Epilogue
THE MIST THIEF
Mira was given liberties and all the glittering fanfare to transform the gardens of the Black Palace. Bespelled powders from clever elixirs coated branches and leaves, causing the trees and shrubs to shine like starlight.
Even some lazy sparks of Sun Wings had ventured from Natthaven into the groves of Klockglas. The suspicious creatures added a few glows of gold, as if they’d entered the gardens out of curiosity more than anything.
Once more, I stood in a satin tent, waiting.
Unknowns, apprehension, resentment, all of it had twisted my stomach months ago. Tonight, the only knots were beautiful anticipation.
A throat cleared. Jonas’s father stepped inside the tent. Someone must’ve urged the king to look more the part. He wore black as always, but his dark sword was properly positioned in a polished sheath on his waist. His hair was freshly braided off the sides and smoothed down, and he was desperately trying to hide the irritation in his features for his palace being invaded by endless droves of people.
I let out a muffled snort behind my hand. “Surviving, Daj?”
The smallest flick of a grin teased his mouth. “For a moment or two longer.”
Doubtless Mira was behind the king’s agreeability. The woman could be rather frightening when she set out to organize a revel.
In truth, Cara became Mira’s right hand, aiding the princess like a tyrant’s minion to create a truly regal event. When Mira insisted I would be clad in a full, elven-style gown, Cara was there to refute my initial protests that it wasn’t necessary, and saw to it a gown was commissioned.
I readied to roll my eyes when the garment was delivered to the Natthaven palace two nights ago, but when I saw the silver satin layered in gold and blue stitching and lace, I could do nothing but admire like the rest.
Inge Hob even added new heart glass a few Dokkalfar had polished and prepared for her use.
I smoothed my palms over the bodice, already golden with the race of my heart.
“If you’re having second thoughts, I know more than one morally ambiguous sod in there who’d be willing to smuggle you out.”
I laughed and hooked my arm around the king’s elbow. “Never a second thought, I merely want to skip the production and get the man alone. I know he’s your son, but frankly, you lot have yourselves to blame for me speaking my true thoughts. None of you know how to be vague.”
The smile spread a little more on my father-in-law's mouth. “Never saw the purpose in speaking untruths.”
Thieves, killers, crooks, but they drew the line at lies.
“You have given him happiness,” the king said in his dark, low rasp. “I do not say it enough, but that is a debt I cannot repay. You are as much an alver as you are elven, girl.”
I tilted my head back, blinking. “Mira is going to be furious at you for making me cry like an infant.”
“Then stop.”
“Then stop speaking.”
“Gladly.”
Outside, folk from across the fae realms and Natthaven once more took up chairs and benches wrapped in shocks of gold. There was little divide between them now. Elven folk sat between fae, alvers, and mortals.
Dokkalfar had slipped into alver society with more ease than anticipated. Their affinities to summon healing into talismans and charms intrigued fae folk and healers amongst the alvers.
Some of the bolder Dokkalfar asked for the chance to travel to other fae kingdoms as healers. We hardly cared to grant permission on where they desired to live. It was enough of a step for elven folk to leave the shores of Natthaven.
If they wished to find contentment among all the kingdoms, we would never deny them.
Peace was the intent when I vowed with my nightmare. Our goals had not changed, though so much more had.
Suspicions remained about elvish intentions, but I had hope that soon elven folk would simply be another part of the fae and alver kingdoms.
Kase led me through the crowd. Faces who’d come to matter more than I imagined watched each step.
Aleksi, Sander, and Von offered gentle smiles for me, but tried to get the king to misstep with a few low taunts under their breath. Kase flicked his fingers by his side, and in the next breath Von let out a cry of fright and Aleksi stumbled over the leg of the bench when a burst of shadowy weavers and their hairy legs crawled across their laps.
Mira and Livia snickered in the benches just ahead of them. Livia sat with her king and the sea folk. Tait on one end of the bench, Mira on the other, intentionally lifting her nose away from the king’s cousin.
After we’d returned from the battle from Ljosalfar, Bloodsinger reminded his cousin he was still the official escort whenever the fae princess needed to sail.
They’d slipped into tense indifference since.
A little girl with flower-lined braids waved from her family’s bench. Teodor and Annetta were healed from the elven poison, and had reunited with their three littles only a week before.
I flashed the littles a smile, reveling in the elven silver they still wore from the night near their longhouse.
Queen Malin sat amongst the Kryv and her fellow royals from the other kingdoms. The expansive households of every royal house took up nearly half one side of the gardens.
Malin wore a gown and even topped her head with her dark circlet for the occasion. She beamed at me, then offered her husband an encouraging smile, as though she could sense he would rather do this without all the crowds.
Seated in a small cluster in the edges was a pale woman with golden hair—the Ljosalfar queen, Gerard’s widow.
Valdis was not Arion’s mother, who’d gone to the gods at his birth, but when we first met, I didn’t know how much affection the woman had carried for the prince.
My senior in age, but not by much. Valdis was a young queen, overwhelmed by being handed a crown.
Only after we sent a missive declaring in blood that we did not seek her crown did Valdis emerge from her lands. Ljosalfar were elven. We wanted peace. We wanted her people to see her as their queen as much as they saw Gerard as their king.
It wasn’t long before we learned she hardly knew her husband and stepson, and was often left to solitude in a manor in the upper knolls on Grynstad, living a solitary life as a wealthy woman without a voice and a husband who only visited her once each month.
She did not even know battles had been fought on Natthaven.
Trusted Dokkalfar warriors were assigned to travel to Grynstad with the queen in the coming nights, a way to ensure any noble houses did not attempt to overrule her voice. To the stun of many, Raum offered to keep watch on Ljosalfar lands until the queen found her footing.
Already, the Kryv and queen had been caught in conversation in the courtyards. She was intrigued by his mesmer and seemed more comfortable around Raum than even me. In truth, I couldn’t figure if the man volunteered because he wanted to scope the wealth of Grynstad, or he found the queen interesting.
Either way, it was another move toward trust and alliances now that shadow elven and alvers would be friendly with the light elven.
For so long, I’d lived lonely, now I was surrounded by countless brutal, loving people who’d already proved they’d go to war should anyone dare try to bring me harm.
But through them all, I could not peel my eyes from the man standing beneath a vine covered arch. Totems made of bone and runes hung over Jonas’s head when he lifted his gaze, the devious smile on his face.
Like his father, he’d been tucked into a fine tunic with crossed blades stitched on the front, and he’d lined his eyes in a touch of kohl as a mark of warriors and strength in the kingdom. Jonas kept shifting in place. He had one palm clasped around his other wrist, but his fingers twitched like he could hardly stand not reaching out and snatching me away.
When I was two paces away, he did it anyway.
He didn’t look away from me when his father handed over my palm to his son, and sat beside the queen.
“Fire.” My nightmare’s eyes combed down my body. “Is all that for me?”
The heart glass blazed over my gown. “Always.”
He pressed a gentle kiss to my knuckles. There were no speakers here to lead the ceremony. This was meant to be intimate between a pair.
I leaned closer. “I don’t know how to do this.”
“No one does. Most of us make it up as we go. There is only one part at the end that is the same.”
I dug my teeth into my bottom lip, hiding the grin. Alver vows. A request Jonas asked of me shortly after Natthaven was joined to Klockglas.
Our original contract felt marred and tainted. Jonas took it as the Norns telling us we needed to re-do vows, but add a bit more to them. An alver touch.
“Want me to go first, Fire?”
“As long as you give me the last word.”
Jonas chuckled and drew me closer, pressing my body to his, not the standard distance most couples kept. “Skadi, I want nothing more than to walk my days with you at my side. I have been caught in the blaze of your fire, and I swear to you, I will never douse it. You are the thief of my heart, and I will give it to you every day so long as we live, and through the eternities of the Otherworld.”
My thumb tugged at his bottom lip. I forced myself to hold steady and not devour his mouth. Not yet.
“You are my sweetest nightmare. A fiend, a thief, a gentle heart, and I will love every side of you forever. I will always be there to take your fears, share your hopes, and give you everything in my heart, day after day.”
New power rushed through my blood like the roar of the tides. Something heated that tangled with the ice of my affinity in my veins.
“Now the alver vow.”
I didn’t know if it would do anything different since I was not an alver, but I suspected it might bond us closer, offer insight and senses of each other that were deeper than unbonded folk.
Last night, when the great hall was packed with visitors here for the new vows, I spoke with Gunnar, one of the shared cousins of Jonas, Sander, Aleksi, and Livia.
He was a Profetik alver who could command another’s mind to follow his every demand, even if he desired them to slit their own throat. He’d recited alver vows with his wife, a glamour fae from Mira’s kingdom with a gift of sight from celestial occurrences.
Gunnar insisted even though his mate was fae, the pair could sense emotions within each other. When she was troubled, he knew it. Even when she was pained during the births of their two littles, he knew how to help ease her discomfort without a word.
He knew when one of her premonitions was going to take hold, and she had unintentionally compelled a mind to do her bidding more than once.
“Alver vows are sealed in blood, Fire.” Jonas took out a narrow knife.
I watched as he carved the rune onto his palm, then didn’t hesitate to do the same on my own. Jonas cleared his throat and placed his bloody palm over mine.
“Just repeat what I say,” he whispered, then let out a slow breath. “What power I have is yours for all your days.”
The tug of power drew me closer, as though my body could not stand to put even the smallest space between us.
My voice was soft when I spoke. “What power I have is yours for all your days.”
Jonas laced our fingers together. A bite of heat rushed to my head. Damp mists and inky shadows swirled around our hands, like a burst of the darkness within the both of us could not be contained. The shock of power ended abruptly, and lingering ribbons of mists absorbed into our flesh.
There was silence for a breath, then roars of applause rippled through our audience. Mira had her arms around Livia, shrieking in delight as she bounced on her toes, shaking the Ever Queen enough it drew out an irritated glare from the sea king.
Malin held onto Kase’s arm, a bit of glassy tears in her eyes. For the first time I saw the full grin of the alver king.
We were swallowed by Sander and Aleksi before Jonas shoved them away with a grunt of frustration. “Let me kiss my damn wife.”
I laughed, curling my fingers around his tunic, and pulled his mouth to mine. Warm, inviting, I kissed my husband a second time after vowing my life to his. In the beginning I thought love that would start wars, that would draw a heart to kill, was only a thing of romantic fae tales.
I never believed my own would unfold when a prince of nightmares dared love the monster in the mists.
Celebrations lasted (to my father-in-law’s horror) for a full week. When the Black Palace returned to its quiet mystery, Jonas and I settled in the palace of Natthaven. Close enough we were still drawn into the schemes of Klockglas, but with a new palace to claim as our own.
Raum kept his word and left to Grynstad with Valdis. The alver king and queen did not let on how much they would truly miss the man until Kase damn near threatened Raum with a fearful death if he did not write and return for the Jul revels during the frosts.
Aleksi returned to his Rave unit in the Northern peaks, but with Jonas’s harvest duties to inventory the camps, we would see him in coming weeks.
When Livia and Bloodsinger returned to their kingdom, Sander joined after he learned a noblewoman reported a few scrolls and trinkets from the far seas washed ashore on her lands.
There was no telling how long Sander and his curious mind would be gone.
Mira returned to her kingdom with plans to join Sander in the Ever after visiting with her own people for a time. Tait Heartwalker left our shores with a deeper scowl after the Ever King insisted his cousin would need to wait until the princess was keen to return, then he was to be the one to sail her to the sea kingdom.
To others, the man might appear repulsed, but I knew a great deal about hiding truths beneath masks, and I wasn’t convinced his lone aversion to Princess Mira stemmed from disdain.
Our palace was constantly flowing with folk. Frigg found the wood of the isle diverting and enjoyed conversing with the treetop elven. Von already insisted he was claiming a wing of the palace for himself (Brunhild joined him often), and most days I barely recognized my own isle.
It was lively and growing rowdier by the day. Soon it would be a mere extension of the spirit of Klockglas. The affinity in the soil seemed pleased. Trees would spread for alver folk, sun wings guided them if they were lost in the forest, and every St?rnskott grew more vibrant the more spectators walked to the isle for the weekly show.
There was still an ache inside for the betrayal of Eldirard, but as Jonas told me, I remembered the love he did give.
With the truth of the past revealed, my husband saw to it three names were added to the alver totem of remembrance and three monuments were erected at the gates of the Natthaven palace.
For my parents and Dorsan.
How different life looked each sunrise. I thought I would find a new prison as the bride of a nightmare prince, but I found my home.
“You should come back to bed.” Jonas propped his chin onto the heel of his palm.
I turned over my shoulder once I finished lacing my gown. “You, Husband, promised to teach me how to whittle. I am holding you to your word.”
Jonas fell back onto the bed. “I’ve also told you, my father would be a better teacher.”
I knelt over the edge of our mattress and kissed him softly. “I want your hands to show me how it is done.”
Jonas started to thread his arms around me, doubtless preparing to pull me back beneath the quilts, when the door opened in a rush.
“Cara!” I startled back. “What are you doing?”
She gasped and tilted her eyes toward the rafters.
Jonas grinned, his cock hardly covered beneath the quilts, and tucked his arms behind his head, displaying most of his bare body.
The delight of his days was horrifying Cara after I confessed she called him a salacious sort of man.
“Forgive me.” She closed her eyes and held out a folded parchment. “It arrived just now. Marked as urgent from the alver king and queen.”
Jonas sat up and took it, shredding through the black wax seal as Cara bustled out, closing the door behind her.
“Shit.” Jonas’s mouth tightened as he read.
I propped my chin on his shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
“My mother and father received news from the Southern realms. Mira and Heartwalker set sail for the Ever days ago. There was a sea storm near one of the isles, but Liv insists they never arrived. Skadi.” Jonas’s eyes were black when he lifted his gaze to mine. “Tait and Mira are missing.”