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I fought without the same skill as the royals and warriors, but in a matter of moments, my face was splattered in hot, sticky blood, and my muscles throbbed for more.

Ari fought nearby. Sea folk dropped to his feet screaming in terror. His fury molded their brains in illusion and left them defenseless. Saga stepped behind her husband and called the roots and branches from the trees and wood nearby.

This land, by all accounts, was the land of her birth. It would respond to her glamour the same as the isles.

When the fae were entrapped, Stieg and Lynx—one of the Nightrender’s Kryv who could force folk into a slumbering calm—moved in to slit their throats from behind. Halvar and Tor—they used blade first. Wise. Too much exertion on mystical killings and we’d exhaust our magicks before it was over.

Davorin and Harald pressed the army of sea folk forward. Davorin was a bleeding fool, but he was wretchedly skilled with the blade. The battle lord brutally took the heads, the throats, the hearts of warriors. His frustration curled over his lip whenever he tried to overtake them with his dark glamour and Niklas’s protections held.

“Take them.” Harald’s voice roared over the fighting.

I shuddered. A line of horridly lovely women stepped forward. Skin smooth as satin, lips painted in blood red, and eyes like precious stones and metals. Some silver, some glistening emerald, others like a sapphire sea.

They clasped their hands. Their voices were sweet and sharp, but as the sound spread, warriors, a few Falkyns, and forest fae choked up blood.

“They’re cursing them!”

I didn’t know who shouted it, but they weren’t wrong. The women were clearly spell casters of the sea. Their damn sea witches.

“Shut them up!”

I thought that command came from Ari. From the edges of the fight, a cluster of huldrafolk approached the sea witches. Huldra were seductive and could pull out lust as viciously as sirens and their male sea singer counterparts.

Cuyler, his men, and the tracker of Ari and Saga’s court joined. Overhead, a winged blood fae swooped down. He clutched a sea witch’s face between his palms. She hissed and thrashed, trying to curse him, but soon her skin brightened. It cracked and split. Where soft flesh had been, now her face hardened into clay stone.

“Rune!” The tracker whooped and rushed to his side. He kissed him fiercely, then together they attacked with Cuyler and his men at their backs.

I dodged a lazy strike from the bruised boy who’d stood beside Harald at the gates. He had the same reddish tint to his gaze like most sea fae, his hair was tied off his neck, and like the king, the boy kept a red, silken scarf tied over his head.

When I faced him entirely, he jolted at first, eyes on the scar on my face.

“Want to know how I earned this scar, boy?” I took an assertive step closer. “That dark fae your folk follow gave it to me when I was younger than you. When two children defeated him.” The boy blocked my weak strike, but there was a new fear in his eyes. “Go home. Don’t fight for him. He is weak.”

“I don’t fight for him.” The boy slashed his blade again. “I fight for my king.”

“Your king?” I chuckled. “He does not even fight for the same reason. He seeks the earth bender.”

“And I seek to keep him alive.”

Odd. There was hidden affection between the young king and the boy. A boy who shared characteristics to his king. To the king’s uncle.

I took hold of the boy’s tunic. He writhed and tried to lash at me, but his lanky body stood no chance. I drew his face close and the sea fae boy froze. “He’s your blood?”

The boy didn’t answer. The young king did.

“Tait, you damn fool.” Erik Bloodsinger pressed a palm near one of the canals. “Drop him, earth fae!”

Young, but the water grew violent under his touch. The sea king cursed me, glared at me, and tried to throw me off balance with a rush of waves.

I merely grinned and faced who I assumed was Harald’s son, the king’s cousin. “Go home. You have a fate to face, boy. It radiates from you, but you cannot face the path the Norns have devised for you if you are dead. Nor can he.”

I tilted my head toward the Ever King. Young heart songs lived here. Hard to differentiate to whom they belonged, but my seidr screamed in heat and the urge to form a song around the sea folk.

This war would end long-fought battles, no mistake, but I wondered if the end of one tale would open new ones.

I dropped the young sea fae into one of the canals. He never surfaced. With a bit of hope, I prayed that he took his young ass far from here.

New rushes of sea fae emerged from crevices. Sea singers, witches, men with blades and the voice to harness the waves. Valen and Sol fought near the edges. Without a word, the brothers fell into a violent rhythm.