Page 68 of The Ever King

“You feel a draw to the Ever.” His voice was soft, almost broken. “I’ve seen it in your eyes.”

Panic choked in the back of my throat. “I don’t know what this is and—”

“Songbird. I was pulled toward the Chasm. It was my last chance to find a way to defeat this, and I found you.”

“You found me,” I repeated, breathless, my head spinning.

“Ifoundyou.” One half of his mouth curved. “What you did in Skondell gave me hope that until I have the full power of the Ever again, you might stay the disease, even a little longer.”

I blinked and studied the rot over the stones. “The dark earth in Skondell, it . . . it had a magic to it. I sensed it.”

Erik held my gaze. “And your magic pulled it away.”

It was more. The darker side of my fury pulled it away. I didn’t want to think what would happen should I truly dig deeper into this destruction.

I studied the scorched stones. Nothing was alive, nothing could live. Tendrils of inky black slithered across every stone like gangly fingers reaching for the flame to snuff it out. The Ever Kingdom was dying. Erik looked to some of the darkness overhead, tension written in every groove of his handsome face.

What burdens had he faced? He’d been desperate enough to dive through the Chasm, a last hope, in the realm of his enemies.

A sharp anger drove into my chest. My people often spoke of peace, yet never tried to speak to the sea fae after the war. Almost like we feared any effort to do so might upend the hard-won comforts we enjoyed back home.

My fury magic laced through my fingers, a desire, a call to push back against whatever was happening here. To dig so deep might bring horrors to my mind, but wasn’t it worth it to help the innocent?

I hovered my hand over a patch of darkness and closed my eyes. My skin prickled against the magic. Distant screams of pain echoed in my skull. I winced.

“What is it?” Erik whispered. “You fear this the same as us.”

I clenched my jaw and held my hand steady. If I carved through the shadows, the pain, the screams of the agony that came from this darkness, I could see a shape. A figure, someone in the distance, like a shadow dancing beneath moonlight.

Blood. Flesh. Screams.

I snapped my hand back and opened my eyes.

“Bleeding gods, do you see that?” Celine’s whisper drew me back.

A full arm’s length of darkness was erased from the white stones.

My heart slowed when I blew out a long breath. There was sickness here, and I could heal it. Somewhere inside I knew, with time, with effort, I could reverse whatever had devoured the Ever Kingdom.

But it would mean using my fury in every way I feared.

Tait stared in disbelief at the pale stone that had been washed of the dark veins, the first expression other than hatred on his face. Larsson seemed suspicious and uneasy. Who could blame them? How long had they fretted alongside their king that soon their home would be devoured, and their folk forced out or . . . lost entirely?

I clasped my hands in front of my body. “I will help.”

Erik swallowed, a flash of heat glowed in his eyes as he dipped his chin.

“But,” I hurried on, “you must vow you will not kill my father.”

“Songbird.”

“Serpent.” I lifted a brow. “You still plan to challenge my father, to kill him. You think that will earn your power back, and I assure you, it won’t. You’ve already destroyed my folk by taking me, so that is my offer. My magic, for his life. You said yourself there could be risks with taking the mantle back.”

“Yes, but the power inside it strengthens the Ever.” Erik hovered a hand over a scorched place on the rock, then made a fist. “Its owner must be defeated by blood for it to be won. There is no other option.”

I had to tell him. “There are things you should know about your mantle. It might be impossible to reach.”

“No. It was there, I sensed it.”