6. The Mist Thief
Chapter 6
On Natthaven, the shadow elven had grown to fear me.
Declarations of the power held by the adopted heir of the king were shoved down the throats of my own people so deep they could hardly speak to me.
I was feared, viewed as different and dangerous, but it was a trepidation in which I’d grown accustomed.
When the sloop docked on the dark shoreline of the isle the morning of the vows, I hadn’t realized how fiercely I’d missed the familiarity of my homeland.
I would only get to revel in it for one more night before being shipped away to a distant kingdom.
In the prince’s land, did rivers line stone cottages with quaint black moss and golden clay? Were houses made of dry wood and brittle foundations? Did roads weave through endless forests and meadows and swamps, or were lands flat and dull?
Scents of boiled red pheasant would not permeate the corridors of his palace with rosemary and savory juices.
The squalls on his shorelines would not taste of the sweet salt and spice from the far seas. Night market chimes and chatter would be replaced with foreign words, ale, and strange, rounded ears of the patrons.
I closed my eyes, drawing in a sharp breath, once, twice, again and again until the ache in my lungs retreated beneath an unreadable expression.
Shouts from the sloop’s crew shook me from my thoughts. Two thick-armed men dropped an anchor. Ships and skiffs nearby did the same. Crewmen shuffled about, directing the small row boats to be lowered into the tides for the passengers to load.
Elven folk had returned to Natthaven with my grandfather, even Cara had gone ahead to prepare for the ceremony.
I was left to be surrounded by the strange, feral guards of alvers.
I had not seen the prince since our interaction after the alliance. Part of me wished to see him again, to read his eyes as though they might reveal his cruel intent. Another part of me was uneasy around the scrutiny of his people and would prefer if the prince escorted me himself.
I was a traitor to my own dignity for such a thought, but like the fear of me in my own lands, the cunning, annoying presence of the prince was becoming familiar.
“My elven.” Knee deep in the vibrant blue of Natthaven’s shores, one of the alver guards held out a hand. Tall and lithe with cropped dark hair. Older than me by turns, but there was still an innocence to his features.
“Your elven?”
“What should I say?” he asked. “I was told most royal folk prefer titles. Never was terribly skilled with them, I’m afraid.”
Not skilled with titles? “What do you call your prince then?”
His mouth quirked. “Depends which one we’re discussing here. Sander is normally pest, thinker, or little ass. Jonas, well, he’s always just little ass.”
I looked over my shoulder, half expecting some sort of horrid reprimand to fall down on the man for speaking so informally—so disrespectful—about his royals.
No one took notice.
I leaned closer, whispering, “What do you call your king and queen?”
“Mal, mostly for the queen. For Kase, he’s simply Kase, but if I want to especially irritate him, I’ll call him King.” The guard laughed. “What title should I be saying for you?”
Grandfather would be livid if I did not insist on something regal. “Skadi will do.”
“Simple enough.” He cleared his throat, straightened his shoulders toward the shore and wiggled his fingers. “Let us go, then, Skadi.”
I took his hand and hopped down into the tides. The guard kept hold on me while elven warriors and the sailors built a line to pass supplies from the boats to the shore.
“What title should I know you by?” I inspected his informal attire. Brutal, lined in knives, but like alver guards last night, he bore no emblems or formal uniform.
“Ash,” he said. “Just Ash.”
“You are an inner guard, Ash?”
“Yeah.” He spoke like he didn’t believe his own voice. “Yeah, you could say that. Sure.”
“Then I suppose I will see much more of you when we return to Kloshglas.”
Ash chuckled. “Klockglas. You’ll see some of me. I do often spend time in the fae kingdoms of the South.”
“Oh?” From maps provided to me by the Ever Queen, I understood there were four main territories of the earth fae lands. My new home would be on the eastern coastline. Strange to have a dedicated inner guard travel to neighboring kingdoms. “Are you more of an ambassador?”
“Gods, we haven’t had any of those for turns. No, my wife is a lady of a lower court among the glamour fae.”
“And the king simply allows one of his inner guards to leave for such a stretch of time?”
Ash didn’t answer for a breath, taking a pause to see to it I did not stumble as I stepped onto the dark sand of the shore. “To be honest, I never really thought to ask.”
No permission from his royals? No contracts between courts to craft similar alliances for a warrior and a noblewoman in another kingdom?
“May I ask, are you an alver? I understand there are mortals who live in your realms, and forgive me, I don’t know how to tell the difference.”
Ash grinned. “Draw blood on an alver and it’ll smell a lot like piss and rotting plums.”
My nose wrinkled. Memories of fetid scents during the battle were there, but I assumed it was all the death from the fallen warriors.
“I am an alver,” Ash went on, “what we call a Rifter.”
All gods. The sort who reveled in pain and broken bodies. What a pity, he seemed so . . . kind.
“From the look of fright in your eyes, I’m guessing you’ve heard a thing or two about Rifter folk.” Ash shouldered a satchel from one of the stacks of supplies. “I won’t lie, I could break you if I wanted, Princess. I could sense where it would hurt the most. But I’ve no need, and I have a feeling you’re going to unsettle my little ass of a prince. I look forward to watching it.”
A strange, choked sort of laugh slipped through. “I don’t know about that, but I am grateful you have no plans to break me.”
“From what I hear you could just eat me with your mesmer.”
“Mesmer? That is what you lot call your affinities, yes? You don’t seem uneasy at the thought of mine.”
“Should I be?”
I didn’t have time to respond before Cara shouted my name, waving her hands as she approached. Clad in a simple dress, Cara had her smock tied around her waist and her light hair braided in a crown over her head.
With a hesitant glance toward Ash, she stepped between us. “I will escort the princess from here.”
“Join us if you wish,” Ash said, “but I’m to see that she safely reaches her room.”
Cara took Ash in from his head to his boots. “We’re on elven lands. She is perfectly safe with her folk.”
Not always.
The kindness of Ash’s face faded into something more cunning, something reminiscent of the prince’s sneer.
“I’m certain she is.” He slipped the satchel over his head, settling it on one of his shoulders, then leaned in so his face was close to Cara’s. “I’m still going to see her safely there. Prince’s orders.”
With a sniff, Cara stepped in front of us.
Ash opened an arm, mutely signaling me to walk ahead.
“You call your prince an ass, yet follow his order without wavering.” I bit down on my cheek to keep the smile from cracking.
Ash winked. “Only the orders I want. This one seemed important to him, so at your service I’ll be until the vows.”
I hated how the notion of holding any sort of importance to the prince of nightmares fluttered in my chest.
It felt like turns had gone by since I’d been in my own rooms. The royal chamber was arranged in a wing of four sections. A washroom, the bedchamber, a sitting room with a black marble inglenook, and a tea room I’d transformed into a small library.
The moment Cara left me to my own thoughts, I clutched a tattered leather-bound book of fables and fae tales I read as a child when I wasn’t convinced fae folk even existed.
My fingertips traced the gilded symbols on the front cover describing the stories inside. Legends like the Skald who fell in love with a forest nymph, and when an envious troll discovered their affair, the troll was given a talisman from one of the trickster gods to transform the Skald into soil to be pounded beneath his feet for all time.
Pages crinkled as I flipped through the tale to the faded end. I smiled, resting my palm over a drawing of two towering trees.
Heartbroken, the nymph sacrificed her heart to the goddess of lovers and vows, and was transformed into a beautiful white aspen tree. From the Skald’s cursed soil, a new towering oak sprouted with the soul of the Skald within, and tangled its roots with the nymph aspen. There they grew together for centuries to come.
A tale of sacrifice and unfailing love.
Once, I believed such a thing to be possible. Now, it was nothing but a thing of folklore.
I gently closed the tome and hugged it to my chest, peering over the balcony.
Trees on the jagged hills were thick and lush, tangled in great bowers across the forests and pathways that wove this way and that over the isle. Boughs were threaded like intricate threads of a weaver’s web.
Blossoms from hedges below carried honey smooth scents with each kiss of the breeze. Buried in the silken shadows of the morning mists were flickers of gold from sun wings welcoming the dawn.
The insects were curious little things and suspicious of the unfamiliar. Faint glimmers cascaded down Natthaven’s hillsides like tiny flickers of a candle. Doubtless the tiny beasts were uncertain what to do with so many fae folk on the isle.
Scorch marks still marred some of the trees black from fires of battle that waged not so many weeks ago.
A knock on the door sounded. One of the palace guards slipped inside the room. Behind him, two maids carried in a glittering silver gown.
The guard cleared his throat. “Highness, the alver prince dismissed the maidens who were to assist you in preparing for the vows, but asked you be tended to with the aid of ladies of his choosing.”
“Pardon? His choosing?” Cara was likely furious if the prince made a request for anyone other than her and maids she plucked from the palace halls.
“Yes, My Lady.” The guard lifted his nose. “His thoughts were along the lines of putting you at ease by those who might proclaim his attributes to you. And, well, they have come to you.”