The Ever King

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of child abuse, imprisonment, parental neglect, abuse, torture, and brutal deaths.

When Livia, princess of the Night Folk, is a small child, she secretly reads her reworked tale of the serpent and the songbird to a boy named Erik Bloodsinger, who is imprisoned in her father’s dungeon. The boy wonders if her story is meant to represent the two of them, as the tale typically portrays the serpent eating the songbird, but Livia’s version has a happily-ever-after conclusion. She entreats Erik to end the war and stay with her and her people, then gives him a pendant featuring a silver charm of a swallow in flight. However, Erik tells her that he will leave after the trial the next day. She then offers his father’s golden talisman, knowing that the item is important to him, but he tells her to keep it and promises to retrieve it one day. When she scurries away, she trips and breaks the talisman. She keeps the pieces and doesn’t notice until much later that the talisman’s mark is embedded in her skin.