55. The Mist Thief
Chapter 55
Outside the palace, warriors were flooding down stone staircases. From this side, it was the shortest distance to the sea. Arion had used his flames to transport guards and Gerard to the shore.
Raum approached Jonas’s shoulder. “The cowardly prince is by those ships. They're readying to flee.”
Panic was tight in my belly. I couldn’t fight this battle again. Arion brought the fighting to the fae once, abandoned me to clean up the aftermath, and now he and his wretched father would flee again. Hiding away in Grynstad until they recovered and fell upon us again.
But panic halted for a moment when Jonas muttered in a dark voice, “Send the signal.”
Raum shoved two fingers into his mouth and whistled, not a simple tune, it rose in pitch, then deepened, a deliberate melody.
Blasts of fiery light burst into the night sky. The boom rattled the ground, it rippled over the tides.
I did not have the ferocious eyesight of a Profetik alver like Raum, but I could see the pause of the retreating prince.
Jonas took my hand and hurried us down the path, but kept glancing out to the sea every few paces.
When the fiery bursts faded against the stars, Arion and Gerard boarded the ships. No. I quickened my pace. Jonas’s hold on my hand tightened and he lengthened his stride. What was the plan? Moments ago, my nightmare was at ease, now his jaw tightened and there was tension building over his shoulders.
Until . . .
The surface of the sea churned violently. White tipped tides boiled like a thousand fish thrashed toward the surface. Not only ahead, but to the northern edges of the isle and the southern. As though surrounded, the dark sea shattered.
A gnashing serpent figurehead erupted from below the water. Crimson sails cracked in the wind, and the jagged spikes of bone from ancient sea serpents carved toward the skies.
The royal ship of the Ever King.
More ships rose across the whole of Natthaven’s waters. Blue sails with skulls, narrow hulls and pale laths of Gavyn Seeker’s vessel. A vicious ship with black sails cut on the other side. Newer than the others, the lacquer on the hull still glimmered beneath the moonlight.
The ship of the Lady of Blades.
Merfolk bared their needle teeth. Sea singers and their gnarled faces and seductive voices beckoned to the Ljosalfar. Sirens joined the call, luring unsuspecting warriors toward the tides.
“Bloodsinger!” Jonas raised his blade toward the sky.
Along the upper deck of the first ship, the Ever King cranked the helm, tilting the bow toward the escaping prince and king.
I laughed, softly at first, then louder with more unbound rage. They were surrounded. Fae answered the call for my nightmare, no care that I was elven, no care that my folk attacked them not so many months ago.
Fire launched from the sides of the Ever Ship. The booms cracked through the night as the king fired his strange spears and burning stones at Arion and his men. It forced the Ljosalfar back onto the shore.
Arion tried to snatch at any light, no mistake, desperate to save his own neck.
From another pathway near the palace, a rush of guards in the blue and silver of the shadow elven raced for the shores, spears and swords raised. Fiske and Isak and the woman I knew as Ash’s sister were among them, likely the ones who’d freed my warriors from their makeshift prison.
Dokkalfar blades launched onto the shore against Gerard’s weary warriors.
With a new kind of desperation on his face, Arion attempted another spiral of his affinity. I opened my palm free of a dagger and surrounded the spark in dark, creeping mists, wrenching his pitiful magic into the Nothing.
Arion staggered back, barely having time to lift his sword before I crashed the dagger down against him.
“Skadinia!”
“I hate that name.” I slashed again. “You tortured me.” Another strike. “Mocked me, brutalized me.”
“Stop.” Arion slashed his sword against me. “I forced you to do nothing. You marred your own flesh.”
“Convinced it was the only way to be free because of you!” I nicked his ear.
He cupped a hand over it, dabbing at the blood, and narrowed his gaze. “You will never be accepted here without me. Don’t you see that? Your own clan despises you.”
I shook my head. “No. My true clan came for me. The Dokkalfar and Ljosalfar are welcome to join the alvers once you are dead.”
Arion sneered. “I don’t think that will happen.”
“Skadi, watch it!” someone shouted for me.
I spun around. Gerard rushed at me, blade raised, readied to land a killing blow.
But two paces from me, the king’s legs buckled. Black, pulpy veins bloomed from the corners of his eyes, his brow, from his lips. The king cried out in heartbreaking terror.
Both Sander and Jonas stepped onto the shore, eyes blackened, and prowled around the king.
Together, Jonas crafted a nightmare and Sander twisted it into a manipulated memory so deep a soul would believe the horrors to the point of madness. They could break a mind with their forced fear.
The way the twins launched at the Ljosalfar king, never easing no matter how Gerard cried out in fright, was magnificent to watch.
I stepped away from Arion, holding his gaze. For the first time, the prince seemed to consider there was no escape.
Heavy tendrils of mists billowed off my palms, thick enough the cold left frigid droplets of water behind. I was going to be cruel, unfeeling, I was about to cause pain that spurred from my own anger, but I did not feel empty.
I wasn’t falling into the cold.
I felt everything—the race of my pulse, the heat of my blood. I felt the wonderment that an entire kingdom went to battle at the first word of my absence. I embraced the laughter we had shared since I stepped foot on their shores. I felt their affection, their jests, and their acceptance.
I felt love. Radiant, burning love for the man who’d taken me as a wife for peace, but had robbed me of every edge of my heart.
It was written like the love in my tales of lore, but so much grander.
Jonas was real.
He was mine.
I felt it all when my darkness engulfed King Gerard where he whimpered and convulsed on the sand from his tortured mind. With a deep draw of air through my nose, I pulled him into the shadows of my affinity, the weight of his soul heavy in my blood.
Sound faded, there were no shouts from warriors, no booms from the sea fae vessels.
A single cry broke out. Arion slumped to his knees, chin down.
“We were meant to lead the elven. You’ve destroyed our people.” The prince’s eyes were red and angry when he looked to me, iridescent strands of my magic curled around his face and arms. Arion didn’t try to run, merely held me in his disdain. “You destroy everything and always will. He will come to hate you for it, as I have.”
A warm palm splayed over the small of my back.
Jonas stood beside me, silent, stalwart.
I closed my eyes and slowly curled my fingers into my palms. Dark mists faded Arion into the void, only his abandoned sword remained.
Pressure stacked on my chest. There was always a moment when I used my affinity as this, to release whatever it was I snared and toss it elsewhere, or to close the gap between this realm and whatever dark Nothing housed the mists.
I tightened my fists and sealed the darkness from returning.
My knees buckled when the force of it lifted abruptly. Jonas curled his arms around my waist, holding me against him. He clung to me, pressed a kiss to the side of my head, and whispered, “There’s my fire.”
I wrapped my arms around his waist, pressing my cheek to the steady thrum of his heartbeat.
It was over.