Page 132 of The Ever Queen

I should’ve told her I loved her one final time.

Larsson ended his song, leaving my skin opened, bleeding, burning.

“In another life,” he said, voice low. “We might’ve had a chance to be brothers. I might’ve even liked it.”

I despised him but wanted to agree, wanted to admit not much in this life had ever been truly fair for the heirs of Thorvald.

Blade raised over the ripped wound in my chest, Larsson studied me a final time, as if to bid a silent farewell, as if to prove he’d won the crown. Voices still cried out for me. It mattered, that even some on my crew might mourn me. I ached for Livia. I’d crave her until I met her in the Otherworld; gods, I’d wanted those thousand turns.

The ship lurched without control. Sails tipped toward the water violently.

Larsson was thrown back, his brow struck the rail. Disoriented, he pressed his palm to his forehead. Agony pinched my face when Isat upright, hooking my elbow over the rail once more. I cried out when flesh and sinews split and tugged until I could peer into the storm.

A smile crept across my face. “Earth Bender.”

From the swirl of the sea, jagged cliffs rose. The peaks split through ropes connecting the Ever Ship and Gavyn’s vessel to Larsson’s, like a cage isolating our singular enemy.

With a horrified sort of awe, Larsson gaped at the rising seafloor that trapped his ship.

Across the distance from ships to shore, cyclones rose from the shallows of the fading isle, violent and perilous. Narza was there, aiding in Livia’s land battle. The Ever Queen claimed the soil. Now it was time to claim the sea.

I stood, biting down on the tip of my tongue when my leg raged. Larsson grappled to find his footing, still lost in the sprouting cliffs. Hate met hate.

“It’s over, Erik,” Larsson said, long, slow drips of blood covered his bottom lip. “You won’t last against me. Die with dignity.”

I bent and lifted my cutlass off the deck. “When have I ever been dignified? If I fall to the Otherworld, I will take you with me. In pieces, I hope.”

No pause, Larsson rushed at me.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

THE SONGBIRD

I slipped between two evergreens.A thorn snapped off into my upper arm. A curse hissed over my tongue, but I kept on, tightening my hold on the white iron dagger. Salt and blossoms spun like bursts of wind around me.

Close.

A shudder rolled through the soil. My father was clever with his fury. Startling and terrorizing in waves before he revealed the depth of what he had planned. Each burst was a nudge to keep going, to meet my fight head on. The others would do the same.

With care, I leveraged over a fallen log, keeping my steps cautious when the path took a severe slant. Light flickered in the trees, and my steps softened. With care not to snap a single twig, I tugged a branch out of sight.

Fione knelt in a natural clearing, fumbling with the cork of a vial she’d yanked from her pouch. Whatever spell cast she had planned, it ended before it began.

Heat gathered in my palms. The trees shuddered at our backs. Fione reeled around, a knife held straight out from her chest. “Keepback, earth fae. I’ll drop it and choke the air from your lungs in your next breath.”

Dark spells, cruel magic, it was all that made Fione.

“I don’t think so.” One swipe of my hand, and the draw of my fury had branches, limbs, and vines curled around Fione’s wrist, snatching the vial from her fingers.

Her eyes widened.

“Why the look of stun?” I tilted my head. “You always address me as earth fae.” My fingers pressed to my lip. “By the gods, did you not think us at all skilled? You are so confident in your twisted spells, Fione. Did you not think I would be the same with the fury of the earth?”

Fione yanked her wrist away, snapping the branch, and scrambled on her backside to the edge of the clearing. “You won’t win this.”

“Is that right?” I stepped into the clearing. “It seems like I am doing just that.”

Fione lunged toward me. Her fingers curled around the blade of my dagger. Blood soaked between her knuckles. She shrieked, holding my weapon while slicing hers.

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