49. The Nightmare Prince
Chapter 49
Ylva must’ve thought we were leaving for the whole of a turn. I approved half her supplies, and was not allowed to leave the cooking room before I vowed to bring her a bushel of white plums that grew in Mira’s kingdom.
I was halfway back to the stairs leading to my wing when Sander’s frantic voice called down to me.
“Jonas! Someone bleeding go get him. Why is this damn door locked? Jonas!”
Skadi. I sprinted up the staircase.
My heart was on the outside of my chest, my head empty save for instinct. Voice, screams, pleas, they clashed in my ears.
“I hear nothing,” someone shouted.
“She cried out! Hurry. Break the damn lock!” Mira sobbed. I rounded the corner to find her pounding on my bedchamber door, tears on her face, screaming Skadi’s name.
Sander was frantically working his set of picks, hands trembling. Von, Aleksi, and Tait were kicking, using their shoulders, trying to break down the damn door.
“Jonas, thank the gods.” Frigg, pale and terrified, reached for me, but retreated when I shoved past.
“What the hells happened?”
“I don’t know.” Mira shook her hands. “We were walking past the stairs and heard . . . I heard her scream. We ran up here, but the bleeding door is locked.”
No, no, no. Darkness shrouded my gaze. I couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, not until I had eyes on her. I slammed my shoulder against the locked door. “Skadi! Answer me. Work faster!”
Sander didn’t waste time shouting back at me, merely added a thinner pick to the hole.
“Stop.” He held up a hand. “Don’t shake the door.”
Von had to hook an arm around my shoulders to peel me back for a breath, two, five. My skin burned and prickled, like it was peeling off my damn bones.
The lock clicked.
I shoved into the room, coughing against the harsh stench of smoke.
The room was hardly disturbed, but no Skadi.
I drew my blade. “Skadi!”
“Jonas.” Frigg lifted a folded parchment, eyes wide. “For you.”
I snatched the parchment out of her hand. It was a short note, but each word sliced across my chest.
Husband,
I cannot go on pretending, not after what you did against my own people. I wish you respected me enough to stay your hand.
It is better this way, to remain with our own folk.
Skadinia.
This was wrong. I blinked for a breath, then another. Tricksters, schemers, thieves knew how to note the slightest detail. To miss something could mean failure, capture, or death.
I took in the room. Notice the details, find what is out of place.
I shook my head, crumpling the parchment. “This is not from Skadi.”
“How do you know?” Frigg asked softly.
“She hates being called Skadinia. It is not from her. Where is my wife!” My shout rattled dust off the rafters.
“Prince.” Tait tucked his small clock back into his pocket, and tilted his head toward the foot of the bed.
I crouched down. “Dammit. Dorsan.”
The guard was pale, cheeks sunken, and a sleek dagger pierced his body. No blood, only scorched flesh surrounded the wound.
“This is an elven blade. We saw them in the battle.” My eyes darkened until the room was filled with shadows. “They’ve taken her.”
Numbness flowed through me, until I moved like a haunt in the darkness. No thought, only action. Fear, heady and cruel, clouded all rationale. Nothing mattered, no life, no plan, nothing, until Skadi was back in my arms.
“Jonas.” Sander took hold of my arm. I hadn’t realized I’d already made moves into the corridor. “Stop.”
“Do not tell me to stop. I will not leave her to them, Sander.”
“You’re not doing it alone or you’ll never get her back.”
“Natthaven fades. They will hide her away. We don’t have time to waste.”
“I will go to the Ever,” Tait said, a new darkness to his voice. “Merfolk can track the isle. You know the king and queen will stand with you.”
All I could offer was a nod of thanks before Tait shoved past me toward the stairs.
“Hearttalker,” Mira blurted out.
Tait paused on the first step.
Mira cleared her throat. “Take care as you go. The elven could be patrolling the seas, and I still must be taken home. It was your task, after all. So . . . don’t be foolish and die.”
The sea fae studied her for a breath, then quit the room with a mute nod.
I reeled back on the others. “I need to get after that damn isle. Now.”
It was taking too bleeding long to get free of this kingdom.
I tried to see the progress, but everything moved in a blur.
From the tides, fae of the sea stepped onto our shores—sea singers who could tempt unsuspecting souls into their clutches with their voices, sirens who would do the same, but bury their bones in the deepest abyss. Dark longships were arranged along the docks.
Curious folk watched from tenement windows, cottages, or from inns and taverns as guards and their two princes tossed any blade we could find into the ships.
“Falkyns!” Von shoved my shoulder.
Between a wide alley, cutting through the mists, a swarm of people emerged. At the head, Niklas and Junie were there. Both wore black with kohl around their eyes and down their lips. Over his fingers, Niklas fitted gold rings, some with barbs on the tops.
Junius wrapped us all in a quick embrace.
Niklas looked to me. “I hear there’s a fight to be had.”
I clapped him on the shoulder and helped heave a crate of what I hoped was poison designed only for elven folk. Niklas was skilled enough with his mesmer, he could likely make a toxin that singled out male elven, leaving Skadi out of harm’s way.
Hooves pounded against the cobblestones. Shouts for the Black Palace, the king and queen, echoed through the streets.
A damn army wrapped in shadows filled the streets. A foreboding beat of drums sounded in the night, a tradition in our lands, a way to declare a battle was brewing.
I had not signaled my mother and father, all I could think was getting to the sea and Skadi.
Before his horse stopped, my father kicked his leg over the side. Five long strides had him in front of me. His eyes were pitch as the night when he tossed back a hood.
I straightened my shoulders. “They took Skadi, and I don’t know how. I’m going, Daj. You cannot stop me.”
He clapped a hand on the side of my neck. “Think I’m here to stop you, boy? Look around, we’re here to get her back.”
It was the kind of stun that robbed breath from the lungs, realizing the truth of what was in front of me.
Kryv, palace guards, even Frigg’s father was there, with swords, daggers, bows, and arrows arranged like war was at the gates.
Many faces were shrouded, and most wore dark tunics and trousers. They had blood painted down their cheeks as though fingers had clawed at their flesh. Others had thick kohl like the Falkyns, or blue and white stain. The drums faded when the final flood of horses joined.
All of them were here for Skadi.
My father was made of darkness, but it was darkness that had shaped me, loved me, and taught me how to stand on my own. When he pulled me into a brisk embrace, I felt like a damn sod for clinging to him until the fear below the surface lost its potency.
“We’re not returning without her, Jonas,” came his dark rasp, low and meant for me alone.
A promise. My father, in all my memories, had never lied to me. Tonight would not be the first.
My mother came to us, hair braided back, a frightening sort of violence in her gaze. She said nothing, merely pressed a hand to my cheek, then Sander’s. A silent assurance she was not missing another fight.
“Mira.” Daj gently took hold of Mira’s arm. She was dressed in a canvas coat and a little frantic as she helped load the boats.
“I tried to get to her, Uncle Kase.” Mira’s chin trembled. “I can’t lose another one.”
An ache cracked down my chest. No mistake, Mira alluded to the weeks Livia had gone missing when Bloodsinger took her for his own revenge.
My father cupped her cheek. “I need you to stay back.”
She shook her head. “I can fight.”
“I know, but I need you to send the warning to the other kingdoms. We may need the Rave to stand for our shores. You know royal blood ignites the call, so will you do it for us?”
Warning signals fueled by elixirs and natural magic in the soil were erected across the kingdoms. A blazing flame would spark atop towers in every realm in a shade of the distressed kingdom. The towers would burn blood red for Klockglas.
Our tower was tucked into a forest we called Limericks. Too far for us to reach while still having time to hunt the fading isle.
Mira’s bright eyes looked about, like she could not think how to walk away from us, but the truth of what my father said was there. Only the royal houses could declare war or troubles that would summon the full force of the Rave.
Aleksi could stay, but he was a warrior. Not even my father could keep him back.
“I’ll send the warning,” Mira said after a long pause. “I’ll do it.”
My mother turned over her horse to the princess. Two Black Palace guards and Frigg volunteered to guard Mira as she went, to ready our shores for elven armies if we did not succeed.
Bile turned in my stomach. I couldn’t consider failing.
Mira bid us all tearful farewells, but kept her word, and with her small entourage, raced toward the outer edges of our kingdom.
Sea fae took the stemposts of every longship. The fading isle would be in the far seas near the Ever. All I could hope for now was we were not far behind and they had not faded to unknown waters.
I stepped into a ship, looking forward, the heated fear prickling up the back of my neck.
Tonight, I faced my nightmares.
For Skadi, I could not lose myself. The fever was there, burning in my blood, trying to drag me into the pain of my own mesmer.
“I’m at your side, brother.” Sander sheathed a blade and leaned over the rail.
I swallowed through the burn in my throat. “This is why, Sander.”
“Why what?”
“Why I never settled, why I refused to fall for every sharp, beautiful piece of another’s heart.” I hesitated, fighting to steady my voice. “I have seen love and what the loss of it can do. I never wanted to risk such a thing, not when my mesmer would destroy me for it.”
“Is it not your fear any longer?”
“It is.” I drew my sword when the oarsmen shouted a call to heave us into the current. “But I do not fear losing just any heart. What I fear now is losing hers.”
Sander straightened and reached for a rope overhead when the stempost tilted to the surface, ready to dive below. “Those fears will never become reality.”
True enough. I was getting my wife back tonight.