Page 3 of The Stolen Crown

I was not meant to remain more than a damn day and night in the earth realms, particularly not in the knolls of the glamour fae.

But Erik changed everything.

Sweat slickened my palms. Tension knotted in my chest. Unbidden, I rolled one of my numerous silver rings around one finger.

“You ought to know, there be something—”

I held up a hand, silencing Swordeater until I soothed the tumult in my skull. When plans shifted, my aggravating mind careened a little out of control and it took moments, at times days, to feel right again.

A weakness I mentioned to no one. How would it suit the crew if they thought me so spineless that a simple change in itinerary sent my thoughts spinning? Like the thick stitches keeping their captain so neatly knitted had come undone.

I opened my eyes in time to realize Swordeater was reaching a hand out to strike my shoulder. The haze of instinct filled my mind and spurred my next moves.

I had the knife I kept sheathed across my chest leveled at the man’s throat in the next breath. “I would think twice before laying a hand on me.”

The sea gray of Swordeater’s eyes darkened, but he raised both palms in a show of goodwill. “I just be wanting to finish making me report.”

I pulled back the edge of the knife. “Then you will wait until I am ready to hear it.”

I thought Swordeater might’ve muttered something like “Be a dead bastard” in my silence. I hardly cared.

Pricks of phantom pain from a potential strike already coated my skin and left me wanting to retch. I’d learned to mask my fierce urge to recoil from the touches of others over the turns.

With the knife sheathed again, I shook out my palms, cracking my neck side to side.

My cousin’s order kept me here in the glamour kingdom for a duration of time that currently had no end. No doubt, Erik found it amusing, keeping me here as long as my royal charge desired.

My fingers curled into fists at my sides, thoughts of her spinning behind my eyes. A princess whose people likely despised me the most.

The king and queen of this land were, after all, the voices who once banished me after the war between our folk.

Perhaps I could not entirely blame the Ever King for altering his directive. I hadn’t even let on to my cousin how desperately I clung to routine. Controlled plans meant controlled outcomes. No surprises. No pain.

Control meant no one would get the drop on me. Never again.

A difficult way to live since the seas of the Ever were never without shifts in agendas. Tides could change. Storms would arrive. And the crew would be forced to alter course. Such things I could handle fine enough; it was the way of the untamed sea.

Idleness and unknowns, those were the moments when darkness thickened in my thoughts.

“Heartwalker, you might be wanting to know—”

“Gods, man.” I spun on Swordeater. “Our king has changed our agenda. Give me a bleeding moment to see his commands are able to be met. Supplies must be counted, unless you’d prefer to eat thistles instead of hardtack and rum.”

Before he could respond, I set to pacing and promptly lit my own paper smoke.

With a long pull on the end, my breathing slowed. My mind felt a bit calmer.

Sea wind brushed across the deck of the Sea Void, warm and heavy with rich scents of blossoms and sweets sold at the shoreline market. The vessel was smaller than the king’s ship, but it still towered over the longships and sloops docked beside us.

I peered over the rail as though studying the landscape might proffer a threat we could not ignore, one that would force us to meet the winds whether the glamour princess desired to stay or not.

Trees towered over paths with roots that broke the soil like great serpents, mosses of all shades—yellow, red, and brilliant green—speckled every boulder, every bit of bark, every stone. Here, narrow creeks cut through knolls and forests like dozens of blades had carved through the kingdom, bleeding out the water.

Glamour fae lands were whimsical, coated in lavender and velvet blooms, gilded pests with iridescent wings that glimmered in the night, and a constant flow of a honeysuckle breeze.

I missed the Ever Seas. But I’d take the tangles of trees and glossy leaves of the glamour fae kingdom over the chilled lands of the Night Folk fae of my queen, or the gloomy realms of the thieving alver clans.

I’d never admit to her that I didn’t despise her kingdom.