Page 99 of The Ever King

“That is something I can’t afford. Not in the Ever. You are safer if you know what risks you face, Songbird. The same way it is safer if I know what you can do. I can’t defend you if you keep things from me.”

“I know.” My palm covered his hand on my cheek. “I like that you tell me even if my mind conjures up a thousand drearier possibilities.” I spoke lightly, but Erik didn’t grin. His thumb brushed over my cheek. “I’m not weak because of it, but sometimes my thoughts—”

“Did I say you were weak?” he snapped. “You are not weak because of fears, but I will do what I can to help you wade between the fears that are plausible and the ones that are the mind trying to paralyze you.”

My lips parted. No one spoke so directly about my proclivity to fret. I . . . Ilikedit. There was something about his firm tone, his logical words, that helped chip away at what was true and what was a dark story my mind created.

“It started when I used my fury too fast and too deep once. I don’t talk about this much.” Truth be told, I never spoke of it, never opened that piece of me, afraid it might happen again. I didn’t want to relive the nightmares in my head, didn’t want to see the gory images that plagued a child’s mind.

Erik didn’t remove his hand; he didn’t push or prod. He was simply there, violently beautiful as the heavy tides.

“I told you my fury has another side to it. I can—if I’m open enough—I can feel the land. I didn’t know I could even do that until the war,” I said softly. “I would see the battles.”

“You were near the fighting?” A bit of rage flushed his face.

“No. I took it into my mind’s eye.” I closed my eyes. “I wanted to make certain my parents were all right, so I dug deeper than I’d ever gone with my magic. I saw the blood, the pain, heard the screams. Every life lost clung to my soul. My parents had given me such a peaceful life, I never knew such horrors could exist. All the young royals knew how to hold a blade and fight if we needed, but I had never seen death. Not like that.

“When I opened the connection, I didn’t know how to control it, and was devoured. It’s not reliable, which makes me wonder if it is trustworthy with the darkening.”

“Why do you think it’s unreliable?”

“During one of the final battles, I saw my uncle die. I felt it, and I couldn’t stop sobbing, and couldn’t tell anyone why. I’m glad I didn’t, for when the battle ended, Tor was there to greet us. Bloodied, but alive.”

A muscle pulsed in Erik’s jaw. He clenched his fists, then flexed his fingers as if unknotting an ache in his knuckles, but he said nothing.

I looked away. “Nightmares came after that; I still have them. I started to fear my fury, and nerves took hold. Now, unknowns, possibilities of what could be, fester like poison in my head, and I let them consume me until I can’t breathe.”

The heat of embarrassment flooded my cheeks. I chuckled and rose to my feet. “Telling you all this now sounds ridiculous since you were there. You fought. I merely heard them and had blurry images cast through my mind and can hardly think straight when the panic takes hold.”

“Don’t negate the pain of your experience.” His tone was sharp as broken glass. Angry, but not at me, more for me.

“I only mean, it must’ve been much worse to fight in those battles.”

“I was there, true,” he said. “But it was not the same for me. While that was your first experience with gruesome pain, I was born into brutality. My earliest memories are of blood and death.”

A cinch tugged at my chest. “Even before your father died?”

Erik laughed, a dry, raw sound. “Thorvald was not what I would call a gentle father, I assure you, and his greatest fear was producing a gentle heir. He had his ways of seeing to it his fears were never realized.”

I didn’t know what his father had done to him as a child, but I hated King Thorvald for it. For the first time, I hoped my father had made him suffer. The fierce defensiveness and near bloodlust on behalf of the Ever King was startling, a little intriguing.

I didn’t shove it away or fight the pull to stand between Erik and more pain. In truth, I wasn’t certain I could.

“I could probably make tree roots stab someone, maybe a thorn bush strangle someone too. I’ve never tried, but it’s a thought I’ve had, a feeling that I could.”

Erik looked at me as though he couldn’t gauge if I was teasing. When I kept quiet, he chuckled. “Do that, Songbird. If ever it is a choice between your life or another, strangle them with thorns.”

My insides twisted. Such a dark thought, and I doubted I’d ever be able to truly stomach such a thing.

“This is helpful,” he said. “It helps me understand you a little better. Come on.”

“Where are we going?”

Erik took my hand. “To heal the Ever.”

CHAPTER34

The Serpent