Den of Blades and Briars: A dark fairy tale romance (The Broken Kingdoms Book 7)

I would never say it to his face, but Ari had a talent with others. I’d never had such a talent. Not even before my heart had turned to ice. Where my tongue tangled when I was put into social positions and forced to communicate, Ari was a breathtaking whirlwind of laughter, flirtation, and attentiveness.

Doubtless I would’ve had to pull out the matron’s deadened side tooth before she agreed to allow me into her private study filled with old vellum maps of different angles of the isles.

Ari had us in the room before I had a chance to take a sip of the promised honey mead. And his illusioned face was even absent his strong jaw and amber eyes.

The woman hardly gave me a second glance as she led us into the family dwelling side of the tavern. The room was thick with dust, and held an inventive, musty hint of oak and leather and mold.

I sat in the sill of an open window, one knee propped up, the other leg dangling off the ledge, and tapped a small knife back and forth. Ari was huddled over recent maps and drawings of the various courts, but also the outdated maps drawn by cartographers who knew little of the isle borders in relation to distant kingdoms.

With his back toward me, I grinned. He was like a child who’d made the discovery of sweets. Eyes locked in an ardent focus on the maps, his finger tracing line after line of faded notes on the vellum, and I was certain he’d long forgotten his illusions had abandoned his face.

I’d glanced over the recent maps, acknowledged we were heading in the proper direction, and expected that to be the end of it. Ari caught sight of the older drawings and was dragged into a strange fascination. A side I hadn’t seen yet, but his face was alight with almost innocent curiosity.

The man enjoyed learning, and I liked that he did.

He flipped over a sheet and hunched closer to the new map. I scoffed and glanced back outside. The air was heavy and damp. In the distance, thick, ominous clouds were peeling over the Mossgrove from the sea. It had rained the night before, but the approaching storm caused our little drizzle to look more like an announcement for the true show.

I bit the inside of my cheek. We were set to leave soon, but in the isles, storms could turn violent from one breath to the next.

“Have you seen this?” Ari asked abruptly. He scooted his chair to the side, then gestured for me to join him.

I sighed, intending for him to know it disturbed my comfort at the window, but slumped beside him in the twin chair.

A half grin tugged at his mouth as he pointed to a faded isle of peaks and hills with the words Tymorian och Ettah scribbled beside it.

“The North as seen from an Old-World cartographer.” He lifted his eyes, beaming.

His smile was so absurdly fascinated at finding his homeland on some old, tattered map, I couldn’t contain my own.

“It has two names.” I pointed out the old language words.

“Timoran and Etta,” he said, nodding. Ari flipped one corner of the map, scanning the backside. “I wonder if the cartographer did not know what to call it yet. Hells, I’d wager this was made during the raids.”

His history shouldn’t matter—it didn’t—but I still asked, “I’ve heard you mention the raids before. What are they?”

Ari finally peeled his gaze off the maps and studied me for a few breaths. “The, uh, the raids were what tore our kingdom apart.” He blinked back to the peaks on the plot of land for his side of the world. “The Northern peaks were where the ice folk—Timorans—lived. I’d not graced the world with my presence yet when they still lived on the glacier side of the mountains. I was told of their lives through poems and histories and speaking to my king who lived through it all.”

“Ah, a first-hand account comes third to poems and histories.”

“King Valen is a terrible storyteller. Dull in his tone, and makes it sound all very rote without the proper enunciation on the exciting parts,” he said, grinning. “As the bloody tale goes, the Timorans raided the old kingdom of Etta. The king of the ice despised King Arvad, Valen’s father, for vowing with Valen’s mother. Lilianna is Timoran.

“It caused a great war. Traitors in the Ettan court eventually allowed the raiders access to the palace and to the king. Night Folk royals were imprisoned, and it took a great deal of cunning and a fae sleep to bring a pause to the battle long enough for an ancient fate worker to set her plan into motion.”

I shifted on my seat, wishing I could keep quiet, but I couldn’t help but notice the similarities. “Your king, he . . . he was cursed, yes?”

Ari’s jaw flinched. “He was. They all were.”

“By the fate worker?”

“Yes.”

“I thought she was a friend.”

“As I am told, she was. The same way the girl, Calista from the West, is a friend to our folk. I’ve come to realize not all curses are caused out of hatred. It was done to protect them until the story could unfold and the battle could finally end.”

I understood more than he knew.

Fate manipulated all the realms it seemed. All the strangeness in recent months, the pull to Ari, the phantom voice in my head, I could not help but wonder if somehow my own wretched story was beginning to unravel at the seams.

“We had wars like your raids here once.” Why was I still talking?

“Really? I didn’t know this.”

I nodded, swallowing the scratch of nerves that always tangled my tongue. “It was not quite as dramatic as yours. Wars always rise in the fae lands. A challenge against one royal bloodline arose, they lost, and the challengers were given the throne.”

He chuckled. “Yes. More straightforward, like a game. Not much has changed in the South.”

“You lived through your raids?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

“I was born the same turn our royals were imprisoned and was raised in a world that believed them all to be dead. Back then, Timoran’s spent their days deciding whether all Night Folk should be slaughtered or imprisoned. Not exactly pleasant times, but that is why I don’t look back.” Ari shoved the old map away and placed a new one over it, quick to change subjects as abruptly as me. He pointed to the thick, oakwood sections of the Mossgrove, the trees that ran alongside rivers that spilled into the sea. “I think this will be the best path to take down to the Bridge Isles. Smoother terrain, but more cover until we must cross at the inlet’s shore.”

“There are fewer taverns,” I said.

“I know you’ve enjoyed a roof over your head, but I lived in shanties and huts all my life. I’m accustomed to living under the stars, and will see to it you stay as dry as possible.”

He was taunting me and comforting me all at once. I’m not sure he even noticed.

“I didn’t always have a roof over my head.”

Ari looked at me, bemused. “No? I imagined you came from a long line of Borough guards with plenty of coin and prestige.” He leaned back in his seat. “All right, you asked about me. Seems only fair I ask the same.”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

“Too late. Now I’m curious, and I grow irritable if my curiosity is not sated.”

“Like a child?”

“Very much. I am keen to throw a tantrum if you do not tell me your entire life story this instant.”

How could I tell my story when the rite of fealty and truth remained? Simple, I’d take care and only give bits and pieces without the greater details. “I lost my father at a young age, then my brother. So, I devoted my loyalty to the crown.”

“So, you were taught loyalty to the throne of Alvheim from a young age.” Ari paused for a few breaths. “Is your devotion to the crown the reason you stood with Astrid instead of Bracken?”

No. I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to shake him and tell him I was not the weakling he thought me. I said nothing. The sound of silence was suffocating, and it added a new darkness to Ari’s eyes.

He turned back to the maps with a curl to his lip.

For a moment we’d found a truce, but the shift let me know at once we were back to being adversaries. He’d never understand how I could stand on the side of the enemy in a battle, and I would never tell him the truth.

We were at an impossible impasse.

Not long after we’d fallen into a tense quiet, the lock on the door clicked. Ari was swift as he scrambled to hide our faces behind illusion before the tavern matron poked her head inside.

“Mid-meal is being served.” Her black night eyes sparkled. “You’re in luck, the coming storm brought us a Skald. He’s about to tell his tale.”

“Thank you,” I said, “but we really ought to be going.”

“Girly, you can’t be that thick.” With a flick of her knobby fingers the matron gestured at the window. “The gods are battling. Bound to be a furious storm tonight. Swamps flood and paths overflow. Expect a full house, folk will be sleeping atop tables.”

With a chuckle, she slipped out before we could protest. Ari let out a long breath. “She’s not wrong, sweet menace. We’ll be no good if we’re drowned out there.”

I cracked the knuckles of my thumbs. Another night spent too close to the Court of Hearts. Another night sleeping beside Ari’s warm body.

Out in the main hall of the tavern, damp cloaks were strewn over the pinewood benches and round tables. Mud caked the rough-cut floorboards from traveler’s boots. Laughter rose from bodies cramped inside the tavern, snuggled around tables, seeking a bit of warmth from the rapeseed oil lanterns in the center of each spread.

Ari guided us to a back table fit for no more than two. With or without illusions, he had a brilliant, sly smile, and he knew how to use it to his bleeding advantage. The matron’s daughter flushed when he winked, as she took our mid-meal order of porridge and sweet onions. Before she scurried to the cooking rooms, the girl promised—to Ari not me—that she’d toss in a plate of honey-soaked berries as a sweet.

“You’re rather arrogant, you know.” I sipped on fresh river water while Ari poured his first horn of mead.

He lifted his eyes. “Confident, or arrogant?”

“Is there a difference?”

“Yes.”

“Then, arrogant.” I looked away. “I think you hide fears beneath your wretched tongue.”

The rite could not end swift enough. Then I could fall back into my short words, or better yet, not speaking at all. This openness was certain to be my undoing around this bleeding man.

Ari took a long drink, but kept quiet.

We’d switched temperaments, for I ought to have followed his example, yet my tongue lashed out again. “No rebuttal? No comment on the majestic qualities of your tongue or something else with equal vulgarity?”

Ari’s smile was still brilliant, but more somber than before. “I cannot tell you an untruth, sweet menace, so I’d rather not speak at all regarding your speculations.”

It was a shot to the chest. He’d all but admitted he hid things under smart words and a busy tongue.

“But—” He winced through the burn of his drink. “I will agree that my tongue is majestic. You can know it for yourself if you play a little nicer.”

I clenched a fist over my knee and ignored his laughter at my expense. I could not snap back because there was a horrid part that was despicably curious what it might be like to have his mouth on my skin.

Halfway through the meal, a fae man stepped into the center of the hall. The matron, her son, and a burly man with leathery skin, I took as her husband, set up a circle of lanterns around the fae.

Dressed in a tattered wool cloak, the man seemed like he’d been sleeping under a dirty stone for weeks. His beard was unkempt and speckled in bone beads, and thick black lines caked beneath his fingernails from dirt. He had sharp, tapered ears with tufts of fur on the points, and his eyes were the shade of my river water drink, clear, with a few swirls of green, yellow, and blue.

Skald folk traveled the isles, telling tales of old lore and histories. Some were made up, no doubt, to drive a lesson into the hearts of listeners. They were wild fae, vagabonds who depended on the food and drink of others as payment for their stories.

Ari scooted his chair so he was facing the center of the room, appearing delighted.

“Does the North not have the Skald?” I asked.

“We have bards and elders who share tales. But to live a life devoted to such a thing is fascinating.”

He was too easily entertained.

The room hushed when the Skald held up his gloved hands. From the back, two young women dressed as homely as the Skald approached, each carrying a twig puppet on twine. The puppets were clothed in woolen trousers and had painted eyes and lips on their flat wooden faces.

The Skald grinned at the room, revealing a gilded front tooth. Once he had the rapt attention of the spectators, he flattened his palm and blew. A gust of gold dust erupted around the hall. He dropped a pig skin pouch onto the floorboards, which burst in a snap of white sparks.

Folk gasped in delight. The Skald began his tale.

“Listen well to the tale of two. Two brothers. Two enemies. A tale of the whims and tricks of the Norns. From North to South, from East to West, their tale lives deep in the soil, in the blood of all magicks.”

The two women stepped forward with their stick men. One puppet had corn husk threads for light hair, the other, straps of dark leather sprouted out of the head.

The Skald held up his hands, spinning about to encapsulate the attention of every eye.

“Long ago, two babes were born—destined to be brothers, not of blood, but of bond.” The Skald crouched as his two servants lifted the puppets, dancing them about as the storyteller sprinkled gold dust. “Fate blessed the young ones, granting them ferocious gifts from the two courts of the gods. One, a lord of the heart.” The corn husk puppet was lifted. “The other, a lord of war.”

The second puppet thrashed around in the girl’s dancing hands.

“Blessed as they were, every silver-haired mother knows, all sons are kissed by the god of tricks and mischief before they leave the womb.”

A few chuckles rumbled through the hall. Ari grinned and nodded. The story felt familiar, but I couldn’t grasp onto where I’d heard it.

“Toils and trouble and games and jests. The young sons danced about their fathers’ halls. The first grew to be lord over fate. The boy turned hearts with desires he designed. He brought love and hope and bravery to the folk of the land.”

The Skald spun around, hands out. “And the second son was made of more alarming traits. A mimicker, a trickster, it was said he could steal one’s likeness and taunt the courtiers mercilessly. The sons grew. Brothers.” The Skald clapped his hands together again. “Not by blood, but by bond.”

Ari clapped along with the crowd when the Skald tossed more shimmer powders and a second flashing pouch, this time, sparks of indigo and blue glistened over the floor.

All around, folk smiled and laughed as the Skald went on to dance about the young turns of the Lord of Hearts and the Lord of War.

I could not breathe. A flicker of dark eyes. A sneer. A voice.

Little Raaaaven.

I stiffened and closed my eyes. What was happening? My gaze snapped open when the Skald stomped his heavy boots three times, and the hall hushed.

“The Lord of Hearts rose to the throne with a beautiful queen at his side,” said the Skald. “His bond brother served the crown with his cunning, his brutality, as the god of the battlefield. Until—like the two courts of the gods—such different powers were bound to stand apart.” The Skald paused, a smirk on his lips. “The brothers fell from love to hate over—what else could it be—a woman.”

A cloud of red dust with a hint of rose bloomed in the air when the Skald tossed his hands up.

“Some will argue the beautiful queen of the heart-fate king also loved the lord of war, and her husband became filled with such fitful jealousy that he banished his brother. As for me, I favor a second tale: the lord of war took a lover the king held dear, and betrayed her so fiercely the crystal steam springs in the Court of Blood are all that is left from the lover’s bitter tears.

“For his betrayal, the Lord of Hearts stole the woman away, hiding her from the eye of his bonded brother. Then, with a curse shunned by the gods, darkened the heart of his brother until the Lord of War was nothing but a shadow. A voice of darkness forced to roam the many kingdoms, endlessly searching for his broken-hearted lover.

“As he roams, he poisons and twists loyalty. Folk who love their land, all at once desire to fight for it, they desire battle to win greater pieces of it. War tears through the kingdoms as the phantom battle lord whispers that they are entitled to this land they love, and his strength grows with more battlefields, more blood.”

The women danced with the puppets as the Skald tossed a handful of charcoal powder and gold dust together. The collision burst in a cloud of tangled colors that drew out a soft applause.

“The gods condemned the brothers. The Lord of War for his betrayal, and the Lord of Hearts for his curse against the fates’ wishes,” the Skald said with a new soberness. “Some say the Lord of Hearts was locked in the Hells until his lost queen finds him again.

“Legend goes, her quest to find her beloved will only unfold by granting fate’s gifts to kingdoms built through the war and bloodshed of the enemy battle lord. For you see, the Norns saw how disastrous granting all their gifts to one court became. Their gifts were to be won by those bold enough to step onto the path of fate.

“They gave gifts to the North.” The Skald opened his arms, toward the peaks. “To the East, even to the slums in the West. New kingdoms have risen, my good folk. We have witnessed it in recent turns.” He grinned slyly. “What could it mean? Is the Heart Lord’s queen slowly giving away fate’s gifts on her journey to find her love? Or are the wars shaping new thrones across broken kingdoms brought on by a curse of a fallen battle lord?”

The Skald grinned wildly.

“Let us pray it is not the latter. For the cruel Lord of War might steal your likeness. He might corrupt your mind. He might be you.” He tossed silver powder at a woman locked in rapt attention at his back. She shrieked, grinning. “Or you.” He spun around, tossing powders at folk, until nervous laughter returned.

“Take the lesson from the lords of fate and battle: broken bonds serve no one. Cling to those you cherish tightly, or you might soon find yourself roaming in darkness, searching for the one you lost.”

The Skald and his servants bowed at the waist amid the rousing applause, accepting a few copper pieces here, some silver coins there.

Ari clapped, laughing, and faced me. “I’ve never heard the origins of the kingdoms told in such a way. It almost fits the tale of four queens we’ve told in the North and East. Four powers of fate rising. What an interesting tale.”

I barely heard him. My blood was too hot. My head too buried in a spinning storm.

“Ari,” I said in a rasp. “I-I’m not . . . I’m not feeling well. I’ll be in the room.”

He furrowed his brow. “I’ll take you—”

“No.” I held out a hand, desperate to escape. “Enjoy another tale. I’ll just be sleeping.”

I didn’t give him the chance to respond or argue, and hurried to the staircase.