Chapter 6
The Warrior
My head snapped up when the hinges creaked. Guards entered for a moment, dropping the sea fae boy on the hard stones, before promptly stepping back.
Blood pounded in my ears. I scrambled across the room. The boy held his arm against his chest, dry tracks of tears streaked his cheeks. A long gash had been carved into his forearm, through his small lips, even one along the side of his neck that stained the front of his tunic.
“You bastards.”
“Don’t touch him, Night Folk,” one man said. “He’s made of poison. Get that blood on you and it’ll eat your insides unless he sings.”
I did not understand sea fae fury magic, and it didn’t matter. However this boy’s blood had two full grown men backing away from him in fear.
I flashed my teeth. “Did you mistakenly poison the Lord Magnate then? Did Ivar finally greet the hells?”
One guard frowned. “Tested it on my bleeding brother first. Had a broken wrist, so no. The Lord Magnate lives on.”
“Ah. But to Ivar and Britta your brother mattered little. I do hope you see through their lies soon enough. The true queen of this land, the one you fight against, would never ask such a thing of you.”
The guard studied me, mouth pinched in a tight line for a dozen heartbeats.
The second guard shoved his companion out into the corridor. One hand on the latch, he glared back at me. “Might be willing to let some of those littles go free if you get that sea fae to sing. He’ll only be hurting himself if he keeps quiet.”
He slammed the door, leaving us alone again.
I made quick work of tearing a piece of my tunic at the hem and going to the boy. “Here, let me see that arm first.”
Damn the gods. None of his wounds were all that deep, but blood kept flowing like it could not stop. The sea fae recoiled when I tried to wrap the shred of my tunic around his skin.
“We need to stop the bleeding, boy. I’m not like those men. I’m not going to harm you.”
With a touch of hesitation, the boy slid a little closer. “Can’t touch it,” he whispered.
“What?”
“My bwod.”
“They said it’s poison?”
He nodded.
“All right, that’s all right, I’ll take care. I won’t get any on me.”
Slowly, the young boy stretched out his arm. When I made a move to wrap the bandage, something shifted in his features. The constant tension in his young face softened. “I’d, um, sing.”
“I’m taking that as a good thing?”
Good hells, the child nearly smiled. He gave a jerky nod and watched as I took great care wrapping the linen around his arm, avoiding any contact with the blood.
Hanna offered a scrap of her skirt to dab the boy’s lip and Ash found a bit of moss growing in a damp corner to clot the blood on his chest.
Soon enough, the boy’s bleeding ceased, and I helped him settle against the wall near the other littles who’d already drifted to sleep.
“Is that what sea fae do for their power?” I asked, tucking a dingy scrap of linen the guards had offered us for bedding around the boy’s shoulders. “Your voices carry magic?”
“Aye.” The boy yawned.
“And your voice heals?”
His long lashes fluttered through a nod.
I grinned. “But if you don’t sing, your blood poisons?”
Those red eyes darkened. I did not need to wonder if the boy understood how formidable he was. Clearly, he knew the power of life or death was a force many desired.
“I want you to know, there is no shame if you sing. No one expects you to be harmed. You have already shown you are brave, like any warrior I know.”
His gaze turned to bloody slits. “I hate ’em.”
No mistake, Britta was not done with her cruelty, but the boy seemed determined to defy them. “Then, I swear to you, I’ll do all I can to keep you safe. My folk are coming. They won’t leave us here. We’ll be strong together, yes?”
The boy curled the thin cloth around his body and scooted nearer to my side.
One palm hovered over his bony shoulder, one breath, two, then I let it rest on his body. He was warm and so tiny. He did not flinch or pull back, in truth, the boy let his body draw closer, like he felt a bit of comfort.
What a cruel fate the Norns had offered a child.
Days went on much the same. The sea fae gave up his first given name after the other littles offered theirs. A boy called Erik.
Each sunrise, Erik was pried from my grip and dragged away to bleed out. He returned each midday, bloody and bruised.
By now Britta, in all her desperation, drained his blood, saving it in bottles, then had the guard beat the boy, attempting to get him to sing so they could administer the healing blood to her dying husband.
Erik had yet to sing a word.
I’d garnered more than one welt and fractured finger and I wasn’t certain my eye would ever stop swelling.
But the more I fought for the boy, the more he came to trust me.
At nights, Erik slept by my side. He fell asleep with new bandages wrapped around his endless wounds, but he did not thrash like the first nights. Almost as though he could find a bit of peace if he knew I kept watch.
Moments when the chamber was left alone, the boy spoke a little more, even listening to Ash tell tales of his guild and life in the alver clans.
Erik gave up hints to his life in his sea kingdom.
Sea folk had different house names, each one with a new title.
These names revealed their strengths or their abilities.
Bloodsinger was his surname title. Newly given, apparently.
He did not speak much of this father from whom he was taken, only insisting he would please the Ever Sea land.
Whenever the light dimmed into those strange eyes at the mention of the father, tension knotted in my chest. More than one memory lived of my own father who could never be pleased, a man who handled my childhood house with violence.
The same hesitation I once carried, lived in the eyes of a young sea fae. I would not be surprised to learn this missing father was not a loving, doting sort.
“I’m gonna take off this collar,” Ash said, dabbing a new cut across my wrist on another night, another attempt to shield the young ones.
They’d still gotten Erik from my grip.
Another failure.
Ash sniffed. A Kryv thief, a bold boy, but being trapped this long, with endless violence, was bending his spine.
“I’m gonna take off this collar and snap their necks.”
“Ash.” I clapped his shoulder. “This is not the worst I’ve endured. Don’t you dare risk your life for mine.”
Ash was a Rifter alver, an ability to draw pain to the body. Most Rifters could snap bones into any angle they desired. If he could endure the pain it took to tear off that collar, he might snap a few necks. No mistake, he’d earn a blade through the gut in the next breath.
“Why do they keep takin’ the little fae?” Ash used the back of his hand to wipe under his nose and glanced at the empty corner where Erik spent most of his time in the room.
“I’ve told you, they’re after his blood.”
“Well, he’s not cavin’, so why do they keep hurtin’ him?”
Because they were fiends who craved power over anything. I shook my head. “We’re going to get out of here soon.”
The boy’s shoulders slumped. “Really think so?”
“Don’t you?”
“It’s been a long time.”
“And you think the Kryv would just walk away?”
The boy sighed. “Schemes take time, I suppose.”
“But they are scheming.”
At long last, Ash grinned a little wickedly. “We never lose sight of our marks.”
It was only after Ash and the other children fell asleep that the door opened and two guards stepped inside. In the arms of one man was Erik’s small body. The boy was covered in blood, as always, but when the guards set him on the stone, he cried out and reached for his leg.
Bleeding gods, it was broken.
“What the hells did you do to him!” I did not have a moment to think, a moment to reconsider before I had one guard pinned to the wall, my forearm pressed against his throat. “He’s a damn child, you bastard!”
The guard clawed at my arm, desperate for air. His fellow guard rammed the pommel of his sword against my spine, once, twice. When his sword struck my arm, I felt a sick pop in my shoulder, and buckled at the knees.
Rage, hate, fear, all of it collided in the center of my chest. I used the weight of my opposite shoulder to ram the guard to the ground before he could step away. The movement knocked his companion aside.
I managed to leverage into a straddle over the guard and used one fist to encircle his throat.
“Steig!” Ash shot to his feet. He was wincing and sobbing, trying to peel off that damn magisk collar. “We’ll get ’em. We’ll get ’em.”
“Get down, Ash!” I tightened my grip on the man’s throat. Small bones wrenched. Muscles twisted under my hold.
I was going to kill him.
“Stop, fae!”
Over my shoulder the second guard had his sword trained on Erik’s neck.
I sneered. “Britta will kill you if you kill him.”
He shook his head. “Think he matters much? Boy won’t sing. He has little value left.”
Skin on my neck prickled. There was truth to what he said. If we did not break free of here soon, I wasn’t certain how long Erik Bloodsinger would survive.
The guard dug the edge of his sword into Erik’s neck. Rivulets of poison blood spilled over the steel. “Stand. Down.”
The commotion drew more guards. They rushed to where the young ones hid with Ash behind the rubble. The boy shoved back and earned a strike to the cheek. Hanna waved her hands. The girl did not speak, and each gesture was a silent scream. Little Laila wailed, tugging on her long braid.
Damn the cruel gods.
With a touch of reluctance, I released the guard. I did not make a sound when he landed his boot in my ribs.