Page 126 of The Ever King

“You remember what it was like being cooped up in that fort, not knowing. I wanted to fight alongside my fathers. I wanted to be there, so I snuck out. I saw . . . I saw my daj on the ground, everyone huddled around his body.”

“He wasn’t dead; his heart still had a slight beat.” Erik made a move for Alek, but stopped when I held up a hand.

“Then he was a damn breath away from the Otherworld,” Alek snapped and turned back to me. “Bloodsinger was in a tree, speaking with Stieg, then I watched him use his blood to heal Daj. Bloodsinger brought him back like he’d never been wounded.”

My heart stopped. A fog clouded my mind, but I managed to school my gaze on Erik. He didn’t look away. He didn’t deny any of it. The Ever King hardened as he once did, as though any word from me might cut worse than the assassin’s blade.

“I told you I felt him die.” Perhaps my uncle hadn’t been in the Otherworld, but if my fury had felt his body fading, he’d been moments from death. My voice steadied. “Again, I wonder why you would heal an enemy. Not just any enemy—the people you told me tortured you.”

“That’s what you told her?” Alek scoffed. “Our folk didn’t torture him, Livia. They saved him and brought him to his father.”

My breath caught. It didn’t make sense. Why would he despise them if they were the ones who saved him?

It isn’t so simple. Erik’s voice filled my heart.

He looked nowhere but me. I blinked through a sting in my eyes.You let me hate them for you. You let me think horrid things of my own family.

“Stieg told me the truth after you were taken,” Alek went on. “I couldn’t grasp the random moves of the Ever King, so he explained the history.”

All I’ve had is hate, Songbird. Hate and drive to avenge the last Ever King. You hate long enough, you shadow the truth all to keep anything that makes you feel.

I studied him for a long pause.You have more than hate now.

“That’s why my daj was near enough to kill your father,” I said softly. “He was bringing you back. You told me yourself Thorvald lashed out after seeing the torture. But it wasn’t from my family, was it?” I pressed a hand to my head when my thoughts swam, when my pulse grew to a frenzy.

“I need you to breathe, Songbird.”

I snapped my gaze back to his. “They fought smaller wars before facing the sea. You were a captive of their enemies in our realms, weren’t you?”

It never made sense to me why Thorvald came to the shores so long ago and attacked a woman. The sea hadn’t been fighting my people—not yet at least—but it was the catalyst that caused a rift between our people. A step toward the final war.

“How do you know Stieg, Erik?”

He shook his head and turned his back on us, hands in his hair. Tait’s mouth tightened, but he dipped his chin, as if telling me to keep going, keep pressing.

“You saved my uncle.” I curled a lock of hair around my finger, pacing. “You tried to close the Chasm to keep my people from losing their lives by trying to cross through.”

“Don’t ask me more.”

“Why? Is the answer going to reveal you have a heart you’re so afraid of showing?

I’m not your broken hero, love.

I nodded, hardly recognizing the words were felt not heard. “You’re not my hero, Bloodsinger. You’re my beautiful monster.”

He flinched as though I’d struck him. Alek arched a brow and bounced his gaze back and forth between me and Erik.

“You saved my cousin when it does nothing to benefit you.”

“No one said I wouldn’t use this to my benefit.”

I folded my arms over my chest and stepped close enough our noses nearly touched. “How do you know Stieg, Erik?”

He frowned. “It doesn’t matter. None of this changes anything. We are still here, you are still mine, and there is still no peace between our people.”

I’d learned enough about the Ever King to recognize when he was pressed to reveal a heart beneath the hate, he lashed out.

In this moment, Erik was the man back on the ship throwing knives at crewmen.