Page 57 of The Ever King

A muscle in my jaw pulsed. “I didn’t think you’d come.”

“How can I refuse when my king insists he has discovered the answer to the Ever Kingdom’s toils?”

“I saw the deadened land heal.” With a stiff step, I sat at the table, brushing away a layer of what appeared to be centuries-thick dust.

Narza drew in a labored breath through her nose. “How?”

Under the table, my fist tightened, the skin on my knuckles pulled white. “The daughter of my father’s killer.”

“You fool.” Narza’s gold-glass eyes flashed. “You’ve started a new war when we are already broken.”

“I’ve started nothing. There is no way the earth fae can come through the Chasm and live.”

“So sure?”

Unease burned in my gut. No, I wasn’t certain. I tossed the thought to the back of my head. When we returned to the royal city, I’d see to it Livia’s folk would never find her.

Narza frowned when I kept quiet. “Why did you call me?”

“I assure you, Lady Narza, you are the last summons I’d want to make. I have need of your gift to better understand what power the princess is wielding, so we might continue to heal the kingdom.”

Narza was silent.

“Did you not hear me?” I asked after the pressure of her quiet seemed to cave in over my shoulders.

“I heard.” Narza scooped the flatbread through her oils again without taking a bite. “I do not understand why you took the woman. You’ve believed for so long the only way to be the Ever King is by claiming the trinket your father left behind.”

“Trinket?” I shot to my feet. “The mantle gave him the power of the Ever. A gift from you, yet you lessen its value when we need it more than ever.”

“My question remains unanswered. You believe all this, and returned not with the trinket of Thorvald, but with a woman.”

“She bears the mark of the House of Kings.” I ground my teeth together. The words were said without thought, and I would do a great deal to snatch them back again. The fewer who knew of Livia’s rune the better. My temper had a grip on me, as it always did around Narza, and now I’d informed the woman I didn’t trust with the truth of my songbird.

“You’ve seen this for yourself?”

“I would not have said it if I hadn’t,” I grumbled.

Narza tapped one of her pointed fingernails against her chin. “When you went through the Chasm, tell me, why did you go to the shores you chose? Out of all the land of the earth fae, why did you go where you did?”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“You asked for my help,” she snapped. “I will decide what matters.”

I glared at the wall for a dozen breaths. “I was drawn there.”

Through the frustration pounding in my skull, I nearly missed her sharp draw of breath. Before I could press her on the stun, Narza’s flat expression returned. “Drawn? To the woman?”

“To the mantle. The earth bender had been there but had only just left. I took his heir as ransom.”

“You took his heir, a woman with the mark of the House of Kings?” Narza’s brow arched. “You feel nothing for her?”

What did I feel for Livia Ferus? Anger, aggravation, lust, passion, a tangle of conflicting emotions always swelled in my chest whenever the princess came too close. As though she’d unlocked some hidden cavern in the scorched edges of my heart and released the sunlight, shattering a prism of light in endless directions, in endless thoughts and feelings.

“She is a pawn,” I lied. “A means to an end until my birthright is restored.”

Narza chuckled bitterly. “You kings are all the same. Always looking for more power, more strength, when you do not see what you already have at your fingertips.”

“I am the king,” I agreed. “I have the power of the Ever Sea, but it is not enough. You know the power of the king is not limitless, or you would never have given Thorvald an amplifier like the mantle.”