Chapter 3 The Sea Seeker
The Sea Seeker
It went bad.
The whole plan went bad. I knew it. Felt it. When one of those tricky witches from the House of Mists was there in my room, looking all sad and wretched, I knew it went bad.
Got him to talk though. Took a bit of nudging, but Tavish from the House of Mists looked like he might understand something about losing folk. I didn’t know his story, but he admitted my daj had gone for the grotto.
Admitted Harald found out about little Cel. He said some merfolk saw prisoners being tugged away to the House of Kings. That meant I had a bleeding face to talk to.
Or kill.
I gripped a hand around one of Daj’s old dull knives he gave me on my seventh turn. The ponds of the royal gardens were covered by unmanaged thorns and briars, but it was the closest I could get to the door where he slept.
In a low crouch, I staggered up the stone steps until I reached the arched doorway. Using a whalebone and the point of my knife, I waited until the lock clicked, then slipped through the crack in the door.
Stupid boy. I told him he ought to start blocking his damn door.
I crept over the woven rug toward the oversized bed fit for a hundred men—at least it seemed like it.
Knife in hand, I levered onto the edge of the royal bed.
“Lookin’ to kill a king, Seeker?”
My heart felt like it jumped to my damn brain. I stumbled over the furs and coverlets of Bloodsinger’s too-huge bed. There he was, leaning against the door to the washroom.
Shorter than me, messy dark brown hair with touches of sun red buried in there. He was battered. Then again, the young Ever King had been tortured. Daj told me all about it. Trapped in the earth fae realms (I never thought they were real before) when he was barely older than Cel.
He left the Ever without scars on his skin, without a limp, then he came back different. Harsher, with deep scars across his body.
Erik Bloodsinger snapped at everyone, like a sharp-toothed fish snapping his jaws. But with me…I don’t know, somehow we almost seemed like friends. Two boys carrying secrets. I learned the truth about his maj, how he was forced to send her to the Otherworld. He learned I could turn into sea mist.
But if he was with Harald now…I’d kill him.
“Did you order ’em to be taken?” I held the knife out, ashamed how my voice trembled like a stupid babe.
Erik tilted his head. “Who?”
Gods, I couldn’t stop the tears, and I didn’t try. The Ever King looked almost frightened when he watched me break, like he didn’t know what to do, what to say.
He probably didn’t. No one showed emotion in this bleeding palace, and I couldn’t stop.
“They found her.” My voice broke and I used my sleeve to wipe away the wet seeping from my eyes and nose. “Harald. Daj went after them, and…and I don’t know where they are. Did you…did you rat us out?”
“Shut it, Seeker,” Bloodsinger hissed. His voice was higher than mine, but in the moment it was sharp as a blade.
“Made a vow I wouldn’t, didn’t I?” The Ever King limped into the great sitting room connected to his bedchamber.
He pressed a small hand to his bad leg and locked the door, then wheeled on me. “Tell me what happened.”
I let it spill. The attack of the Ever Ship—Bloodsinger didn’t know his wretched uncle had taken the ship without him. I told him how Narza showed up. The king ruffled at that. How the House of Mists said they saw some prisoners.
When I finished, I was slumped into one of the padded chairs, voice raw and dry.
Erik’s face was pale, a horrified expression dug into it. There were days I forgot he was the king of the Ever. He looked too small, too much like me. Still, the weight of a kingdom rested on his shoulders, but his expression slowly shifted, like he might burn it all after hearing the news.
“Harald is listening to dark earth fae. He’s not the king!” Erik shouted.
“We gotta find them,” I said. “My daj, my maj, and my…” My voice trailed off before I mentioned Celine.
I should’ve known the king would catch it. Yes, he was a boy, but so was I.
Us boys of the Ever weren’t stupid sods.
“And who?” Erik’s red eyes burned like the flames in the lanterns. “You keeping things from me, Seeker? Thought we said that was pointless long ago.”
True enough. Three turns back, I’d disobeyed my daj, practiced my seeking, and landed myself in the pond of the king’s gardens. Being only six turns at the time, I hadn’t meant to be so stupid.
Erik was there. I hadn’t seen the young king since he’d been rescued from the earth fae realms. Thorvald had been dead for a mere turn, and I half expected to find his heir—like the rumors said—chopped up and missing eyes and limbs.
He wasn’t chopped up but had more than a few gashes.
I’d gotten on my knees as Daj always said we ought to do to a king, and pleaded he wouldn’t rat my voice out.
All the young king asked was if my daj knew.
With a bit of reluctance, I admitted he did. Something about the confession that my daj knew I held forbidden magic that often led to an execution and still had not given me up intrigued Erik Bloodsinger.
For weeks, we kept meeting. Sometimes to have mock battles with wooden swords, sometimes to try some of the stolen sweets he’d taken from the royal cooking rooms.
Soon enough, he told me about his maj. It was the only time the Ever King seemed close to tears.
I made my confession—my maj was alive.
We vowed to keep the other’s secrets, so long as we always told the truth to each other.
I lifted my gaze to Erik’s. “I kept one secret. I’ve a little sister, Bloodsinger. They’ll kill her. She’s not yet five turns.”
Erik’s eyes flashed with a touch of surprise, but he didn’t shout at me or complain I’d not kept my end of the bargain.
All the boy king did was stare at the blue flames of the fire in the inglenook.
“I’ll find where he’s taken them. Get gone, Seeker.
Don’t let them trap you too. I’ll send word when I know. ”
The thought of leaving the royal city dug deep into my belly until I thought I might vomit.
When I hesitated too long, the Ever King rolled his eyes. “Fine. Stay here, then.”
Without a protest, I hurried to the bedchamber and curled under the furs, more terrified than I wanted to let on. Even if Erik was the king, I was still bleeding older, and it wouldn’t do if I started blubbering again.
The door clicked, and Bloodsinger was gone.
All I could do now was wait.