Chapter 24
24
Lyra
“Here are some more.” Emi dropped a stack of books onto the narrow table.
“Thank you.”
With a nod, Emi left the room, pausing long enough to give Roark a greeting where he stood in the corner of the library, a dark phantom.
Hilda rose from her seat, inspecting the pile. This morning she’d received her first response from Gisli since being parted. I’d missed Hilda’s smile.
She took the top book, brushing her fingers over the gold-embossed symbols. “Oh, blood spells from the common craft.”
Common craft was a phrase for those who did not have magical blood but made their own magic from runes, blood, and verbal spells. Like Selena and her tonics and protection totems.
I didn’t lift my head away from the page of gestures Roark might use if he were expressing care or concern. All day, I’d read the page like a compulsion, imagining Ashwood offering condolences or giving tender words like beautiful or love .
When I ought to be studying more about the approaching rank ceremony, I’d obsessed over studying more of Roark’s words.
We spoke little to each other, but when he thought I was not looking, I observed his interactions. Usually terse and simple unless the prince or Emi was nearby.
He spoke more freely with them.
Roark insulted the prince often, but the expressions on their faces were usually light, as though they could not help but taunt each other. To Emi, Roark spoke of her emotions, always asking if she’d heard from her home or if she was well. Part of me still wondered if they were lovers. When I’d slyly asked Kael, he seemed taken aback with the notion anyone would dare be a lover to the Sentry, and certainly not Stav Nightlark.
As days passed, I could understand why someone might find favor with a different side of the Sentry. Days when he gave up a touch of gentleness or playful taunts added a sweet kind of humanity to Roark Ashwood. In truth, I’d rather he remain heartless and cold. Indifference made him simpler to ignore.
“Soul craft often requires blood,” Hilda read, then turned the page, a frown on her face. “Draven craft is eerie. I know some see the use of bones as disgusting, but to manipulate the soul? Sounds wretched.”
If Roark heard Hilda, he made no show of it.
“Ly.” Hilda nudged my arm and turned her opened book under my nose. “I’m going to find Edvin, see if he heard from home, too, but I think I found something on the ceremony. You might want to read up on it.”
I tugged the pages closer. Drawings of rune-marked bones were fitted into the corners.
“See you at supper?” Hilda paused near the door.
“I hope.”
When the door closed behind Hilda, I was all at once aware the room was filled with only me and Roark’s silky presence, which kept clawing under my skin.
I propped my chin on one fist, scanning the guidance for the ceremony of rank melding.
…A ceremonial meld, meant to enforce the strength of a warrior. Taken from the lore of Berserkirs in the gods’ armies, rank melds are a gift from those fallen in battle to those still living.
I used one finger to track each word, afraid to misunderstand. As Damir explained, bone was taken and marked in runes through the manipulation of a bone crafter to create a soul bone.
Soul bones were harvested from jarls, kings, queens, and warriors, believed to be the strongest and most potent for a meld of bone armor or healing mortal wounds.
“The wounds heal quickly, but how?” I could not find any reason such bones would strengthen the body, other than adding thickness to limbs or chests. A true, manipulated armor beneath the skin.
A hand clapped against the wall. Roark waited for me to look, then said, The fallen soul .
“The king said something similar, but I don’t understand how?”
With a sigh, he approached the table and wrote on a piece of parchment.
Once a melder bridges the dead to the living, remnants of the soul absorb into a new body and add strength, even against dire wounds.
“But if it is so powerful, I don’t understand why healers, common folk, and the Stav are not given such powerful bones constantly.”
Short supply .
“Of bone?”
For a moment, Roark seemed to consider returning to his corner, but he tugged Hilda’s abandoned chair free from the table and sat in it backward, his arms propped over the high back, legs straddled on the seat.
He briskly scribbled another thought on the parchment.
There are only so many soul bones that come to us naturally.
“Naturally? What is that supposed to mean?”
Roark’s face was unreadable as he wrote. What is the opposite of natural death?
I frowned. “You know, you could simply answer my questions.”
The Sentry smirked, flashing the white of his teeth, almost like he was amused, not agitated.
I could.
“Ass.” I rolled my eyes. One hopeful thing about being Damir’s new melder, my importance rivaled that of the Sentry. I could call him what I pleased without fear of repercussions. “An unnatural death, do you mean murder?”
Roark flourished his hand as if to announce I’d drawn the correct conclusion. It made a bit of sense, why there was a limited supply.
The king wouldn’t murder his own people simply to harvest their bones to place into other warriors. He wanted a grand army, and as many of his manipulated bodies as he could get.
Peace lived between Myrda and Jorvandal, and only a few Dravens ever made it through border patrols. The consequence would be sparce burial mounds of warriors and fierce souls lost to battles. Doubtless the mounds and pyres of Stonegate were left for the sick and elderly who fell to Salur.
Roark wrote another line. Rank melding is not a beloved practice to those outside the kingdom borders .
He did not need to say it out loud for me to understand the warning in his words. “This is why Fadey was killed?”
Roark hesitated, then with his hand said, Likely.
Heat rippled down the back of my neck. “Berserkir warriors are known in the jarldoms, but we always assumed they were highly trained Stav Guard.”
Roark let out a little huff that sounded like a dry rasp. He chose to write again instead of hand speak.
They are manipulated men who often suffer from what we call berserksgangur. It is an insatiable violence that can occur when many soul bones collide. Each unique soul feeds the living, and too many can bring darker consequences.
“Like the violence?”
Ashwood nodded, a harshness to his eyes that wasn’t there before. Along with madness, brutality, and bloodlust.
Damn the gods. The risks were vicious and I was required to hunt these bones whenever I used my craft. How could I when each meld drew out the haunting spectral in the dreary mirror realm? The phantom never left me, and seemed to despise the use of soul bones. Doubtless he would not allow me to hunt them.
To my soul, I felt the phantom’s hatred of me. Like it had cut down to an unseen piece of me, deep within. A scar I could not heal.
For a moment, I considered admitting what I’d seen to Roark, then shook the thought away.
I slumped in my chair. “I see why Dravens despise the Berserkirs. With enough manipulated bone as armor, they can’t be defeated.”
Roark shrugged. Tensions have always been there between the kingdoms. This makes it worse.
“Being a melder is nothing but a slow death sentence.” I despised the tremble in my voice, the fear in my veins.
Roark’s molten eyes dug into me. He didn’t blink for a long pause, then slowly wrote his response.
Your craft is rare, so it is misunderstood and hated, especially by Dravenmoor. But it is my duty to keep you breathing, so I will not let you slip into Salur yet .
Roark did not mince words, he did not hide the troubles of the world, and still this was, perhaps, the gentlest the man had ever spoken to me.
“What do you think, Roark Ashwood?” I folded the paper over once, then twice. “About the use of soul bones, I mean? Have you been melded?”
He reached out for the parchment.
“Wait. Speak as you normally would. I’m proving to be a quick study, remember?” I tried to keep my voice light to hide the tremble of embarrassment.
It was pointless. Roark’s arrogant grin returned. He moved his fingers in smooth, graceful words, slower than was normal, for my benefit, no doubt. It is satisfying to know you’ve been reading the guides so dutifully.
I folded my arms over my chest. “Don’t preen. I’d rather know what you’re saying in case you decide to slit my throat after I agitate you.”
A smile, cautious and shadowed, found his mouth. Wise . It is bound to happen .
“I thought so. You never answered; have you been melded? Is that why you’re so skilled with the blade?”
He gave me a narrow look before slowly responding. I have only given a bone shard of fealty, nothing more.
“Like Kael gave to the king?”
Yes. But mine went to the prince .
“I’d think the king would want a Draven warrior bonded to him.” I bit the inside of my cheek after hearing my own words. “I didn’t mean just because you’re Draven that you—”
Roark held up one hand, silencing me.
Damir holds no love for my blood, but that wasn’t what brought him to reject my bone. It is this. With the tips of his fingers, Roark traced the long scar across his throat. The king did not think I would amount to much, so I was given as the prince’s servant .
My knee bounced under the table, and a sly grin cut across my lips when I took in the twitch to Roark’s mouth. “Well, I’d say you proved him wrong.”
Roark drummed the edge of the table, then, I tried hard to do so. Now the king would like me to give up the shard from Thane and meld it to him .
“You won’t do it?”
Roark hesitated. Thane is the reason I am alive. I owe him a great deal .
Silence cloaked the room as the truth settled against me. I wanted to ask everything—Why was he abandoned? Dravens did this, but why? Was the scar what stole his voice? I didn’t ask any of it.
I’d never admit it to the man, but his resistance to giving up his fealty to Prince Thane was rather…admirable.
I leaned forward. “Do you approve of these soul bones, Sentry Ashwood? Of melders?”
I wasn’t certain if I did.
Before Roark could answer, a servant entered. We jolted back as though caught in some sort of scandal. Roark was on his feet in another breath, paces away from me.
The servant cleared his throat and lifted his chin. “Forgive me, but it is time for the feast.”