Excerpt
The Ever King
1
The Songbird
Blood was in the air. Pale sunlight had barely clawed through ashy sea mists around the shore, but the hot tang of blood filled my lungs with each breath.
I pulled back the thick woven shades to see if some gory death had taken place at the base of my family's tower. The dirt roads carving through the wood-and-stone fortress we called home for two weeks every summer were filled with loud merchants and courtiers preparing for the festival.
No bones. No flesh. No blood.
I let the shade fall back into place, my thumb tracing the roses and ravens embroidered in the threads-symbols for our Night Folk clans in the kingdom of the North. The kingdoms of the East, South, and West had their own unique markings.
I was losing my damn mind. Brutal nightmares of snakes devouring little birds took up my sleep. Now I was bringing the blood and death from dreams into reality. Maybe it was because the Crimson Festival marked the end of the war. Or maybe it was because this festival was the tenth since our enemies, the sea fae, were locked beneath the tides.
With every fading summer, the haunting dreams grew more vivid, like a waking nightmare. A distant promise from a lanky boy locked in a cell had become a poison in my mind, an endless image of monstrous serpents rising from the sea night after night.
I was a fool. There hadn't been a single whisper of Sea Folk since the Great War ended. This summer would be no different.
To soothe the tension in my blood, I opened a drawer in a table beside my bed. Inside were three lumps of what once was the rune talisman. Since the disk shattered, the pieces had grown more brittle, as though returning to nothing but sand on the shore. They were hardly shapes anymore.
I slammed the drawer closed, climbed back into the wide bed, and pulled the heavy fur quilt over my head. Alone, I could succumb to the race of my uneasy pulse, the damp sweat on my palms, and the nervous tremble in my veins.
The fortress was designed to house all four royal families of the fae realms. To the Sea Folk we were all earth fae, but in truth, we were made of clans with different magics and talents.
All the clans fought together to win peace during the Great War against dark fury-what my clan called magic-and the folk of the Ever Kingdom-the sea fae. His people. The festival was an excuse to celebrate the victory and gave me a reason to see everyone I loved through days of field games, archery, lively balls, and too much sweet ale. I couldn't puzzle through why this summer felt so . . . different.
"Livia!" A heavy pound on the thick oakwood door rattled the rafters overhead. "You're needed and yet are nowhere to be found. I noticed your absence first, in case you ever wondered who cares for you most."
It must be terribly late in the morning if Jonas was the one sent to fetch me this time.
A strategic move. Well played. That vulgar tongue of his was equal parts charm and weapon. He knew how to use it well.
"Woman troubles!" I shouted, muffling my voice into the pillow. "Best to move along."
"I'm up for the challenge." A pause, then a few clicks came from the latch, and the door swung open.
I shot up in the bed, frowning. "Jonas Eriksson, I warned you about picking my locks."
Jonas flashed the roguish grin that won too many hearts in his home court in the East. "I do recall you once said I was forbidden to do so, and I simply forgot to care."
Bastard.
Jonas filled the doorway with his height and width. One of two princes of the Eastern Kingdom, he'd been busy as a child, and even more active as a man. Jonas's body was made for battle while still being lithe enough to slip between shadows like a thief in the night.
His agility around locks and small spaces would be unsettling if he was sinister. The truth was, Jonas and his twin, Sander, couldn't help their proclivity to sneak. They'd been raised by a rather cunning king and queen who'd both thieved themselves a time or two.
Jonas strode to the tall window and tossed open the heavy curtains. I blinked when the sunlight burst through the room, and a gust of wind followed, carrying with it more imagined blood, more hints of the sea.
Jonas spun around to face me, his hands on his hips as he smirked.
"Pleased with yourself?" I scratched my scalp through wild tangles of my dark braids.
"Immensely." As the eldest of the Eastern princes, Jonas's bright verdant eyes and the devious grin beneath the dark scruff on his jaw kept more than one lady slipping into his rooms. If they knew the goodness of his loyal heart under all his schemes and wit, they'd never leave him in peace. "Get up. The coaches are about to leave."
Gods, how late did I sleep?
"Hurry, Liv. I mean this with love. It's going to take some time for you to get presentable. You look like a goat swallowed you, then shat you out."
"Have I told you that you're not charming?"
"Many times. You're still wrong." Jonas dropped one knee on the foot of my bed. "You seem distressed, Livie. Tell me what's troubling you."
"Nothing is troubling me except you."
"You wound me." He pressed a hand to the emblem of a sword encircled in shadows stitched to his dark tunic. His court's seal. Jonas's face sobered a bit as he studied me until I wanted to sink under my quilt from his scrutiny. "No teasing. Are you all right?"
My shoulders slumped. A downside to having friendships built from infancy was knowing every tell and every flinch of each other's faces. We knew the other's weaknesses and strengths. Their fears.
I fell back against my pillows, eyes locked on the rafters. "I had the dream again last night."
"Well, dammit." Jonas tossed aside the three knives sheathed to his belt, kicked off his boots, and crept over my bed. "Why didn't you say so?"
The idiot positioned himself against the wooden headboard, crossed his ankles, and opened an arm, beckoning me to his side.
I didn't move.
Jonas raised his brows and flicked his fingers. "I'll wait all damn morning, Livie. You know I will."
"You're wonderfully wretched."
Jonas chuckled. I gave in and nestled against his side. He kept his arm tight and protective around my shoulders.
For a moment, we were silent. Then, his deep voice rumbled from his chest against my cheek. "I know the festival brings a lot of memories, I know those sea sods left with a lot of threats toward your daj and family, but they're never coming back. And if they did, it'd be my honor to cut old Bloodsinger's head clean off."
I smiled and hugged his waist. Only my friends knew about the dreams I'd had since the end of the war. When the serpent in my dream came for me, when its jaw unhinged and swallowed me whole, somehow even in my dream, I knew it was sent by Erik Bloodsinger.
The Ever King.
He blamed Valen Ferus, the Night Folk king, for the death of his father.
It was true, my father had killed King Thorvald of the Ever a turn before I was even born. But he'd had damn good reason to do it.
Erik had been a boy during the wars, with nothing but threats and unattainable promises.
I knew all this and still couldn't shake the heavy weight of something dreadful on the horizon. As if peace were some fragile bit of ice, and it was only a matter of time before it all cracked.
"Now"-Jonas wrapped his other arm around me, sank a little against the headboard, and rested his stubbled cheek against my forehead-"let's get your mind off things, shall we? You know Lady Freydis-"
"Jonas, I swear to the gods, if you keep talking-"
"No, listen. Something happened, and I can't quite wrap my mind around it."
I sighed. "Fine, what happened?"
"Last night we arrived at the fort, and everything was going as usual. Sander hurried away to be strange and stick his nose in books. I had delightful plans with Freydis arranged from last turn's festival, so it wasn't a surprise to find her in my room."
I rolled my eyes but grinned. Jonas genuinely seemed befuddled by something. If he had any sense, he'd realize Freydis had an interest in his title, much like his interest was in her body, not her heart.
"What happened?" I asked, pinching his side. "Did she demand a crown yet?"
"Not at all," he said. "You see, she wasn't alone. There with her was Ingrid Nilsdotter."
My eyes widened. "You're not serious."
"Oh, I'm very serious. Now my question comes, because at one point there was a position where we-"
"Gods. Stop!" I shoved him away, scrambling out of the bed.
"What?" Jonas gaped at me. "I thought you'd want to help. Freydis did this thing with her legs, then Ingrid-"
"Jonas, don't say another word, or I will cut out your tongue." I rushed to the corner of my room and ripped open the painted wardrobe door. Frantically, I rummaged through gowns, tunics, trousers-anything to get me away from this fool and his salacious trysts with courtiers. Behind the dressing shade, I hopped on one foot as I slid into a pair of black trousers. "Go speak to Sander about all this. I mean, truly, what possessed you to think I'd ever want to know about . . . ?"
My words died off when his laughter drew me to peek around the shade.
Jonas, hands laced behind his head, reclined back with a smug kind of grin on his handsome face. "No, don't stop getting dressed. You're doing so well."
Jaw tight, I threw one of my ankle boots at his head. "You said all that to get me out of bed."
"I deliver on what I say, and I promised you'd be down there with us. Don't question my methods when they work. Especially on important days like this." Jonas slid off the bed and picked up my dainty silver circlet shaped like a vine of blossoms. "Did you forget the new Rave officers arrived this morning to see our parents off to council? Meaning, Alek. Remember him? Last I knew, you were beloved cousins, but perhaps it has changed these six months he's been gone."
The grin couldn't be helped. Aleksi was more like a second brother. He'd earned his officer rank in the Rave Army and had been stationed in the Northern frosted peaks for training the last half turn.
"I haven't forgotten, you snob." I'd looked forward to this moment when we could all be together again, and one dream had tossed me into unease, distracting me from the Rave caravan that arrived to escort the kings and queens to their annual council.
I scrambled to finish dressing, rinsed my mouth, and resorted to Jonas's help in smoothing my braids.
A quarter of a clock toll was all it took before I abandoned my bedchamber, my blacksteel dagger sheathed at my waist and an arm laced through Jonas's.
"I bow to you, my friend," I told him once we reached the winding staircase to the great hall of the fort. "That was one of your better lies to get me moving."
He pressed a kiss to my knuckles, grinning. "Ah, Livie. Who said it was a lie?"
2
The Songbird
The fort was abuzz with tailors and seamstresses fitting courtiers and nobles for gowns, fine jackets, and doublets for tomorrow's masque. Servants and warriors trekked the steps up to the four corner towers to ensure the rulers of every realm were well tended.
While the Night Folk clan tower was quiet and docile, the second tower, belonging to the Eastern realms, always had a great deal more noise heard throughout the fort.
"Is Sander tormenting your people?" I asked Jonas when we crossed through the open great hall. As beautiful as his brother and equally as sly, Jonas's twin brother brought out the solemn side of the pair. Where Jonas reveled, Sander observed. When Jonas fell into bed with a new lover every gathering, Sander remained with us-his friends, his family, his familiars.
Jonas peered toward his family's tower and laughed. "No, I think someone called my daj 'Highness' or some other royal term of endearment; now the hells are breaking loose."
I laughed, but in reality, it could be true. Like my parents, all the kings and queens of our realms fought wars for their titles. Not all were born into the life of a royal, and the twins' father much preferred being remembered for his life as a schemer and thief than a king.
"There they are. Looks like Alek is being swarmed. Gods, look at that sod." Jonas pinched his mouth in disapproval. "He's returned to us all proper and stiff."
Outside the open gates, our families were gathered near a caravan of black coaches surrounded by our Rave warriors. Aleksi, dressed in his dark, silver-trimmed Rave uniform, was enveloped in embraces, croons, and praise from the royals of the Night Folk clans.
I chuckled when my cousin offered polite grins but shook out his hands in unease. His soft brown skin was clean-shaven, and his thick chestnut hair was braided down the center of his head. Kohl lined his golden eyes and his lips.
"He's stiff because you know how he feels being the center of attention."
Jonas snorted. "You can't tell me Alek isn't secretly dreaming of becoming a grand hero. He's just quiet about it."
We quickened our pace, carving through the preparations, my gaze on my cousin and family. Alek's fae ears were sharper than mine, but only because I was half fae. I grinned when my mother's icy, pale braids came into sight when she wrapped her slender arms around Alek's shoulders, holding him close.
Elise Ferus was a fae queen, but mortal by birth. Her life was extended like the fae folk's after she underwent a fury spell once she took vows with my father.
Jonas strained his neck. "Dammit. Look at the sky. We'll hit storms if we don't get to the cove soon."
The doors to the wooden gates were tied back, letting in the shimmer of sunlight on the dark water. I followed his gaze to the jagged edges of the shore. Angry clouds still rolled over the horizon. Almost like they were waiting for some catalyst to bring the storm's rage to our doors. Fear wanted to take hold, wanted to convince me the dread I felt earlier was some dark premonition of something to come.
