47. The Nightmare Prince
Chapter 47
“Jonas.” A hand patted my cheek.
I blinked against the dim light. “Gods, Sander.” Half-awake, I still managed to see to it my naked wife was covered with one of the knitted blankets from one of the chairs. We’d fallen to the floor of Skadi’s library and loved each other until sleep took us. I waved my brother away. “Be gone.”
“We found him.”
My breath caught. “Him?”
“We know who gave Oldun the tonic and we know where he is.”
Careful not to rouse Skadi, I slipped my arms from beneath her body, tucking the blanket around her shoulders, and slid into the trousers Sander tossed at me.
“Someone needs to guard her,” I hissed at my brother while I accepted a tunic he’d brought for my use.
“Good thing I’m here.” Mira shoved into the library, a stack of quilts and a goose down pillow in her arms.
I pressed a quick kiss to the top of my friend’s head. “Thank you.”
“Jo.” Mira was bright and filled with a vibrant enjoyment for life most days, but there were moments as this when her unseen viciousness bled to the surface. “If he is out to hurt her, make him suffer.”
I rushed to my room, gathering blades, boots, and a hooded coat. “Who is it?”
“Maj shared Oldun’s memory. I recognize him from the vows, one of the king’s guards, but don’t know his name. We put the word out, and one of the dock house keepers sent word he thought he saw a strange fae take a room for the night with plans to sail on the post ship to the Ever in the morning.”
Only one elven guard had reason to resent this alliance. “Cian. I guarantee it is a man called Cian.”
Skadi would need to forgive me. A turn where his head was pinned to the wall would come earlier than planned.
“Jonas.” Sander stepped in front of me. “I am at your side, you know this, but there is the alliance to consider.”
My lip curled. “An alliance broken first by the elven when they sent Oldun to my room.”
With a nod, my brother accepted a dagger, adding it to his own belt. “Still, we do this in the shadows.”
“Agreed.” As few folk as possible would know the wretched, brutal things I planned to do tonight.
Von and Aleksi were crouched beside one heavy cask, me and Sander at the other. Even without mesmer, Von had lived with the fiercest Elixist in the kingdom since boyhood. He was the best at handling tricky paralytics and the masking powders we’d wiped over our features.
For the better part of two clock tolls, anyone who did not know the powders were there, would see our faces as someone else.
Aleksi joined. He was a Rave, and reasoned this was a threat to all the realms. In truth, I thought our warrior prince had a villainous side he hid beneath duty and honor.
“That’s the room.” Sander used the hilt of his dagger, pointing at a window above a crooked, weathered dock house workers rented out through trade seasons.
I made certain my hood was in place, nodded to the others, then slipped into the night.
Air was thick with cool brine from night winds off the sea, and torches still lit along the roads layered the corners in dancing shadows. I kept low and slipped into a narrow alley. Sander did the same, but took a wider route. Von scaled the wall of the dock house, crouched on the rooftop. Aleksi danced between posts and crates lying in wait to be loaded on the barges and ships.
A coo, like the call of a dove, signaled us overhead. Von dropped a rope over the ledge of the roof.
I coiled the rope around my wrist. “No feet on the sides.”
I made the climb first, careful not to touch my boots to the thin walls of the dock house. The risk of rousing anyone from sleep by the plod of feet on the outer walls was too great, but damn torture for the arms.
When I reached the window, I leveraged onto the sill, balancing my toes enough I could cling to the rope, but reach the lock on the edge. From a notch inside the leather of my belt, I freed a whalebone shard and hook pick.
My mother taught me how to properly use a lockpick by the time I was four turns, the motion was practically rote by now, but I would never tire of the satisfying click when levers and notches shifted.
With a quick tug on the rope, I carefully glided the window pane up. Movements were soundless, feather soft, as I maneuvered into the small room. Furnished in a simple bed, wooden chair, and a shade for dressing, there was little place to hide.
I didn’t.
I took my place at the foot of the bed, watching the rise and fall of Cian’s chest.
Bastard made a piss poor move stepping foot in this kingdom.
With similar silence, Aleksi and Sander slipped into the room. Von made his way down soon after cutting the rope. Even with his careful moves, scaling the side of the dock house he knocked the walls more than once.
Cian groaned, rousing a bit from the noise. Let him. I took out a dagger from the sheath on the small of my back by the time Von slipped inside the room and closed the window at our backs.
When the elven’s lashes fluttered open, I was on him.
Before he could jolt or scream, my palm clapped over his mouth, the dagger pressed against his throat. His eyes were a dark blue, like most Dokkalfar, but they did not have the same shine as Skadi’s, like the darkness of his bleeding soul dimmed the shade.
Cian tried to buck me off, tried to thrash, but he went stiff after a few breaths.
Aleksi had his palms out. He lived with the Night Folk, but Alek was a glamour fae with a gift of summoning anything with a beating heart. If Aleksi Bror-Ferus wanted someone—creature or man—to remain in place, they would not be able to move until he released his hold on their blood.
I tossed back my hood. Cian looked befuddled for a moment. The masking powders, no doubt, would make this all rather confusing.
“Hello, Cian. I look different I’m sure.” I added a little more pressure to the edge of my blade. “But since you know my wife, I thought it was long overdue for us to get better acquainted.”
He tried to kick, but when his body would not move, he cried out, muffled under my palm.
“I’m feeling like you might not want the same.” I sighed, closing my eyes for a drawn breath until the force of mesmer chilled the whites. Cian let out a longer shout under my hand when I opened my eyes, blackened like the darkest corners of the room. “Pity. We could’ve been such great friends.”
I lifted my hand only long enough to strike his face, then covered his shouts again and lowered my voice. “Except for trying to separate me from her.” Another strike to the other cheek. I covered his nose and mouth and pressed my knee to his chest. “Except for the torture she endured under your watch, your lies, and your hands.”
I pulled back the dagger, but in a way that would slash into his skin. Not fatal, only enough to draw blood. I didn’t want him dead.
Not yet.
“Sander, I need your help. There are memories in this bastard’s head where he thinks he had a bit of control over her, where he made her do things because she trusted him. I want those memories as his nightmares while we work.”
Black coated Sander’s eyes. He pressed his palms to Cian’s head. Von took my place in muffling the guard’s cries by shoving a scrap of pigskin into his mouth, while I handled the blade.
Inky veins split like cobwebs around Cian’s eyes. He screamed against the gag, staring at Sander’s black eyes in a bit of horror. Gods, I prayed he was tormented with the most horrific thoughts. Every memory of Skadi ought to make him piss his trousers in fear.
“Bastard.” Sander gritted out more than once. The trouble with my brother’s mesmer was while he crafted pleasurable moments of the past, he saw the truth before he coated them in horror.
“She told me,” I said, voice rough. “Tell me, is it as bad as I imagine?”
The gentler twin, the kinder soul, Sander was a ghost of that man when he lifted his glossy eyes to mine. Jaw set, hate written even in the nothing of his darkened eyes. “Kill him. Slowly.”
I did.
Every mark he watched Skadi carve into her own skin, I carved into Cian’s. Each tear she shed under the hands of him and Arion was paid for with his blood. She did not need to tell me every word he spoke to her, I knew this bastard played on the heart of my wife, a girl who’d been desperate to be loved, he’d used her for his own cruel delights.
He was a wolf who’d torn her to pieces, but she had beautifully put them back together despite his bite.
Blood was thick on the floor and linens by the time it wasn’t necessary for Alek or Sander or Von to hold Cian in place. Like they knew this moment was between me and the elven alone, they backed away.
Strands of my hair had fallen free over my brow, matted and soaked in his blood and flesh. I had to tighten my hold on the hilt of my dagger to keep it from slipping from my soaked palm.
The Otherworld hovered close. Cian’s gasps were wet and strained. Each cough fountained blood-tinged spittle over his lips. I straddled him again, leveling the point of my dagger over his throat.
“I want you to know, she will forget you. I will spend each day of the rest of my life seeing to it she never wonders if the man she trusts loves every piece of her heart. You and Arion betrayed her, and there is no room in this land for traitors. Go to the hells, you bastard.”
The blade pierced through Cian’s throat with a sick rip of flesh and bone. He died with his eyes locked in horror.
I slumped to the side of the bed, dark relief flooding my veins. For a long moment no one spoke a word, not until Von stepped forward. “Dawn’s approaching.”
With a nod, I stood. “Then we ought to make it so he was never here.”
Skadi was waiting for me at the top of the staircase to our wing. Arms folded, unfortunately covered in her satin robe, a hard frown on her full lips.
“Where have you been?”
“Just out, Fire.” I looked like the hells spat me back out. Blood still caked my hands, my tunic and hair. Exhaustion begged for sleep, for my bed, for my wife wrapped in my arms.
Trouble was my wife looked ready to send me to the Otherworld.
“You found the tonic trader, didn’t you?”
I merely nodded and shouldered my way into our room.
“You killed him?”
Again, a nod. I peeled off the sweaty, blood-soaked tunic.
Skadi hesitated, like she didn’t truly want to know the answer. “Was he elven?”
“He was nothing.”
“Jonas, I am not teasing.”
“Nor am I.” I reeled on her. “He deserved every damn strike, and you will not find a drop of remorse in me, Fire. You think you are the wicked partner in this vow, but I assure you that you are wrong. He learned as much tonight.”
Skadi kept one arm wrapped around her middle, the other pressed to her throat, like she might be trying to slow her pulse.
“Who was it, Jonas?” she whispered.
“Cian.” I brushed a fingertip against one of the inked vines below her sleeve. “He will never torment you again.”
“Gods.” Skadi covered her mouth, then shoved against my chest. “Why! Why did you do that, you bleeding fool?”
“Why!” My voice climbed. “Because he came for you again, Skadi. He tried to tear us apart, because he put his damn hands on you. That is why. You are angry he’s dead? You feel pity for him?”
“Stop it.” She practically hissed at me. “I am not angry he’s dead, I’m furious you killed him. You . . . you broke the alliance and they will . . . they will try to take you from me.” Skadi’s words came in broken gasps. She was panicking.
Filthy, still overheated from slaughtering a man, I wrapped her up in my arms. “It would take the army of the gods to take me from you. Even then, I would find a way back to you.”
Skadi’s brow pressed to my chest, her shoulders shuddered. “Why must you be such a nightmare?”
“Would you have me otherwise?”
She shook her head. “Be gentle and kind and nightmarish. I want every piece.” Skadi lifted her chin. “But they will come for me now.”
“They will never know.” I stroked a thumb over her lips. “Cian disappeared. Unfortunate, but seas are unpredictable. Perhaps he should have kept his ass out of our kingdom.”
Skadi almost smiled. “They will suspect?—”
“Then let all of Natthaven suspect.” I kissed her, it was hard and sloppy, but unmanaged anger from the night and delirium from no sleep was taking hold. “You deserve a better man than me, but I will not apologize for defending my wife. What he did in the past was enough to kill him at least twice over. But by sabotaging this vow last night, he played his final hand. I wish I could say, for your sake, bloodlust was tamed, but Arion will earn the same fate when the moment is right.”
Skadi studied me, eyes dancing between mine. She was frightened. I could taste it when she kissed me sweetly, when she helped rid me of my bloody clothes, when she gathered them to be destroyed while I scrubbed away the blood.
I sensed her fear when she stroked her fingers through my hair until I drifted toward sleep.
Fear was there, but also the beautiful viciousness of my bride when she whispered as I fell asleep. “You are mine, Nightmare. I will devour worlds to the Nothing if they take me from you.”
“Niklas has been studying the powder,” Daj said, face hard as steel. He slumped in his official throne, drumming his fingers against the arm, looking entirely murderous. “It was not fatal, but strong enough you could’ve slept for two bleeding days, and it was not made here.”
Skadi sat beside me, fiddling with some of the silver rings around her fingers.
“Elven made?” I pressed.
Maj offered a small shrug. “It’s what they suspect. Some of the herbs seemed derived from foliage on Natthaven.”
Well, shit.
Skadi gave me a shadowed look. Two nights since I’d slaughtered Cian, but the fear remained.
“Do I want to know where you boys went the other night?” my father asked.
“Better if you don’t.”
The king arched a brow, but nodded. He knew. There was no way he didn’t. Few things escaped the notice of the king and queen in their kingdom.
“Alek, Mira. I do not think it is best for you to be in Klockglas right now.” My father turned to me. “In fact, perhaps you ought to take your wife to the Southern realms or Night Folk lands for a time.”
It wasn’t a terrible idea. I took hold of Skadi’s hand. She startled, no mistake still trapped in the fear of the unknown. “Would you want to go to Mira’s kingdom until more time passes? Get away from the worries?”
“We need to return to Natthaven soon enough,” she whispered. “What is the point in hiding if we must return to keep the alliance?”
I lowered my voice. “We are not held to any alliance, Fire. They broke it as far as I’m concerned.”
“You’ll enjoy my kingdom, Skadi.” Mira said brightly. “We have the most curious fae, if you ask me. The sort from the folk tales with their tricks and glamour magic.”
“After what happened last time, we should demand Eldirard bring the fading isle to our shores,” Sander snapped. “If he refuses, then we refuse to send Jonas and Skadi. That, or they go with half the Rave Army.”
“Both formidable options,” I said, trying to keep the tone light.
Skadi almost smiled. “I would like to see more fae lands.”
Mira beamed and took hold of her arm. “You will adore the forests and various courts. There are hot springs, and our palace is built half inside a knoll. There are these tiny blossoms that grow and glow like moonlight all along the ceilings. Ash and Shelba could show you her court, they’re forest folk. Then there are seers where Alek’s and the twins’ cousin lives with his wife and littles.”
Mira trailed off with chatter over the various fae courts.
My father gave me a half grin. “There is such fear in this palace, I can hardly stand upright against it. They do not get the right to terrify us in our own lands. We’ll send word to the elven king and discuss the terms of the next arrival on their isle after all that has happened.”
“Maj.” Sander stepped closer to the dais. “What will you do with Oldun?”
“Try her for assaulting a prince and conspiring with an enemy against us. For now, after what was done, the elven clans are no allies. I hope that does not cause you pain, Skadi.”
Skadi sighed. “It does only because I know it could’ve been avoided had they not been deceptive.”
“In the end,” my mother went on, “I expect Oldun will leave this palace without much of a memory of Jonas or his wife.”