Chapter 33 #2
Once I discovered the gardens, I spent most of my time there. My fury magic burned wild and desperate to connect to this new land, this new soil. Since the king was too busy to be seen, I didn’t know how to ask his permission—and frankly, I didn’t care to get it—before I began taming the grounds.
My blood heated as I cupped wilted blossoms until they burst into a flurry of colors and sweet, milky scents.
I conquered the sprawling, chaotic vines.
My magic connected to the barest levels of the soil and plant life.
My father could command the earth to break and bend; I commanded it to live.
A sort of give-and-take of energy. I offered my magic, and the more vibrancy the earth returned, the longer I could use my own power.
On the days spent in the terraced gardens, Celine would sit with me, chatting about life on the Ever Ship while I worked. Soon, I laughed with her, like I did with Mira. I even told her about Aleksi as a new Rave officer, Sander’s studious nature, and Jonas’s proclivity to bed jealous women.
“One time a woman discovered he’d been with someone else,” I said.
“She broke into the other woman’s bedchamber—not his—and cut her hair.
Then she managed to use her familiarity with his side of his family’s palace to slip into his chamber and leave it on his pillow.
In the middle of the night. I’ve never seen the man so quiet and pale. ”
I snickered and touched a brittle vine with pink petals like a calm dawn.
Celine handed me a scoop of soil. “How was she executed?”
“Oh, she wasn’t executed, simply banned from the palace. I think Jonas’s mother and father laughed about it for two days. The poor girl whose hair was cut is what we call an elixist, a potion master in a way. She was able to craft a tonic to grow it back even more luscious than before.”
Celine gave me a bemused look. “A woman terrorized a royal and lived?”
“She wasn’t a threat, and Jonas did bring it on himself, but we don’t go around slaughtering people, Celine.” I paused to wipe sweat off my brow. “Is that what you’re taught about us? That we kill everything?”
She considered me for a breath. “I was born into the rivalry between our worlds. When Lord Harald still lived, he never let us forget how the fae of the other lands slaughtered the Ever King and tortured the heir. We’d have what he called blood feasts every quarter moon, and he’d repeat the tale.
He’d stir the hatred. He’d bring Erik out and—” Celine cut off her words and shook her head.
“What?” I brushed soil from my palms and squared to her. “What did he do?”
“He’d strip me down and force my people to look at my mangled skin, love.”
I jumped as Celine flinched and closed her eyes. Ten paces off, Erik leaned against an arched bower, glaring.
I despised how my pulse raced, and not from the surprise. Erik had the scarf around his head, a black hoop in his ear, and his pressed top was unlaced, revealing too much of his broad chest.
At his side, Larsson gave me a wink. Tait kept his eyes pinned to the ground.
His father was Harald, the bastard who’d truly been the one to bring the war to our shores.
Erik might’ve been king at the time, but he’d been young, and from what it sounded like, he’d been trapped under the influence of a vindictive uncle.
Hells, I didn’t know what to say and merely gaped like a fool, unable to grasp the cruelty of it all.
The king looked around the garden. Only half healed, but it was more orderly and healthier. Shrubs had aligned in neat rows, tangles of weeds and nettles were taken back and replaced with berms and lush, flowering bushes.
“You’ve done all this alone?” Erik asked.
“Celine has been here.”
She raised her hands. “I haven’t lifted a finger, My King.”
“The gardens nearly look like they once did.”
“Why do you neglect them?” I asked before I could swallow the words.
“They’re not mine,” Erik said, voice flat. “They were my mother’s. Walk with me, love.”
I offered a quick glance at Celine, but she’d already moved a distance away with Tait and Larsson.
We took a few languid strides through flowering shrubs, silent for a few breaths.
“You’ve avoided me,” I said.
“Avoided? Not at all.”
“Of course, how silly of me.” I cracked three knuckles. “I haven’t dined alone, slept alone, been alone but for Celine and Alistair, who, by the way, is quite fond of me.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
“You’re avoiding me.”
“I thought you would appreciate knowing you have freedom to go about as you please without a king breathing down your neck.” Erik stopped and leaned his face closer. “Unless you’d like me to.”
I took a step back, irritated, a little overheated. “I’m managing fine.”
Erik smirked. “Good. But I do have need to speak with you about something. Your magic, I want to understand it. Even those parts Narza said you’re afraid to talk about.”
“I’m…I’m not afraid.”
He tapped the side of his head, a twist to his lips.
“Bonded, love. I know there are parts that frighten you, and I want to understand the darker parts.” He looked at the vibrant garden.
“Seems rather bright to me, but you did mention you see frightening things. I want to understand to better protect you.”
Breath tightened in my chest like a tangle of knotted ribbons. “Protect me from what?”
“You were revealed as a powerful earth fae, a vein of power for the throne, and that power attracts all manner of crooked gazes. That bastard we killed in Skondell? There are more pirates like him out there. I’ve seen you fight—”
“And you mocked me.”
“Sewell told me your footwork has improved, so I think what you mean is I assisted you.” Erik’s hand rested on my cheek. “I won’t hide dangers from you, not when you deserve to hear them.”
He didn’t treat me like some fragile piece of glass; he told me to breathe and take the good with the bad. Erik let me shoulder it, let me know the truth to find a way to live with it instead of the fear.
It took a moment, but his steady gaze, the warmth of his palm kept me grounded and firm until the knot faded, and the thoughts of all the dreary unknowns slid back into the crags and crevices of my mind.
“People always keep darker truths from me,” I whispered.
“That is something I can’t afford. Not in the Ever. You are safer if you know what risks you face, Songbird. The same way it is safer if I know what you can do. I can’t defend you if you keep things from me.”
“I know.” My palm covered his hand on my cheek. “I like that you tell me even if my mind conjures up a thousand drearier possibilities.” I spoke lightly, but Erik didn’t grin. His thumb brushed over my cheek. “I’m not weak because of it, but sometimes my thoughts—”
“Did I say you were weak?” he snapped. “You are not weak because of fears, but I will do what I can to help you wade between the fears that are plausible and the ones that are the mind trying to paralyze you.”
My lips parted. No one spoke so directly about my proclivity to fret. I…I liked it. There was something about his firm tone, his logical words that helped chip away at what was true and what was a dark story my mind created.
“It started when I used my fury too fast and too deep once. I don’t talk about this much.
” Truth be told, I never spoke of it, never opened that piece of me, afraid it might happen again.
I didn’t want to relive the nightmares in my head, didn’t want to see the gory images that plagued a child’s mind.
Erik didn’t remove his hand; he didn’t push or prod. He was simply there, as violently beautiful as the heavy tides.
“I told you my fury has another side to it. I can—if I’m open enough—I can feel the land. I didn’t know I could even do that until the war,” I said softly. “I would see the battles.”
“You were near the fighting?” A bit of rage flushed his face.
“No. I took it into my mind’s eye.” I closed my eyes.
“I wanted to make certain my parents were all right, so I dug deeper than I’d ever gone with my magic.
I saw the blood, the pain, heard the screams. Every life lost clung to my soul.
My parents had given me such a peaceful life, I never knew such horrors could exist. All the young royals knew how to hold a blade and fight if we needed to, but I had never seen death. Not like that.
“When I opened the connection, I didn’t know how to control it and was devoured. It’s not reliable, which makes me wonder if it is trustworthy with the darkening.”
“Why do you think it’s unreliable?”
“During one of the final battles, I saw my uncle die. I felt it, and I couldn’t stop sobbing and couldn’t tell anyone why. I’m glad I didn’t, because when the battle ended, Tor was there to greet us. Bloodied but alive.”
A muscle pulsed in Erik’s jaw. He clenched his fists, then flexed his fingers as if unknotting an ache in his knuckles, but he said nothing.
I looked away. “Nightmares came after that; I still have them. I started to fear my fury, and nerves took hold. Now unknowns, possibilities of what could be, fester like poison in my head, and I let them consume me until I can’t breathe.”
The heat of embarrassment flooded my cheeks. I chuckled. “Telling you all this now sounds ridiculous since you were there. You fought. I merely heard them and had blurry images cast through my mind and can hardly think straight when the panic takes hold.”
“Don’t negate the pain of your experience.” His tone was as sharp as broken glass. Angry, but not at me, more for me.
“I only mean, it must’ve been much worse to fight in those battles.”
“I was there, true,” he said, “but it was not the same for me. While that was your first experience with gruesome pain, I was born into brutality. My earliest memories are of blood and death.”
A cinch tugged at my chest. “Even before your father died?”
Erik laughed, a dry, raw sound. “Thorvald was not what I would call a gentle father, I assure you, and his greatest fear was producing a gentle heir. He had his ways of seeing to it his fears were never realized.”
I didn’t know what his father had done to him as a child, but I hated King Thorvald for it. For the first time, I hoped my father had made him suffer. My fierce defensiveness and near bloodlust on behalf of the Ever King was startling, a little intriguing.
I didn’t shove it away or fight the pull to stand between Erik and more pain. In truth, I wasn’t certain I could.
“I could probably make tree roots stab someone, maybe a thornbush strangle someone too. I’ve never tried, but it’s a thought I’ve had, a feeling that I could.”
Erik looked at me as though he couldn’t gauge if I was teasing. When I kept quiet, he chuckled. “Do that, Songbird. If ever it is a choice between your life or another’s, strangle them with thorns.”
My insides twisted. Such a dark thought, and I doubted I’d ever be able to truly stomach such a thing.
“This is helpful,” he said. “I understand you a little better. Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
Erik took my hand. “To heal the Ever.”