Chapter 13
Chapter
Thirteen
They do not chase. They wait.
–An Incomplete Guide to Kraken Survival
Three Days Until Convergence
Tiny pinpricks of light flickered across my sea of nothingness. A pulse here. A falling star there. So pretty. I reached out, stretching my arm toward a glittering cluster of illumination. As my fingers brushed it, collecting the warmth, tingles rushed over my whole body. Fire-hot, familiar.
Those tingles intensified until they stung. The nothingness disintegrated at the edges, revealing chaos. Danger!
With a gasp, I jolted upright. Heart pounding, lungs dragging in air.
“Easy, Brona.” A welcome voice. Soothing, controlled, and absolute. “You’re safe now.”
My gaze jerked to him, my mind scrambling to make sense of what I saw.
Not a battlefield but a bedchamber, Sebastian seated beside me, a picture of simmering intensity.
Dark hair disordered, as if he’d stabbed his fingers through the strands too many times to count.
Fine lines branching from tempest-glazed eyes. Chiseled jaw set hard with restraint.
“Safe,” I echoed, hollow. I wouldn’t feel safe until I watched the primordial burn to ash.
Sebastian looked away from me, as if he couldn’t bear to see the vengeance filling my eyes. “I let myself forget the circumstances. I won’t again.” His tone hardened. “You have my word.”
I might not be at full operating capacity yet, still shedding sleep and memories, but I understood this. Fear of losing someone else important to him had sunk its claws deeper. “You aren’t responsible, Sebastian. I don’t blame you.”
“I blame myself.” His hands tightened on his knees, knuckles whitening. An action meant to stop him from reaching for me? “I did not account for my reaction to you. But I am accounting for it now.”
I knew enough about warriors to know they couldn’t be talked around when they’d decided. They required showing, not telling. So I just breathed there beside him, luxuriating in the scent of amber, driftwood and spiced wine. All Sebastian. And all mine.
I examined the bed we occupied. Not one in the watercraft, and not the one in my suite.
An enormous antique framed in blackened coral and etched with swirling kraken motifs, its rising posts reminding me of anchored pylons.
Sapphire and midnight-blue linens lay smooth and perfectly ordered, heavy enough to feel protective as much as indulgent.
My shirt matched—wait. My shirt. Not Gunnar’s. Someone had replaced it with a slightly smaller tunic bearing the kraken royal crest.
My heart gave a stupid little kick. “You changed me?”
“I did. No one else will ever be allowed to do that.” A muscle jumped beneath Sebastian’s eye. “Not while you’re here. You were covered in blood, and I wanted it off you.”
A practical reason. Totally necessary. And very much something a firebrand would say. Which reminded of me what Jokull implied.
I could have set the suggestion aside again, but I didn’t. I’d just survived war with the primordial and an army of mers. No more backing down from tough questions. “Jokull implied I am your firebrand.”
Sebastian stiffened the slightest bit. “You are my consort. As we agreed.”
Okay, so, I’d asked. He’d dodged. Moving on. “Where are we?”
He didn’t answer right away. “Welcome to my room, princess.”
I took a second look. Walls of carved dark stone glistened faintly, as if centuries of tides had polished them.
Above, veins of deep blue and silver threaded a tiered ceiling, catching the light to resemble moonlit currents.
Windows intersected the stone, tall and arched apertures sealed with thick crystal panes.
Shelves overflowing with ancient texts and framed maps marked with careful, strategic precision.
The sitting area where we’d once eaten together what seemed a lifetime ago.
A multitude of weapons rested within easy reach. Swords mounted on the walls. A trident-shaped spear secured near the bed. Daggers waiting on the nightstand.
“It’s very you.” Everything in the room spoke of control and vigilance.
A king who slept prepared for war, if he slept at all.
But no personal items graced his personal space.
No odd collections or portraits of loved ones who’d passed on.
Nothing hinted at who he might have been before the crown, only who he’d been forced to become.
Sebastian rose and massaged his nape. “Tell me what happened.”
Dread and fury frothed in his tone.
“You first.” I tucked the covers more firmly around my waist. He’d taken his warmth with him. “In the water, you vanished. Gunnar said you went to the dome.”
“We start with your injuries,” he insisted. “I will hear a full accounting.” He dragged a chair to the foot of the bed and sat, resting his elbows on his knees. His gaze remained fixed on me, hot enough to blister. “Go.”
Nein, nein, nein. “I will start, ja, but not there. With advice. You are attempting to steamroll me, and I don’t like it. Stop immediately, or this conversation ends.” Just because I understood his fear and his anger didn’t mean I welcomed being subjected to it.
He inhaled slowly. Exhaled slower. The pause stretched. “My… apologies. Please tell me. What I’ve imagined isn’t great.”
I suspected that had been very tough for him to say, and I rewarded him with the information he desired. “In the beginning, Jokull was on the island. Did you know he expects you to use the convergence rune against him?”
“I did, but I appreciate the confirmation. He doesn’t think it will work.” A muscle jumped in his jaw. “He thinks I’ll be drained as my mother was. But I will not.” Not one ounce of question or doubt, just a statement of fact.
I really, really wanted to lean into his confidence rather than the other man’s doubt. But I couldn’t. Not fully. “Jokull also—” I winced “—snacked on my pinky.” Speaking of, I checked my hand and heaved a sigh. Almost completely regrown.
The promised storm arrived, rage detonating across Sebastian’s entire face. “What. Else?” He shoved the question through clenched teeth. Then he gave another grated, “Please.”
“Honestly, I’m not sure. I raged-out and killed everyone but the primordial. I… I’ve never done anything like that, but I must have been a sight, because he didn’t stick around to try for seconds.”
The king expelled a harsh breath. “Jokull will pay double for every pain you endured.” His hands curled, shadows flicking out and slicing into the heels of his palms. “I give you my blood oath.”
Air crackled, his words hitting like lightning. When a kraken made a blood oath, it could only be broken by death.
“I vow the same to you,” I said, and meant it. I’d never been a vengeful person, but I planned to make an exception for the kraken primordial.
“Gunnar described the carnage you left in your wake.” His tension lessened. “I do not think Jokull expected such rage from the Swan of Ashmorra.”
Giving my hair a fluff, I bragged, “I might be a dancer, but I’m also a dragon.”
A faint lift at the corner of his mouth. “Já, a species almost as strong as the kraken.”
Ha! “Kraken wish they were as strong as dragons.”
The teasing helped us both. We relaxed into the moment. Until he remembered his new “accounting.”
He worked his jaw and drummed his fingers against the chair arms, holding my gaze. “You did well, Brona. You are perfectly able to protect yourself.”
I shivered under the colossal weight of his praise. “Thank you. But it’s your turn,” I said, quieter now. “Explain what happened to you.” I required specifics.
“What Gunnar told you is true. I went to the dome. To its place of injury. The dome isn’t just one layer but three, each visible on a different plane.
Think spirit, soul and body. I’m bound to each, and that is why my blood is blue.
” He tapped the rune on his chest. “The mers broke a section of the first. The body. When it broke, it pulled me to the breach. I remained there until it repaired itself.”
Bound. That one word chilled me to the bone. “Say more, please.” I drew my legs into a crisscross. “That symbol etched into your chest acts as a bond between you and the dome?”
“Já. Exactly. The dome lives within me, and I live within it.”
So, if the dome fell, he fell? I did not like that. For now, I focused on the positive. “Show it to me again, please.” I batted my lashes at him. “For science.”
His lip quirked. “For science.” He gripped the neckline of his shirt and pulled it over his head.
My mind short-circuited just long enough to be dangerous. There they are. The muscles I would see in every fantasy for the rest of time.
“I do love when you leer at me,” he said, amused and smoldery at once. He tapped the rune we discussed. “When you’re done, look here.”
So he’d called me out. So what? Who wouldn’t leer at him?
I swallowed hard and forced my attention to the mark he’d referenced. Inked into his skin, faintly azure, glimmering in sync with the water stirring outside the kingdom, as if the sea itself answered to him.
“I took this bond, and the kraken crown, at thirteen.” His thumb traced the rune’s edge, the light beneath it dimming at his touch.
“Too young to command berserkers who worship strength. But they believed I’d driven out the primordial with the convergence rune, doing what they couldn’t, so I was the only candidate worth considering. ”
“Even still, soldiers challenged you for it,” I guessed.
He sighed. “At every turn.”
Berserkers attacked any perceived weakness. I’d watched it happen after Olyssa first began her reign.
“I always won,” he continued, “but it was often by the slimmest margin. To put an end to it, I found a way to make myself invaluable to the kingdom as a whole while also protecting the people, my people, from threats.”
“And that’s why you decided to merge your life with the dome,” I said.
“My grandmother performed the ceremony. Jokull wanted her for his own. When she refused him, he took my parents and me. By the end, I was all she had left, and the losses... changed her. She would have done anything to stop the primordial. Even risk my life for a bonding we weren’t sure would hold. ”
I pressed a hand to my belly. Time to focus on the bad. “What happens if all three layers of the dome fail?”
His features darkened. “Everything we know will be destroyed, never to be repaired.”
Well. That certainly hit like a concrete block. The sooner we defeat the primordial, the better. “We have three days until the convergence. I’ll do whatever you need me to do to prove successful.”
For some reason, my reminder erased his teasing edge, welcoming the return of his fury. “Já. Three days.” He stood, unfolding slowly. “For your protection, you will remain in this room, be at my side, or with Gunnar. Day and night.”
I frowned. Sharing a bed, when nothing had been decided between us? “Our rooms are connected. There’s no reason to relocate me.”
“I’ve already moved your clothes into my closet.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “Let me have this, Brona. I… need it.”
My eyes widened. For a warrior like him, used to needing nothing and no one, that kind of admission cost him greatly. “Ja,” I rasped. “I’ll move in with you.”
Relief glittered in his eyes as he turned toward the door. “Gunnar will collect you in one hour and escort you straight to me. There’s kingdom business to attend to.” At the threshold, he paused only long enough to say, “If you need me for anything, just call my name. I’ll come.” Then he was gone.
That man… oh, that man. I climbed to my feet and padded barefoot to the bathroom, pleased to find no lingering soreness.
But oh, my stars. The en suite rivaled the bedchamber in size and austerity, carved from the same dark stone, its surfaces smoothed to a near-glass sheen.
Veins of deep blue mineral traced the walls and floor, glowing faintly, as if the stone had trapped the light.
A massive bathing area dominated the far side of the room, enclosed by crystal panels etched with swirling sea patterns. Inside it, twin shower heads were mounted opposite each other, forged from blackened metal. Functional yet commanding.
I stripped and entered the stream, hot water relaxing my muscles. Puddles collected briefly at my feet before vanishing into narrow channels carved into the floor. The faint echo of flowing currents hummed through the room, a melody I quite enjoyed.
How I longed to dance to it. Not that I was foolish to attempt a routine on such a slick floor. But maybe later, I could sneak away from Sebastian long enough to use the barre in my room. My old room.
Nerves fluttering, I used the toiletries neatly arranged on a stone counter. His and mine side by side. A sight that momentarily scrambled my wits. He hadn’t tucked my things away or set them apart. He’d mingled them with his own, as if my presence here wasn’t temporary or negotiable.
Dazed, I finished the shower, wrapped myself in a huge, warm towel as soft as clouds, and entered the closet. Sure enough, my new gowns hung alongside his suits and battle gear. Silk and steel sharing the same space.
I… liked it.
“Halló, halló,” a familiar voice called. “Princess Bronwyn? I brought breakfast.”
Soley. I smiled despite my worries. “In the closet,” I called back. Befriending a servant went against Adelaide’s advice: Many are trusted confidants. Some are spies. A few are both. Be nice, but always keep an inner distance.
Maybe I was being reckless, but in the moment I didn’t care. Soley had offered me friendship from the moment we’d met. “I could use your help to pick something to wear,” I told her. “I’m not sure what I’m about to do with the king, only that it’s quote unquote kingdom business.”
She swept inside, already grinning. “I’ve seen Freyja’s schedule.” Her gaze flicked over the racks. “I know exactly what message we want to send to the kraken.”