Chapter The Ever Queen: CHAPTER 41

By week’s end, laughter had slowly died in the palace. By week’s end, blades were never far from belts and sheaths.

Valen scraped a whetstone across the curve of his axe in the front hall, eyeing the setting sun the same as me. I’d stood unmoving, watching as fire bled across the sky, and night came. Days, mere days, and we’d face Larsson. I despised the silence of the seas. Not a whisper of Bonekeeper, but like a hum in my blood, I knew it would be soon.

“How do you face it?” At long last, I revealed a touch of fear in the shadow of my father’s killer.

Valen stopped sharpening his blade. “What do you mean?”

“You fought many battles where your queen could’ve died. She’s mortal—”

“Bloodsinger,” Valen interrupted, a restrained grin on his lips. “I will give you some advice, for I’ve no doubt you will stand in front of my wife again someday. Comment that her mortal blood is somehow a weakness for her, and she will make quick work of proving you wrong.” He leaned in. “Elise has a love of slicing at fingers.”

He was taunting me, and I was on edge. Like my mind, my instincts, were simply waiting for his disdain to fall into place again and one of his axes to peel through my heart when he recalled he was meant to hate me.

Instead of bloodshed, Valen sighed and placed his axe onto the table, looking at me. “It never was simple to watch my wife step onto the battlefield. Some of those earlier wars, I wasn’t always certain we would make it out alive.”

“Did you ever try to keep her back?”

“I value my life too much,” he said. “I stopped believing my fear of losing her and began trusting in her strength. By the time we stood against your folk, I felt as if I could not face a battle without her. Even here, we speak every day through that shell. When Rorik allows it.”

“I thought you were merely passing information.”

“I am, but if you all think any input I’ve given is strictly from me, you’re wrong.” He scoffed. “Most of what I say comes from Elise. She is not here, but I cannot do this without her.” Valen paused, then went on, voice low. “However, I also share your feelings. But I am Liv’s father. It is my instinct to lock her away until danger is over.”

“You should,” I said. “Then she cannot blame me.”

Valen smirked. “If you want to truly be—gods, I hate you for this—if you want to be my girl’s , you cannot rob her of the opportunity to be the queen and warrior she can be, eventually it will dim her light and weaken your trust in each other.”

Reluctant as it was, the moment brought another hint of acceptance from the earth bender. An admission without truly saying it, that he knew where Livia went, I followed. Instead of fighting it, Valen seemed more intent to shape me into the man he wanted for his daughter.

That night, I’d fallen asleep with less pressure crushing my lungs.

Until my skin grew too chilled, my arms too empty.

I rubbed the fatigue from my eyes, propped on one elbow, all to find a horridly empty place beside me. Moonlight sliced into the room through the windowpane, painting Livia’s smooth, sun-kissed skin in cold ribbons of blue.

She gnawed on her thumbnail, lost in thought.

Careful not to ruffle the quilts too much, I slipped out of the bed, tugged on my discarded trousers from when we’d practically toppled into bed earlier, and curled my arms around her waist from behind.

Livia jolted at first, then sank into me with a sigh.

I pressed a kiss to the nape of her neck. “I thought we agreed to share fears.”

She gripped my forearms wrapped around her middle, tilting her neck to let my lips claim the curves. “I’m not sharing, but I’ve never seen you look so much like a corpse. You were finally sleeping deeply, and I didn’t want to wake you.”

I growled against her skin. “Weak excuses, Songbird. Wake me. Always wake me.”

“Larsson needs you dead, Erik,” she whispered. “I keep seeing it when I close my eyes. The more days pass, the more I see it. I try, by the hells, I’m trying to keep my mind from spinning.” Her voice croaked. “But I can’t find peace, not when we wake—for we are instantly drawn into plans and strategy and waiting. Now, not even when we sleep, for the Mares haunt my dreams with a life empty of .”

She spun around, clinging to my waist like it kept her breathing. Her shoulders trembled when a gentle tear dropped down my bare chest. I dug my fingers through her hair, cradling her head to my heart.

“This won’t do, love.” I kissed her brow. “There’s no need to shed a tear for a short life.”

Livia tilted her face, using the heel of one hand to wipe her cheeks.

“I have no plans of spending less than a thousand turns with you at my side. Until I’m hunched and my skin is sagging off my bones.” Livia offered a wet chuckle and ducked her head under my chin. I stroked my palms down her spine. “It’s true. And, to add to your fate, my leg aches more each turn. By the time the Otherworld calls, you’ll be hauling my ass around on your back, love. Might as well ready your fears for those days.”

I felt her smile against my chest. Her hold around my waist tightened. “I will carry you everywhere, Serpent, so long as I get those thousand turns.”

I unraveled from her hold and gripped her palm, tugging her toward the door to the gardens. “Come with me.”

Livia kept close as I led us down the steps to the terraces and gardens. Since we’d been reunited, there’d been little time for her to visit, to shape them as she’d done before.

“You are drowning in there,” I told her. “Every corner of that palace, every face in those walls, is a reminder our fight is not over. I need you to breathe.” I pressed against her, hooking my arm around her body and drew my lips against her ear. “I need you to remember you are Livia Ferus, daughter of warriors, seducer of the Ever King, and . . . you are my heartbond. I need no magic, no spell, to tell me that you are written into every thread of my future days.”

Livia’s thumb traced my jaw. “Serpent.”

“Songbird.”

“I am in love with every dark, wonderous piece of you.”

I kissed her, slow and sweet. When I pulled away, I took her to an untamed shrub with round, green berries dangling from the limbs. “Tell me what to do.”

“What?”

I waved my palms over the garden. “You found peace here once. Your fury thrives here, and I think you ought to be reminded that you can order a king about. Tell me what to do.”

Half of Livia’s mouth curved into a smile. “You want to help me tend the gardens? You’ve never done that before.”

“Do you enjoy it?”

“Yes. You know I do.”

“Then, this is what we’re doing tonight.”

“I’m barely dressed.”

“All the better.” I made a deliberate scan over the diaphanous slip covering her breasts and curves.

Livia rolled her eyes but knelt in front of the shrub. I maneuvered with less grace into sitting, my leg unable to tolerate kneeling tonight. With a smile, she placed her palms on the soil. Heat from her magic flowed beneath us.

Almost in an instant, as though the wild foliage were pleading for something to tend to them, the leaves glistened, lush and healthy. Branches shifted, and berries plumped until juice burst from the tops.

Livia instructed me on the manual tasks—pulling pebbles from the soil, stripping withered leaves, bracing heavier limbs that took more of her energy.

Halfway through a rather prickly fern, she glanced at me. “We’re doing this because I enjoy it. You swim when you need to breathe, but we’ve never really talked about what else you enjoy, Erik.”

“Your body.”

“Naturally.” Livia winked. “What else? Try to think outside your bed, Serpent.”

What did I enjoy? “There was never much room for fun under the command of my uncle. Then, after the war, it was rebuilding, trying to prove my place. I did not enjoy much, at least until you.”

“Even if you weren’t allowed, wasn’t there something you yearned to do?”

“Sometimes Gavyn and Celine would force me to festivals, hidden of course,” I said, thinking of the frosts where sweets were always added to market carts, or during harvest months when tales of haunts and horrid sea creatures frightened the hearts of littles across the kingdoms.

“Did you enjoy it?”

I scooped more soil, but a grin played over my mouth. “I tried not to, I tried not to even Celine and Gavyn, but I often ended those nights with an ache in my gut from too many sweet things, and feeling like I was failing.”

Livia sat back on her knees. “Failing? Why?”

“I tried to be what Thorvald wanted, but even after everything, a war, torture, death, I could not stop caring whether certain people lived or died.”

“They are your family, you know.” Livia touched the soil, eyes closed, calling to her fury magic. She let out a soft breath when a new, verdant sprout burst through the soil. “Celine cares for you like she cares for Gavyn, and he does much the same too. Did you ever spend time with Tait after the war?”

“Rarely,” I said, a drop of something harsh laced my tone. “Sometimes Gavyn would bring him without telling me.” I lifted my gaze to Livia. “I was raised to not have a heart, love, but I always wanted my cousin to live.”

“Is that why you killed Harald?” Her voice was soft, like a whisper through a dream.

There wasn’t fear in her voice. No mistake, she already knew, merely wanted to hear the tale from the source. I told her. Every moment. I described how Harald had slipped into a cruel belief after the death of my father, how he’d craved the destruction of the earth realms. He never let me live a day without reciting my forced hatred of Valen Ferus.

I told her of the beatings Tait suffered. How, when my cousin had been sleeping, half in the Otherworld, Gavyn would help me break into his tower chambers. I’d heal him just enough he’d survive, but not enough that a drunken Harald would suspect my intervention.

Tait never knew. Or if he did, never said a word.

“He nearly broke Tait’s neck during the war,” I said, unable to stop once the truth began. “Harald had taken his rage for the lives lost during the battle out on Tait. I wasn’t there.”

“Where were you?”

I paused. “Healing your uncle.” I gave her a swift smile. “And threatening your father for good measure, of course.”

“Of course.” Livia rolled her eyes.

“A member of the crew intervened for Tait, insisting he was protected by blood bonds of the ship. It saved Tait’s life. When I returned to the camp and learned what had happened, something finally snapped within me. When everyone was asleep, I poisoned Harald, then slit his throat, so no one would know it was me.”

Livia had witnessed me slaughter men. She’d seen me torture. I knew she wasn’t stunned to hear the details of Harald’s death, but I hadn’t anticipated a tearful gaze, as though I’d confessed to saving hundreds of helpless littles from a blaze.

“You are a beautiful monster, Erik Bloodsinger.” Her soil-coated fingers covered mine. “All right, what else besides murder brings you peace?”

I moved on to new soil beside a wilder shrub “The sea. I know it sounds obvious, but I am alive on the ship.”

“I saw that, even the first night you brought me aboard. Your countenance changed.”

“When I brought you aboard? What a gentle way to say it, Songbird.” I chuckled. “Is that what we’ll tell the littles someday, that I merely whisked you away for a pleasant voyage.”

Livia sat back on her knees, a tentative grin on her face. “Littles?”

Well, damn. I’d not even realized it had slipped out.

I kept patting the soil. “At your word, of course.”

“Your word doesn’t matter?”

“I would never demand such things of you.” Heat prickled up my neck. “But I won’t deny these gods-awful realms would be better with more of you.”

Livia hesitated, smiling as she tapped a spiked leaf. “Future days. I like speaking of future days with you. It gives us more to hold to during all this.”

“You’ve always given me that, a new sunrise to look forward to.” I lifted my gaze. “When you’d come read to me, I’d wait all day for you to appear. Even when I was banished with my anger, I kept a keen eye on the Chasm, looking forward to future days.”

“Violent days.”

“I thought so,” I admitted, “but now I’m not so sure it wasn’t always you. The moment I saw you, my decade-long plan dissolved, Livia. When I took you for our simple pleasure voyage and not after stealing you away—” I laughed and dodged a twig she tossed at me. “You consumed my thoughts like you did when you’d read to me. You gave me reason to see the better parts of the days, to imagine something different.”

Livia crept across the soil until her lips hovered over mine. “Imagine many things, Erik Bloodsinger. We still have a thousand turns to fill.”

Palms coated in soil, I grabbed her face and kissed her. Livia moaned and parted her lips, her tongue swiping over mine. Never, not once in the thousand turns ahead of us, would I tire of this woman’s kiss.

Livia nudged me back. I hissed when my leg caught. Without a pause, almost as though it’d become her own instinct, her palm rubbed over my upper thigh, soothing the ache. She kept her mouth on mine, as I laid back and maneuvered her thighs on either side of me.

Her hands went to the waist of my trousers, tugging on the laces. I slid my palms up her creamy skin, beneath her slip.

The garden door leading back into the bedchamber crashed open.

“Erik, sails on the horizon!” Celine’s voice shattered our solitude.

We fumbled off each other. Livia tripped over her night slip. I caught her under the arm and tugged her to her feet. Celine took the steps into the garden two at a time, sprinting for us.

She drew in a long breath through her nose, pointing to the inky pitch of the fading night. “Black sails . . . Bonekeeper . . . he’s here.”