Chapter 2
The Fleshripper
Stars glittered overhead. The folktale of the Nightfire constellation had never struck me so fiercely. His three stars flickered and brightened in different hues, but I looked to the brilliant star near the moon, said to be his lover beckoning him home to her.
I felt the same.
White-tipped waves thrashed the nearer we sailed toward the rocky shore. Islands and vacant lands were speckled across the Ever Seas.
We’d selected one with more foliage and a freshwater spring near the top. Covered in mists without many decent docking shores, the island had served us well these four turns. No one had bothered Yulla or Celine.
Not a chime into our journey, and the steady rock of the sea had lulled Gavyn to sleep on the bench.
Gently, I nudged his shoulder. “Wake up. We’re here.”
He rubbed his eyes with his fists, but a slow, cautious smile split over his face when he saw the mouth of the cave. My pulse quickened. Almost there. Soon we’d be free. I’d sleep beside Yulla again every damn night. Hells, I’d never let her out of my arms again.
I’d be there more often for all of Celine’s firsts. I was sly enough, I’d snuck away to know my girl these turns. But I did not see her often enough. I had not had the honor of teaching her how to swim in rough tides or to hoist a banner. I’d not taught her to throw a blade.
I could not hold her every night, sing to her until she slept. I could not tell her every morning how she was one of my favorite faces to see with the sunrise.
All the things she deserved from a father.
Now we could have them. Far from here.
“Leave us.”
Gavyn’s stomping foot drew my attention.
I frowned and let out a hiss of annoyance when the bulbous eyes of a mermaid peered over the rail of the skiff. “Be gone. We’ve no desire to swim today.”
“Lord of Bones. Stop.”
My blood chilled. She spoke in a warning voice. In the next breath, water spilled over the side of my small boat. In mists and foam, Narza took shape.
The sea witch was tall and formidable. Her hair was braided in bright cerulean plaits, and her eyes were wide with warning.
At once, my hand went to the hilt of my blade. I did not care who she was, what power she held, I would not let a soul stop me from reaching my family.
“Sewell.” Narza held up a hand. “Do not take him in there.”
Her broken gaze drifted to Gavyn.
Gods, no.
I looked back to the witch. “You sold us out.”
Narza’s brow furrowed. “Never. I did not know what you hid here, it was not my place to know, but I suspected. You know Thorvald’s command would never hold favor with me. Not after…”
Not after the Ever King had killed her daughter.
Slowly, I let my hand release my blade and looked toward the grotto, a harsh jagged ache splitting my chest. “Are they gone?”
“No,” Narza whispered. “But they’ve been found out.”
“How?”
“Merfolk overheard Harald torturing one of your servants until they gave up where you sail to every seventh night.” She stepped closer, keeping her voice low so Gavyn would not be able to hear much. “They don’t know the boy knows, Sewell. This is his chance to live.”
A promise. They would live. I would do everything to make certain my littles lived.
I held Narza’s piercing gaze for a breath, another, then nodded. “Will you take him, My Lady? He will not leave me.”
She winced. “Aye. For what you have tried to do here, you are honorable, My Lord. He will always be watched by the House of Mists. I swear it.”
Deftly, Narza handed me a pouch. She tilted her head. “It will make him sleep. I’ll return him to the House of Bones, where they will find him sleeping, unaware of any treason. I will speak for him.”
An ache built behind my eyes. I would miss my boy. I’d miss watching the man he’d grow into. With the heel of my hand, I wiped my eyes. “Tell him he was loved, won’t you?”
Narza was a stern woman. Grandmother of the Ever King, lady of all sirens and witches. She had her own secrets, her own treasonous thoughts toward the House of Kings, no mistake.
Still, when I asked the question, she gripped my hand. “He will never doubt it.”
I cleared my throat and turned to Gavyn. My son kept himself tucked near the bow and looked at me with fear in his eyes. I lowered to a crouch and opened my arms, beckoning him forward. Gavyn did not hesitate.
He flung his arms around my neck. “Did they hurt my maj? Cel?”
I forced a smile. “Our secret’s up, Son, but we’ll be all right. We’re the House of Bones; we don’t quit, do we?”
Gavyn shook his head. “Never, Daj.”
“I’m going to sneak in and see if I can get our girls, yes? But they’re closing in, so I want you to stay with the Lady Narza. She is on our side. You understand why?”
Gavyn offered Narza a befuddled look. He didn’t trust the sea witch. Doubtless because the woman had nothing to do with Erik Bloodsinger. To Gavyn, she’d abandoned her grandson to Harald.
I did not understand her absence either, but knew there had to be a good reason Narza left her daughter’s son to the cruel hands of Thorvald’s brother.
“She will look after you.” With slow motions, I pinched the crushed herbs Narza had packed into the pouch—a common sleeping spell—and sprinkled it over Gavyn’s head without him realizing.
It took moments for his eyes to flutter.
I caught him before he toppled backward.
Jaw tight, I held him close, breathing him in once more. “I love you. Until the Otherworld.”
Two men from the House of Mists had clambered onto the skiff at Narza’s signal. One was young with similar eyes to the Lady of Witches. He took hold of Gavyn’s limp form, then offered a final look to me.
In the next breath, my son was pulled beneath the tides.
“Narza,” I said, voice rough. “Gavyn’s voice—”
“Does not need to be spoken of to anyone,” she interjected.
Narza’s voice allowed her to read the abilities of other magics. She knew Gavyn could turn into the very mist of the sea, disappearing and reappearing in the smallest hint of water.
Seekers were considered deadly, too impossible to control.
If Lord Hesh or Lord Joron or bleeding Harald ever learned of my son’s true voice, he would be killed faster than any of us.
I pounded a fist over my chest, a signal to the sea witch she had my eternal gratitude. Without another word, I dove into the sea.
The grotto had a lower entrance that filled with the high tides. I swam through the narrow opening and surfaced in a natural pool inside. Lanterns we’d fashioned to offer my mate and daughter light during the nights and days were vibrant and made the damp on the rocky walls shimmer.
Each move I took was with care—silent and slow.
Until a vicious scream carved through the cavern and dug into my bones.
Yulla.
I kept low and leaned behind a large boulder, where I could keep peering into the main cavern unseen.
Damn the gods.
Three burly men held Yulla’s arms. She was battered and bleeding. Her long dark hair was matted in sweat and blood. Her gown was torn halfway down her chest. A dangerous sort of rage heated my blood. If they touched her, they’d suffer.
Their screams would lull me into the Otherworld.
“Don’t touch her,” Yulla hissed.
She thrashed and tried to bite and strike at the two men holding her back.
My gaze snapped to the third. He stalked toward a pair of jagged stones. Huddled, sobbing, was my little tideling.
Celine had only reached her fourth turn but had the sweetest siren’s call, just like her maj.
She had Yulla’s long willowy hair but with a few brilliant shades of silver, like stars in the dark silk.
One ear had been misshapen at her birth, and she tugged on the rolled flesh where it was missing.
A nervous habit we’d been trying to break.
She loved to splash in the tides, loved to sleep against my shoulder, she loved sneaking too many sour currants with me when Yulla wasn’t looking.
My world would be shattered without her as much as Gavyn, as much as their mother.
“Come on out, girl.” The man laughed, slapping a dagger against his open palm. “I’ve been looking for a good target to prac—”
His voice cut off. His breath caught. A look of horror crossed his features when he pawed at his throat. My house dagger pierced through the front. A direct shot from the back of his neck through the front.
I wasted no time, taking the stun of his two companions to draw my blade and rush into the cavern. Yulla cried out and took one of the sods at her side while I took the other. She had no blade but clawed like each fingernail was made of jagged iron.
“Take Celine, Sewell!” she cried.
I slashed my sword against the blade of the second brute. “I’ll take you both.”
“Bone Lord.” The man I fought flashed his teeth. “You betray the Ever. You’ll burn here. But I’ll make you watch me take your mate first. Then maybe you can watch your little bitch get eaten by the eels before we kill you.”
My lip curled. Our blades locked, drawing our faces close enough that I could make out every pockmark on his rough, scaly cheeks. I snapped my teeth. “Best of luck.”
I kicked his knee, drawing him forward with a hiss. He made ready his blade, but not fast enough. When he stumbled over a ledge in the stones, I rammed my blade through the underside of his chin until the point of my cutlass burst through his brow.
“Don’t move, Lord Sewell.” Across the cavern the last man had Yulla pinned to his chest, his knife against her throat. “Drop your blade, or you watch her die.”
I yanked my sword free of the dead fae’s skull, then wiped blood from my lip with the back of my hand, never taking my gaze off the last bastard I had left to kill.
“Take her, Sewell. You promised. I’ll await you in the seas of—” Yulla winced when the knife drew blood, digging deeper into her flesh.
My hand tightened around the hilt of my sword. At my back, my little daughter sobbed. At my front, my lover, my mate, begged me to let her die and flee.
I could never.
I had to have them both.
I had to have my whole family.