19. The Mist Thief
Chapter 19
I pounded on Dorsan’s door, the threat crinkled in my grip. There was no longer any room to consider the strange happenings were mere coincidence.
The missive at the vows, the slaughtered sun wing, made it clear Dorsan and I were not the lone elven here.
My guard wrenched open the door, blade half in his sheath, his tunic untucked. “Princess, what is it?”
“This is not the first strange note. What am I to make of this?”
Dorsan blinked when I shoved the parchment into his hand. “This is not the first?” In a frenzy, I repeated the note at the vows, and the gift. Dorsan’s jaw tightened. “You must take this to the king and queen. I will join you.”
I fastened the robe over my shift and hurried after the guard, only pausing to inquire of a maid polishing frames of paintings in the lower corridor where we could find the king and queen.
“They’ve returned just now. Such a pity.” The woman shook her head. “They’ve gathered with the princes and some other folk for a bit of a meal. Cook Ylva demanded it after the night they’ve had.”
I didn’t pause to offer thanks before rushing toward the great hall, dread I couldn’t explain tight in my belly.
Two men in hoods and dark cloaks stood near the doors, the strange palace guards who always looked frightening more than regal. They watched me run through the doorway into the hall.
The king and queen were there as promised, Jonas’s mother had her head rested against the king’s shoulder, her eyes closed.
Raum, Ash, and the woman with cat eyes and her husband were seated on long benches. The man with runes inked on his fingers I’d seen on the day we arrived kept flipping through a strange book with Prince Sander.
Jonas took a place next to Von Grym. The prince had his brow propped onto his fists, as though he could not peel his gaze from the table.
“Come to dine, lovey?” Raum’s silver eyes found me first as staff from the cooking rooms slipped around me in the doorway.
They set to work placing trays of breads and cheeses, plates of berries and ewers of ale in the center of the table. Each seat was given a cup of what looked to be herbs for the steaming tins at their sides. Doubtless some sort of mesmer tea.
Jonas lifted his chin after Raum spoke. “Skadi?”
I didn’t respond. My attention was drawn to dark berries on the tray. The outer skin glistened as though soaked in a glaze, but the pockets of seeds on the top were white as pearls. Sweet venom.
The shrubs grew in the wood of Natthaven, the berries sweet and used for delicate cakes and thick syrups in the palace. Rare and only expert hands sought to cook with sweet venom, for any touch of the stem, leaves, or greenery was toxic to the mind. An unstoppable poison that made the victim . . .
Damn the hells. It caused violent convulsions until their hearts gave out.
What was an elven berry doing here?
“Where did you get those?” I pointed at the venomous berry, voice sharp.
The woman from the cooking rooms paused. “They were arranged, I thought it was for the morning meal.”
They will blame you.
Look for me when he falls.
All gods, no.
Jonas lifted a brow, befuddled, and reached for the tin of herbs at his side.
“Jonas! Stop.” Frigid damp coated my palms. The mists of my affinity flowed like diaphanous ribbons off my palms.
Several of those who were seated jumped back when the darkness wrapped around the prince’s settings—the herbs, the drinking horn near his plate, the tin with steaming water. All of it faded into nothing.
I tossed my palms aside, and from a cloud of darkness, every piece I’d stolen clattered over the stone floors of the hall.
I rushed to the mess of plates and food. “Bleeding hells.”
“What is it?” Jonas crouched by my side, everyone from the table at his back.
I used my robe to cover my fingers and pinched some of the leafy herbs, crushed to appear as a fresh tea. “This is called sweet venom. It grows on Natthaven and it’s deadly.”
Someone gasped in the hall.
Jonas’s jaw flexed. “How did you know?”
“I . . . I received a note that told me to”—blood drained from my face—“someone told me they’d be there when he fell. Gods, I think someone was coming for me.”
I abandoned the mess and sprinted for the door, thoughts in a fog.
“Skadi! Wait.” Jonas followed me up the staircase toward our wing, taking the stairs two at a time.
I didn’t stop. My side of the chamber was empty. There was no one in the wardrobe, no one waiting to tear me away inside the sitting room.
“Will you tell me what is going on?” Jonas bent to the floor when I peered under the bed.
“I don’t know, but . . .” Words died when I peered out the window.
There, tucked beside the blossom coated archway that led into the gardens was a man crouched near a hedge, uncoiling what looked like a rope. I could not see his face beneath a woolen cowl, but he did not appear to be one of the gardeners.
“There.” I pointed through the glass. “Gods, he’s there.”
Jonas looked to where I pointed. He took out the dagger on his belt and went for the door.
“No.” I scrambled after him. “He could hurt you.”
Jonas spun on me in the doorway. “The only one who will be hurting is him. Stay here.”
“Are you mad? I’m coming to see?—”
“You will stay here.” The prince startled me by tugging me to his chest. “I do not know who he is, but he is no friend of yours and he will not come near you.” The prince faced my guard. “Am I clear?”
Dorsan lifted his chin. “Yes, Highness.”
Heated anger flooded my face. “You do not get to put your neck at risk and demand I sit back to watch. Don’t walk away . . . Jonas Eriksson, stop. Damn you!”
My protests were wholly ignored as the prince disappeared down the staircase. When I tried to follow, Dorsan held out an arm. “I agree with the prince. Do not put yourself at risk, or it will put him at risk if he is distracted by keeping you safe.”
“What says he will need to? I know how to lift a blade,” I gritted through my teeth.
“Not today you don’t, My Lady.”
When Dorsan positioned himself in front of me, I let out a hiss. “If I would not stain my soul by harming you, I would devour you in darkness, Dorsan of House Nardin!”
“Understood.” He didn’t move in the slightest.
I slammed the door and ran for the window. With care, I cracked the pane just enough to hear, but the day was silent beneath the morning breeze.
In a breath, anger bled to fear, then to a bit of awe.
They moved like a looming shadow. Without rustling a single hedge, a hooded man—from his build and height I took him as Von—slipped unseen onto the path where the assailant might try to flee. From another corner Sander and the man who’d been reading at the table drew nearer, both crouched low. Darkness rolled over the cobblestones like a murky flood, but I didn’t know who controlled it.
My heart stuttered when Jonas materialized at the front of the archway.
Jonas’s voice was low, deep, a barbed threat. “Looking for someone?”
The invader startled, but with hardly a pause, he reached for a knife on his leg and had it launched at Jonas in the next breath. My prince ducked and the assassin took the moment to flee past him.
He did not get far.
The blade Jonas carried flew after the man, and dug deep into the attacker’s thigh. He cried out in pain, stumbling.
“You’ve nowhere to go,” Jonas said with raw hate when more of his people slipped into sight along the edges of the garden.
The attacker tossed back his hood. His hair was pale and silken, ears pointed sharply.
A Ljosalfar elven.
He spun toward the window of my chamber. “He deserved to have you! Forgive me. I tried to save you before you destroy us all.”
The alvers closed in, but the elven man freed a wretched sort of laugh, like he was delirious with glee, and sprinted forward.
“Stop him!” Jonas shouted, and tried to meet the man’s pace.
It was over so swiftly. I winced and clenched my eyes when the elven raced with all his strength straight into a pillar with a jagged, wrought iron sconce on the side. The points pierced through his chest, his throat, impaling him with a wet, strangled gasp.
Bile teased the back of my throat. Blood fountained over the stones of the pillar and the elven’s body convulsed for one breath, then another, until he went still.
Dead.