23. The Mist Thief
Chapter 23
Br?n was rather disgusting.
I could not stop drinking it. Once it burned through the ache in my chest, peeling away memories of Jonas entangled with others, I poured horn after horn.
Somewhere in the haze of my mind, I knew this was my doing. I laughed and tipped a horn back. Pain always seemed to come from my own hands.
The tavern was lively. Rawhide drums pounded in one corner, a skald stood on a stool chanting fanciful tales to the crowds. The laths reeked of sweat and bile, but most of my senses were dulled from the beautiful, beautiful, disgusting br?n.
“Princess, I think that’s enough.” For the third time, Frigg tried to pry the horn from my fingers.
“I thought you wanted me to enjoy Klosh . . . Klockglas.” I snickered and tried to tip the drink to my lips.
Damn Frigg got the drop on me and snatched the horn when I let my second hand fall away.
“Look, I’m not here to unravel whatever this is”—Frigg gestured to me—“but I think you might feel better once you return to the Black Palace, sleep, then speak to Jonas.”
I blew out my lips, rising when the drums took on a different tune. “I don’t want to speak to him.”
“Skadi, where are you going . . . wait, Skadi.”
Frigg hissed when I turned away from our small corner and approached a long, heavy oak table filled with men of all kinds—brutish and wild, long and lean, some with knives on their belts, others with sharp, handsome features.
Not the strong angles of Jonas’s face, but they’d do.
I nestled between the shoulders of two men and slapped my palm onto the table. “Hello, alver clans.” I flashed a grin. “Have you ever met an elf?”
A few rumbles rolled down the table.
“No, sweet. Can’t say I have.” Three seats down, a man with a beard braided down to his heart winked. Handsome enough, but there was more of a natural brutality in his eyes than my prince’s.
A shudder danced up my arms. I’d be wise to step back.
Instead, I drifted down the table, running my fingertips over his shoulders. “Now . . . now you have.”
“You’re the princess they brought back to the palace?”
I snorted and took a swig from his drinking horn. “A little pet.”
“Hmm. Not satisfied with our prince, sweet? Or is the bed too crowded?” His hand slid around my waist.
The urge to pull back caused me to stumble. He mistook my retreat as drunken steps. Against his chest, I could breathe him in. All wrong. He smelled all wrong. Sweat and ale, leather and wood. Not the smoke and heat and forest pine of Jonas.
“I better go.”
“Ah, don’t go.” He drew me back to the table. “As you said, we’ve never seen an elven. Music is bright, you are beautiful, show us an elven dance.”
Before I could follow my steps, I was atop the table. Cheers and chants shouted for the elven princess. Drums thudded like blood in my skull.
“Skadinia.” Frigg tried to shove through. Most of the men were on their feet now, shouldering her out.
They cheered for me. For me. In this moment I wasn’t the creature of darkness, I wasn’t a weapon used for battles. I wasn’t the desire of the Ljosalfar to use against elven and fae.
For now, I felt desired.
“There is one dance.”
More whoops and hollers followed, men with too much br?n in their bellies cheered for me to show them. I spun around once, my skirt flaring.
“Show us, sweet.” The brute shouted again.
I forced a grin, shoving thoughts of battles, enemies, and old betrothals far from my thoughts.
Elven dances were graceful, not a match for the rapid tune of the drums and clasp, but I rose onto my toes, one hand clutching the skirt of my gown, all the same.
I dipped and spun, arms out like a partner led me across the table. Pain was there, dulled to be sure, but still a hot ache needling into my heart. To see Jonas with the woman took me like a strike to the chest. Ruthless and fierce, I could not breathe.
Feeling was the trouble.
At the end of battles, I thought he was a fiend. Then we spoke without bloodshed between us, without the dull fade of my affinity numbing my soul. He was . . . infuriatingly beautiful.
Our vows, gods, the kiss. It was like a fire erupted in my blood.
I spun around faster, head reeling, toes slipping.
The feast afterward, the way he’d peeled me away, demanded to know if I’d ever been harmed, even lost in his own cups. Truth be told, I wasn’t certain he even remembered.
Faster. Faster. The room tilted.
My chamber. To feel his hands against my body, his mouth against my flesh, was burned in my bones. Never had I desired another in such a way. To claim his weight over me, arms and legs tangled, was a craving I never anticipated.
Faster. Faster.
Arms caught me around the middle, drawing me to an abrupt halt, and tugged me off the table.
I blinked. Every wall was a maelstrom of haze and fog, but two vicious green eyes pinned me in place.
I snickered and arched into him. “Hello, Husband. I am becoming . . . becoming more alver . . . alverish.”
“Shame. I prefer you exactly as you are.” Jonas steadied me around the waist amidst protests and groans from my ale-riddled audience. “Time to come home.”
“No.” I weakly shoved against his shoulder. “I think I’ll stay.”
Across the tavern, Frigg devoured her thumbnail, standing between Sander, Von, and—gods—Dorsan.
“Skadi.” Jonas’s voice was against my ear. “We’re leaving.”
“She doesn’t want to leave, My Prince.” One of the brutes from the table rose.
Jonas sneered at the man. “Sit down, Balki.”
Balki was undeterred. In my haze, I did not understand how he managed it, but somehow he reeled around the prince and had me pressed against his chest.
“It’s not fair if the sweet doesn’t get what she wants. Said she wanted to spend a night with me. You find beds aplenty, Prince. I say let your new princess do the same.”
I didn’t want his bed. Gods, I did not want any bed but my own.
“From what we heard, even the elven folk tried to snatch her back.”
My throat tightened. I did not want this man touching me. He spoke so callously about the attack of the elven assassin, as though his attempts to take me back had not nearly slaughtered the royal house.
“Careful, Balki,” Jonas’s dark voice followed. “You’re crossing a dangerous line.”
“It’s not a love match.” Balki laughed. “Don’t let your pride keep our sweet from taking the best of what Klockglas has to offer.”
In my mind, I tried to shove away from the bulky chest, but I wasn’t certain if my limbs were working quite right.
Not that it mattered. In another heartbeat, I was yanked out of the brute’s arms, and handed over to Frigg. She held me close, like a friend who might sincerely be afraid for me, but I was lost to the commotion near the table.
Balki, large as he was, was screaming on his knees.
Black, inky veins covered his face, splitting off from his eyes, his nose, down his neck. Jonas circled the man, spinning a knife in one hand, but when he turned his face toward me his beautiful eyes were endless pools of black.
Jonas stepped behind Balki and hooked his arm around the brute’s throat, pressing the point of the knife under the man’s chin. “Tell me again, Balki. What right do you think you have to put your filthy hands on my wife?”
“N-None. Stop, please.”
Jonas teased the tip of the dagger against Balki’s cheek, slowly dragging it across his face. “Are you seeing what I’ll do if you touch her again? Creative, don’t you think? I hear you can live for quite some time with innards spilled in such a way.”
“Jo.” Sander warned.
Jonas blinked, clearing the darkness from his gaze. With his knee he nudged Balki onto the tavern floorboards and stepped over him, making certain his boot kicked his ribs as he did.
The veins were fading in Balki’s face when the prince crouched. “Mistake my wife for yours again and I’ll kill you. Understand?”
All Balki did was nod and murmur a swift yes.
With a white smile, as though nothing had happened, Jonas strode to me. “Time to go, Fire.”
“No.” I was still wobbly, but I shook my head. “After what . . . you did? Why?—”
A shriek burst over my lips. The room flipped, top over bottom. My feet were in the air, my face was tucked against the small of Jonas’s back.
“Put . . . put me down.” I pounded my fists against his hips, I doubted he felt it at all through his damn muscle. “Jonas Eriksson!”
“I do enjoy my full name from your lips,” he retorted, shoving through the crowds. “But I’m afraid your cries will need to wait until later.”
Bastard. I might’ve shouted it, I wasn’t certain. At this angle, blood rushed to my head and I could hardly focus on the floorboards. In the next breath, cool air struck my cheeks. Jonas didn’t return me to the ground.
“Put me down.” I cried out, and soon regretted it. Once more my world tilted and my head moved slower, like a rolling tide. The moment my feet touched the cold cobblestones, I began to fall over.
Jonas caught me around the waist, holding me to his chest.
This close, I saw the sweat on his brow, I saw the fury in his eyes.
“You’re deranged and . . . beautiful.” I stumbled over the words, my body falling into his. “I think I hate you for it.”
“Hate me then.” Jonas brushed hair from my eyes. “But do it safely in our rooms.”
Our rooms. His room. Perhaps he’d just come from his bed, from her arms. I shoved against his chest.
“No.” I swatted his hand away. “No. I thought I was free to do as I pleased. Or am I to be your shackled prisoner while you do whatever you want with anyone you like?”
Jonas moved so swiftly, I gasped when his hand gripped my chin, drawing our lips close.
“You are my wife,” he breathed against my mouth, a slight curl to his lips. “If you’d like me to tie you up, all you must do is ask.”
The ground rolled as waves on the sea.
“You did not keep your word.”
The scrape of his stubble ran along my cheek. “If I broke my word, why does it matter if you do not want me?”
Vision grew blurry, my legs felt like brittle straw, unable to bear my weight. Somehow Jonas must’ve predicted the collapse, for when my knees gave out his arms were there to scoop me up.
My cheek fell to his heart, the steady thrum of the cadence a lullaby in the fog.
“It matters,” I said, breathless and distant, “because I do want you, but I know you will never truly want me.”
White hot agony lined every side of my head. Something damp and cold covered my brow to my nose, smelling like cloying mint and rosemary. I cracked one eye. A pale linen was over my face, but I could not pull it away, my hands felt weighed down by a thousand stones.
Bit by bit my mind drifted between syrupy haze and the chirps of morning birds outside. Soft quilts cushioned my heavy limbs. If only I could cease the screech of my skull.
With a heavy groan, I swung one hand to my face and peeled back the pungent linen. Gods, what a mistake. I recoiled from the light like it was daggers to my eyes.
Someone chuckled. “Br?n is not to be trifled with. It is a friend in one gulp, then a foe in the next.”
I spread my fingers, squinting against the villainous sunlight to find a woman seated in a chair five paces beside my bed. Slender, with fair skin and freckled cheeks. Her vibrant hair was braided loosely over one shoulder, and reminded me of a sunset before a sea storm.
“Highness.” The title came out so softly, I wasn’t certain I spoke at all.
Jonas’s mother smirked and leaned back in her chair. “I would ask you how you are this morning, but I can plainly see you are moments from begging the gods to open the gates of the Otherworld.”
My heart stuttered. Gods, no—did she see the state of me last night? Moments were wrapped in murky nothingness. I recalled laughter, drums, the wretchedly sour taste of the biting drink.
Safe arms.
Mossy eyes.
A heartbeat lullaby.
Jonas.
By the hells, the prince had carried me out of the tavern, home to the palace, a shame on his house, his folk, on my people.
I wanted more than the Otherworld to swallow me up, I wanted my mists to devour me, locking me away in whatever void they originated.
“Here.” Queen Malin plucked a steaming tin mug off a table and forced one of my leaden hands to encircle it. “Drink this. Within another toll, you’ll feel like you can stand again.”
I winced, forcing myself to slide up in bed and rest against the headboard.
Gods, how I must’ve looked. Hair was wild over my brow, stuck to my face. Doubtless whatever kohl had lined my eyes last night was smeared over my cheeks. Smoke and ale stained my skin, and now the damn queen was nursing her feckless daughter-in-law back to health.
I took a sip, the only way I could honor her in the moment, and coughed. Sharp herbs—parsley and wormroot, garlic and salt—coiled in a jolt of something like cinders in the back of my throat.
True to the queen’s word, the sting of sunlight had already dulled.
I cupped the tin in my lap, staring at the murky liquid. “I beg your forgiveness, Highness. My behavior has shamed your house, and I would not blame you if you wish to return me to?—”
“You’re not going back to Natthaven.” Malin crossed one leg, still grinning. “And you’ve shamed no one. Elven are rather inclined to propriety, aren’t they?”
I blinked once, twice. “Yes. Etiquette and expectations were in every lesson.”
“Well, we’re rather terrible at it. Frankly, I haven’t laughed as hard as I did last night in weeks, and gods, after the dreary that has been here these last days, we’ve needed it.” The queen snickered and slumped in her chair. “Jonas came home, all red in the face, you in his arms, humming and trying to lick his damn neck.”
I was going to retch. “I beg your pardon, My Lady. If I behaved out of sorts?—”
“That’s one way to describe it. Truly made our night.” The queen looked around the room, even plucked a porcelain vase I’d brought from home off the table to inspect it. “Frigg informed us what led to the tavern.”
I rubbed my brow. “I don’t know why I had such a reaction.”
“Oh, I have a few ideas.” Malin returned the vase to the table and looked back at me. “You certainly left an impact. Sander and Kase had to chase off Balki again this morning. After his head cleared, he still felt rather entitled to the elven princess.”
“All gods.”
“Seemed to think you were unhappy with us here and wanted to take you for himself. I think Sander did well enough shifting his memory of it into something terrifying, but if you’d like I could take the memory altogether.”
A memory thief. Part of me didn’t think it was possible to have such an affinity. The potential to be cruel with such magic didn’t fit the playful gleam in the queen’s strange golden green eyes.
“No, thank you.” I dipped my chin. “This was brought by my choices, so I must live with the consequences.”
The whole of this conversation was puzzling. The only thing that seemed to be disappointing to Queen Malin was she wasn’t present during the chaos.
“We received a missive from King Eldirard last night.” The queen’s grin faded. “He insisted your clan will investigate if the light elven prince had anything to do with the assassin. He also provided a few herbs that should aid Niklas in battling the spread of poison for Teo and Nettie.”
Relief was sharp enough it robbed my breath. “Thank the gods.”
“Well, thank them if you must, but I’m rather perturbed they let it happen to begin with,” Malin said in a huff. “Teodor and Annetta didn’t deserve what happened.”
“They didn’t,” I said, voice small. “I hate that it was done to get to me.”
The queen waved her hand, as though dismissing the notion. “It was a wretched distraction to plant the poison in our cooking rooms, but the only thing that angers me about that sod is I couldn’t kill him myself. It is not on you.” Malin rolled a silver ring with four runes etched into the surface around her center finger. “Eldirard was gracious with the herbs, but believes since this alliance is historical, there is likely to be naysayers.”
“He did not offer more protections for the palace? I thought . . . well, I imagined he would offer a stronger show of support.”
“The king spoke a great deal about our mesmer, and seemed to believe it was formidable against elven powers, then insisted you were protection enough.”
I tangled my fingers in the quilts, a barb of hurt in my chest. To even offer Dokkalfar support would be an act of good faith in the alliance. My grandfather seemed to consider the act something expected, an act that could have killed Jonas, his family.
He did not react in the way I thought an ally should, and it would likely not give my new clan much confidence in our people. “I am sorry for the troubles all this has brought to your house.”
“Well, that is the final apology I’ll hear.” Malin rose and brushed her hand over a dark pair of trousers. “It is not you who brings troubles, and I hope you have not taken offense to us keeping a distance from you. We wanted to give you time with all this.” She waved her hands about. “I know it is jarring, but if you’re ready, I hope you will start moving about the palace, meeting some more folk.”
“I saw much of the town yesterday.”
“That is a start. But here, I believe you hide away in these rooms. We don’t bite.” The queen offered a playful smirk. “Well, I cannot promise anything with Raum around.”
A soft chuckle rolled from my chest.
“Many of us spar once a week,” Malin told me. “You know, to let out some unused mesmer and aggression. We have plans to do so today after mid-meal. I hope you’ll join us.” She moved toward the doorway, but paused, pointing to the tin. “Drink it all. I promise it helps.”
Perhaps I could still blame the br?n in my brain, for the next question came before I could stop it. “Queen Malin, why are you being kind to me?”
“Do you not trust it?”
“I feel you are sincere.” Suspicious as I was, the conversation with the queen felt . . . light when it ought to have been riddled in disappointment. “But that is what has me surprised.”
“You are my son’s wife. You are part of our house now, would you like me to be cruel?”
“No.” I drummed my fingers alongside the tin mug. “But after all I have done?—”
“What have you done?” Malin narrowed her eyes. “Yes, you fought against my sons and the sea fae whose queen I see as a daughter. But all that pales next to what else I know about you—a woman who protected her only family in a battle, a woman who saved mine from an attack we did not see.”
Silence gathered like a storm, hot and sticky, the sort that left residue on the skin. Malin returned to the bed and sat on the edge.
“You think I should hate you for what happened with Sander. My son nearly died.” Her voice was small, pain was there. “It is a truth no mother should ever face. We have lost many in our life, but I cannot lose my men—my trio, I call them.” The queen smiled. “I was furious when I found out. I wanted war, and I hate war.”
“What has changed?”
“Sander showed me that day.” The queen tapped the side of her head.
“You stole his memory?”
“No. My mesmer can take or share. He shared it with me.” The queen let out a trembling breath. “Gods, it was agonizing to watch him fall, but I am keen enough to see you were protecting Eldirard. I heard you apologize for the blade that struck Sander, and I know a look of desperation when I see one. You did not want to be there. Not like the light elves.”
My jaw worked. “I did not want battle. It felt like an invasion.”
“I know. Every kingdom in the fae realms knows. Perhaps if Sander had not survived, this conversation would be different, but battles have ended and I still have both my sons. Now, we have you.”
She spoke like I was truly a piece of their house, not a political pawn.
Malin rose again and went to the door. “When the tonic has worked its magic—and it is mesmer filled—come down and spar with us. That memory gave up your little trick. Everyone has been mightily curious to see it again.”
The corner of my mouth twitched. “Are you certain everyone would care to see me? I embarrassed your son last night.”
Malin laughed. “Ah, Skadi, why do you think we have Elixist tonics so readily available? I assure you, Jonas has done his fair share of tavern table dancing.”