27. The Mist Thief
Chapter 27
The first glimmers of a pale dawn broke through the narrow window in Jonas’s chamber, a reminder he’d given up his cherished view for a stranger.
Most mornings were cool in Klockglas. Air from the sea and drafty corridors in the palace ensured the chill dug into the skin until fires were lit and mists faded into daylight.
My body felt like it was already roasting beside an inglenook. Damp clung to my skin and everything had gone muggy beneath the quilts. I blinked sleep from my eyes and my heart fluttered.
Jonas’s bed. I was in Jonas’s bed. Dressed in my robe with nothing else beneath it.
My stomach swooped in delightful waves when I rolled over, but dropped at the sight of him.
Still sleeping, Jonas’s skin was flushed, soaked in sweat, and his body kept twitching. Soft words spilled over his lips, desperate sounds, like he might be pleading with someone.
“Jonas.” I touched his shoulder and nearly recoiled from the heat. He was burning with fever. How? He’d gone to sleep with smiles and good health.
I pressed the back of my hand to his brow, dabbing at the damp. He winced and shuddered.
“Jonas.” When I touched his cheek, his stronger grip snatched my wrist, dragging me over the top of him when he rolled onto his back.
I let out a shriek when his eyes snapped open. Black as the deepest sea, empty and ominous with his mesmer. I didn’t have a frightening thought, so where was the nightmare?
“Don’t.” The word was rough, broken. “Don’t touch her.”
“Jonas.” I clasped his face. “Can you hear me? It’s Skadi.”
His features pinched, but the darkness of his eyes looked straight through me. “Let her go.”
Gods. He wasn’t truly awake.
Panic tangled in my throat when all at once his hands fell away, and he went still. Those haunting black eyes remained pinned on the ceiling. His chest hardly rose in a breath.
“Jonas!” I shook him. Nothing. “Gods, wake up.” One palm patted his burning cheek. My voice cracked. “Please, wake up. Dammit.”
He was deathly still, but his skin burned. Healers. He needed a healer. One of the Mediskis.
I tumbled from the bed, tripping on the edge of the quilt, but hastened to my feet and sprinted from his chamber.
“Dorsan!” I pounded on my guard’s door, frantically closing my robe. “Dorsan, wake up!”
Dorsan opened the door in a frenzy, hair askew, and topless. The most disheveled I’d ever seen the man.
“There’s something terribly wrong with the prince. He’s . . . he’s ill, or . . . I don’t know. Go fetch a Mediski alver, a Mediski.”
Dorsan might’ve held a bit of resentment for being the guard charged with stepping into a new kingdom, but he was loyal to the marrow. No hesitation, not even a moment’s pause to dress, he nodded and hurried down the corridor.
Before he rounded the corner, another man nearly crashed into him.
“Sander.”
The second prince was breathless, his own eyes darkened, and his steps were swift. “Where’s Jonas?”
“He’s in there, something . . . something’s wrong.”
Sander explained nothing and shoved into his brother’s room. As though he knew what to expect, the second prince clambered onto the bed and started shredding quilts off his brother’s overheated body. “Come on, Jo, snap the hells out of it.”
“What’s happening?”
Sander didn’t stop working, keeping a thin linen over Jonas, and rushed to a small bowl with cool water for washing the face and hands. He dipped a small cloth inside.
“Can you get me more of these?” He looked to me. “It helps to cool him.”
Hands trembling, I followed Sander’s orders, soaking linen cloths and helping arrange them on Jonas’s head, neck, and arms.
“Sander.” My voice quivered. “What’s happening to him?”
His brother sat back on his knees, lifting his ominous dark gaze to me. “Jonas is sometimes attacked by his own mesmer.”
“What!”
“He gets trapped in a deep fear that becomes a nightmare, then burns as a fever.”
Unknowingly, I curled a hand around my husband’s limp palm. “Is it . . . dangerous?”
“Yes. If we do not cool him, it’s possible he won’t be free of the attack.”
My stomach bottomed out. “How did you know?”
“I sensed it. Our mesmer connects when we want it to, but I like to think this connection comes simply because we’re brothers.”
“What do you need me to do?”
“Did anything happen last night out of the ordinary? Did he seem different?”
Good hells.
“Um . . .” There was no time to be demure, not if Jonas would suffer. “We bathed together and I stayed here.”
Sander nodded. “Makes a bit of sense then.”
“Did I cause this? I wouldn’t hurt him.”
To see a genuine, kind grin on the prince’s face when his eyes were so eerie was unsettling. “You did nothing wrong, Skadi. The nightmare is of you, so it makes sense. He only succumbs to this when he is truly terrified someone he cares about is being harmed.”
I could not summon the words. Jonas had pleaded to someone. Whatever was happening in his head involved me.
My hold tightened on his hand. “You know what to do though?”
“We do. It was terrifying the first time. Jonas’s emotions fuel his mesmer at times to the point his body cannot release it, so it attacks him. He doesn’t like people knowing, not even the other royals know this happens.”
My teeth clenched. I brushed my fingertips over his brow, helpless. He was bleeding trapped in a wretched nightmare and could not escape.
“How do we help him?”
“With this.”
I reeled around as the queen, wrapped in a sleeping robe much like mine, raced across the room, worry in her eyes, the king at her back. In Malin’s hands was a vial of a murky liquid.
The queen came to where I stood at the side of the bed and knelt over the mattress. She handed the king the vial without a word, like they simply knew their parts to play.
Kase pressed a hand against Jonas’s cheek and tipped the vial to his son’s lips. The king was quiet, somber, but I did not need his magic to see the fear in his eyes or the soft way he whispered, “Break free of it, boy.”
Malin rested a hand to Jonas’s brow. She closed her eyes. After a horrid pause, the queen began to smile here and there, even chuckle.
“Maj is drawing happy memories forward,” Sander said, not looking away from Jonas, but it was clear the explanation was for me. “Helps combat the terror until the elixir brings a dreamless sleep.”
I pressed my back against the wall, steering clear while they brought him back to me. Dorsan, still tunic-less, stood in the doorway, stern and stiff. I waved my hand, mutely dismissing him.
He didn’t move.
“There we go,” Malin whispered and moved aside.
I let out a rough breath. Jonas’s eyes were now closed and his chest was rising in slow, steady breaths again. Nothing more than a peaceful sleep.
“I’ll send for some herbs to work the fever.” Malin squeezed Kase’s arm. The king had not stopped watching his son’s features once.
Upon his wife’s touch, he seemed to realize the fear had passed, and backed off the mattress. “Will you look after him while we gather the herbs?”
“Skadi?” Sander’s eyes were once more the brighter shade of green, lighter than Jonas’s but still as piercing.
“Sorry, what?”
“Will you watch him?” the king asked again, his voice a rough rasp.
“Yes.” I stepped to the edge of the bed, nodding frantically. “I won’t leave him.”
Malin rested a hand on my shoulder. “The fever usually burns out within a day. He should be more like himself by tonight.”
“He wasn’t long into it,” Sander said. “Good thing Skadi was here.”
A bit of the heat of Jonas’s fever burned in my face. Sander was laughing, taunting me in front of their parents, but it was much like they did with everyone.
It was a bit of belonging.
I shot him a narrow look, then sat on the edge of the bed, listening to the soft laughter as they quit the room to gather the needed herbs.
“Is he well, My Lady?” Dorsan asked.
I dragged my fingertips down Jonas’s cheek, his features softened and peaceful. Without looking at the guard, I nodded. “He will be. Thank you for helping, Dorsan.”
“I merely summoned the king and queen.”
“And it was helpful. Go back to sleep if you wish. I won’t be going anywhere.”
The whole of the day folk came and went through Jonas’s room. Niklas made certain I had more elixirs on hand if the mesmer attacked again. Tova brought her son who had drawn a few scratchy pictures he wanted his older cousin to hang on his walls.
Most who visited thought Jonas was merely prone to fevers. Sander spoke true, my husband did not share the true cause beyond those friends and family closest to him.
When Frigg and Von joined Sander, the three didn’t leave. They ate mid-meal with me, told childhood stories of Jonas and his rather zealous opinion of his whittling abilities.
“All those oblong wooden creatures you’ve seen about the palace are his creations since childhood.” Frigg popped a square of pale cheese on her tongue, grinning. “They’re all just out of proportion and crooked, but Mal loved them and it went straight to his head.”
We played a few rounds of an alver game with paper cards and wooden dice, but the trio still remained.
I plucked one of the books I still had and read some elven folklore out loud.
Von slumped back in a chair, hands laced over his belly, eyes closed. Sander was enraptured by each fable, and Frigg sent for more food until the woman from the cooking rooms told her she could use her damn feet and get it herself.
I snickered at that. The notion of servants (or staff) being ordered about so much they snapped at my grandfather would shock the whole of Natthaven.
The three left before the nightly meal, insisting they’d check back in the morning. Sander told me if I needed to sleep without interruption, if Jonas didn’t wake, he would come sleep in his chamber.
Uneaten herring and bitter herbs remained on a plate by the time the sun dimmed to evening.
“A kingdom of caves and tunnels,” I read out loud in the bed. One palm rested on Jonas’s brow, playing with his hair. “A world unsuitable for such a maid. But when her father vowed war against the troll king, his daughter, lovely and gentle, took up her lover’s blade and leveled it at her own neck. Between two great armies, between enemies and worlds, she stood steady as a great oak. She vowed her heart to the soul of her troll mate or vowed death should her people come against them.”
I smiled, studying the painting on the thick pages. A woman surrounded in light holding a narrow blade to her neck, eyes pointed to the skies as though imploring the gods for help.
My blood rushed to my head when my palm was taken from his hair and pressed to full, dry lips.
“What happened next?” Jonas’s voice was rough, weary.
“All gods.” The myth of the troll king and his bride fell off my lap. I choked his neck with my arms. “You’re awake.”
Jonas coughed, running a hand down my spine. “Not for long if I cannot breathe.”
“Sorry.” I pulled back, palms on his cheeks. “I should . . . let me get your mother and father, they?—”
“Skadi.” Jonas tugged on my hand. “Stay. For now, just . . . stay.”
I slipped beside him, rolling over to face him. “How do you feel?”
“Like I have been tossed into the sea again and again from a very high cliff.” Jonas’s eyes were burdened and shadowed.
My chin trembled. “It was terrifying, Jonas. I didn’t know what was happening.”
His face sobered. “I’m sorry. I should’ve told you about the fevers. Sander told me I should, but I thought with more peace, fears might lessen and they wouldn’t be severe.”
“What causes them?”
“I do.” He rubbed one thumb over his forehead, as though soothing an ache.
“What do you mean?”
Jonas took a moment to speak. “Ever since I was a boy, my mesmer would craft nightmares of horrible ways I would lose people I love. During childhood wars, the nightmares started to overtake me. I do not know how to manage the fear of loss, Skadi, so I keep it buried until it cracks through.”
“Sander said it has something to do with your emotions. He spoke as though there wasn’t much known about the fevers? Has this happened to anyone else?”
“Not that we know of, but Anomali alvers always have unknown mesmer.” Jonas stopped rubbing. “On the first, it was my father who sensed the attack of fear. The fevers stem from the truest fears of my heart which stems from the idea of losing the people I love. I wish I could . . . feel less, I suppose.”
By the gods, the man could swell my heart and shatter it all at once. His fear came because he loved folk too damn much.
“How old were you when they began?”
“Almost ten. It was during a battle with sea fae before we were allies. I dreamt I lost my parents. I’ve had smaller bouts of the fever here and there. Any woman I care about who gives birth, nightmares of the worst happening will follow. Once Frigg caught a blood illness that Mediskis couldn’t heal. Nearly lost her to the Otherworld and I fevered even after Niklas and other Elixists found the right tonic to cure her.”
“Sander said there have been fierce fevers like . . . last night.”
Jonas nodded. “One was months ago when Livia was taken by Bloodsinger.”
I sat up. “Taken? What do you mean?”
“Don’t you know how they began? He bleeding kidnapped her when the sea fae returned.”
“You speak of the same Ever Queen whose eyes light at the very sight of her king?”
“Love comes in the strangest of circumstances, doesn’t it?” Jonas laughed, but it was laden in exhaustion. “I thought she was dead, then Aleksi disappeared while searching for her. I’ve told you, they are like another brother and sister to me. That fever was fierce, but shorter than most. It was as if my mind knew I needed to get my ass back to searching for their sakes.”
I settled beside him again. “Were there others?”
“A little over a month ago. It was the fear of losing Sander.”
I winced. “Caused by my hand.”
“No.” He pressed a palm to my cheek. “It is caused by me. I do not face these fears. I bury them so far away, they fester and overtake me.”
“You can tell them to me if you want. I won’t tell another soul.”
He scoffed. “Will you not think me a weak, trembling babe, terrified of what could be, not what is?”
I leaned closer, dragging my nose alongside his cheek. “Not if you don’t think me weak for my fears. I told you I did not want to know you, Jonas Eriksson. But it was a lie because I am afraid.”
“Of what?”
I swallowed, clearing tension in my throat. “If I know you, I’ve no doubt my heart will be utterly yours to break.”
A muscle pulsed in his jaw. Jonas leaned forward and kissed me sweetly, letting his forehead rest against mine. “If given such a gift, what a fool I would be to handle it so carelessly as to let it break.”
What he did not realize is he already held it, and it was terrifying.
The last time shattered me, broken pieces were still visible, but Jonas had pummeled through the walls with more than words. Unlike moments in the past, his actions were imprinted in my mind.
“You are soft inside,” I whispered.
“Not a nightmare?”
I smiled, drawing my mouth closer to his, using the words he’d spoken against me yesterday. “Be gentle, be kind, and be nightmarish. I will want you every way.”
Jonas kissed me, slow and deep. His lips were dry from the fever, but demanding and gentle all at once. I dug my fingers through his hair, tugging at the roots. This was a kiss with time to spare, no need to rush, no need for frenzy.
It was the sort of kiss where two hearts knew there would be another, and another, and another.
My fingertips traced the edge of his jaw. “What do you fear now that torments you so?”
He pulled back, drawing my cheek to his heart. “You. It took me so fiercely; it was so real.”
I drew small circles over his chest. “What was it about?”
“Arion came for you. He hurt you, kept you in chains, and you . . . you were calling for me. I couldn’t reach you, so they kept hurting you until you didn’t move anymore.”
For a long moment, I didn’t know what to say. I rolled over his hard body, and propped my chin on the tops of my hands over his chest.
“I am not laughing at you and you’re not weak.” I lifted his palm and placed it over the thrum of my heart. “This is what is real. Arion cannot touch me unless the alliance is broken. I have no plans to break it, do you?”
Jonas ran his other hand along my spine. “No, Fire.”
“The nightmare was terribly unrealistic, would you like to know why?”
“Why is that?”
“Because if I were to be taken from you, after being here even this short while, I would be as monstrous as I ever was until I found you again.”
I kissed him before he could speak. I kissed him for the surprising truth of each word. I kissed him for the knowledge that this arranged vow of ours had become a refuge from our nightmares.