the rank.”
True enough. When I was snatched by earth fae clans as a tiny boy during their small wars to be harvested for healing blood, there were a great many details I kept to myself about my father’s attempts to retrieve me, both during and after. Had I not been a son, I would’ve been forgotten.
“The earth bender almost reminds me of my own father,” Gavyn said.
“Don’t get sentimental,” I warned. “A great deal hinges on keeping protective fathers out of our kingdom.”
“I suppose.”
“Before you go,” I said, voice low, “see to the other lords and find something for me to use to force their loyalty. They will not take the news of Livia well.”
Lord Joron would try to study her, maybe even claim her power for himself. Lord Hesh would find it an abomination a woman bore the mark of the royal house and likely make a move to rid the Ever of such a stain.
“I’ll leave straightaway,” said Gavyn.
“Wait until after the return feast. No doubt your ship has been seen. Your face will be expected.”
He smirked. “Debauchery in the royal city? With pleasure, My King.”
“Gavyn.” I didn’t turn to look at him. “You also might want to get that injury you mentioned looked at by my boneweaver.”
“I’m uninjured.”
“This is too important to take the risk with injuries. No matter how small.”
“Erik, I’m not injured—”
“I think you are.” I turned to look over my shoulder. “Murdock won’t be too occupied. Only one on my crew arrived with a wound and is being treated. My cook.”
Gavyn visibly paled. “I see. And was he quite injured?”
“Thanks to the earth fae princess, not so much he lost his words.”
“The princess?”
“Aye. She’s bold at the strangest times and ran to help him during a damn attack from Lucien Skurk.” I tilted my head. “As I said, there is no one but him there if you needed to get that scratch you were complaining about just now inspected.”
Gavyn swallowed thickly, tugged a small knife from a sheath hidden in his boot, and dragged the tip over the meat of his palm.
He gave me a sly grin once a small stream of blood dripped down his wrist. “Glad you noticed the scratch, My King. Probably best to have a look to be certain all goes well.”
Gavyn pressed a hand to his chest, bowed, then tugged the black mask over his chin. I faced the window before he slipped out, part of the shadows of the corridors.