Page 11 of The Ever King

Alek scoffed and reclined onto his elbows. “Spend months with First Knight Halvar and his men, and you realize even the most honorable of our warriors have been more than reckless.”

I grinned. “Maybe you’re right and I should do something bold. Something out of the ordinary for me.”

My cousin hugged me to his side as the sun sank deeper until it was hardly a sliver over the sea. The fading, gilded light sliced through the dark water. It brought a calm, a strange peace, watching the water ebb and flow over the dangers of the Chasm.

“Alek,” I asked. “Do you really think Bloodsinger is dead?”

He stiffened. Aleksi never liked to speak about the sea fae, and I didn’t truly know why.

“I think he is nothing we need to think about. Dead or alive.”

I didn’t know why my mouth opened, nor why the words spilled out like vomit. Blame the drink, but I couldn’t stop myself before I whispered, “I lied.”

“About what?”

“I have been bold once before.”

“Oh really? How is that?”

A sting gathered behind my eyes. Gods, not here. When I drank too much, tears flowed over the simplest things. Sander was a sleepy drunk. Jonas grew pensive and thoughtful. Aleksi held ale like a stone. Mira giggled. I bleeding cried.

My voice croaked and whimpered with ale-soaked words as I blurted out the truth at Aleksi’s feet. The truth of the story I read to the boy in the dark, the token of friendship in the shape of a silver bird, the truth about the golden emblem of the Ever.

I left out the part about my scar. No doubt a critical part of the story, yet my brain was desperate for Aleksi to tell me I was overthinking. It didn’t want confirmation of the fears, not really.

I swiped my hand under my nose. “I was going to convince Erik Bloodsinger we didn’t have to be enemies. We could be friends. He even promised to return for his stupid golden disk someday.”

“Is that what’s been bothering you lately? His threat means nothing, Liv. Erik Bloodsinger cannot come through the barriers. Ever.” Aleksi’s jaw pulsed. “Did you not know this?”

I buried my teeth into my bottom lip. There were comments made through the turns that the Ever King would never see the land again, but I always took it for boastful talk amongst warriors.

“After the war, they used his blood to create the barriers. They guard against it. Nothing is strong enough to break those walls.” He eyed the sea for a few breaths, then smacked my knee with the back of his hand and stood. “I’ll prove it.”

My cousin stripped his tunic.

“What the hells are you—”

“Care to go for a swim?” The gold in his eyes flashed with a touch of mischief so rare for dear, honorable Aleksi.

“Are you insane?”

“No. I promise I won’t let your precious royal neck drown, but I want you to see what it means to cross the Chasm.”

A few more breaths, a few more inner words on why this was a terrible idea, the brän took hold, and I went to the water’s edge, hardly caring that I remained fully clothed.

Hand in mine, Aleksi winked and began to count to three. He made it to two, then wrenched me into the waves in one great leap. Cold stole my breath like dozens of stitching needles in my pores. I swallowed against the shock, then embraced the tug of the currents.

I’d always been drawn to the sea. Days spent fishing with my daj, or swimming in the fjords in the North were some of my fondest memories. Slowly, I blinked my eyes open. The sting of seawater irritated my eyes until they adjusted. Whether it was fury or simply the magic of the sea, my vision cleared like looking into glass.

Aleksi tugged on my hand at my side and pointed straight ahead. From the shore, the Chasm was nothing more than a dark stripe, a deep current that flowed in opposition to the rest of the sea. But here, beneath the waves, it was a bleeding cyclone.

Water thrashed and spun in a frenzy. The Chasm split between the gentler currents of our barriers like a true wall. White, frothy currents flowed from sky to sea floor, while the calmer sea stuck to the flow of the horizon.

I was enthralled, drawn forward like an insect captured by a web weaver. Somewhere in the chaos rose a sweet tune, a voice soft and gentle, one that blotted out any other sound. My pulse raced, like the song was calling to me.

Unbidden, my hand stretched forward. A tug somewhere deep in my belly drowned my muddled mind with nothing more than an insatiable need to draw closer. I flattened my hand against the roar of the Chasm wall. At once, I yanked it back. What felt like a hot barb jabbed my palm and scorched along my skin until it raised the ridges of the rune scar on my forearm.

Aleksi pulled me away, eyes narrowed, and used his head to gesture to the surface.