Chapter 28
28
Lyra
Any desire to stand against Roark’s orders faded when Stonegate erupted into a wild frenzy. Stav Guard seemed to appear from the walls, from every corner, sealing in Queen Ingir and King Damir.
Thoughts about Kael lifting another blade for more than practice filled my head with worry. I half expected Prince Thane to round the corner and demand I join him in the tree hut to slaughter with our arrows.
The prince never came.
I hurried up the wide staircase to my chamber. More than one drifting thought of the Sentry stole its way into my head.
“Lyra!” Hilda, skirt clutched in her grip, raced up the stairs at my back.
“Thank the gods.” I wrapped my arms around her shoulders. “Has Edvin gone with the Stav?”
“Only to the inner gates.” Her eyes were blown wide. “Do you know what’s happening?”
“Roar—the Sentry said it means Dravens were spotted.”
Hilda kissed her fingertips and pressed them to her head in a swift prayer. “Stav were headed into the wood. No doubt, they’ll keep them as far from the walls as possible, like they did last time. Gods, I thought Stonegate was meant to be the safest refuge in the kingdom.”
I bit down on the inside of my cheek. Perhaps it was before the damn melder was dragged inside.
Emi materialized around a corner at the top of the stairs. She was clad in her dark Stav Guard tunic, but her hair was let down her back in soft, pale waves, not braided in her typical slick plait. “Roark told me to see that you listened. Good thing he sent me, for I see you have not.”
Damn that man. “I was going until Hilda found me.”
Emi’s sly grin ticked at her mouth. “Seemed rather unnerved at the thought of you being unprotected.”
“I don’t know why you’re saying it in such a way.” The tips of my fingers tingled. “He doesn’t want to be reprimanded by the king, I’m sure.”
“You’re probably right.” Emi took a step toward the wooden staircase leading to my chambers. “Shall we?”
When we got to my bedchamber, the room all at once felt too small. No matter how much idle talk the three of us offered up, thick silence always followed. I leaned one shoulder against the wall near my window, peering down at the commotion below. Stav Guard were aligned and orderly, even around the stable doors below.
Where was Kael? Edvin? Where was Roark? Doubtless the Sentry would be drawn to the heart of all skirmishes. He was Roark Ashwood, skilled enough to be named the Death Bringer of the kingdoms.
I peeled away from the cold glass. Why was I even fretting over the man at all? He wore a constant scowl and looked at me like he couldn’t decide if I ought to go headfirst out the window or down a winding staircase.
But there was a draw to him. An undeniable truth that there was more to Roark Ashwood than I knew, and the part of me that wanted to learn more of him kept expanding with every sunrise.
“How far out do the patrols go?” Hilda asked Emi.
“Nearly to the shore, then to the open lands between Myrda in the north and the ravines of Dravenmoor in the west.”
Perhaps I’d feel more at ease if Emi were not twisting a lock of her hair around her fingertips until they turned purple.
“They’ll return soon,” I said, more for myself than anyone.
We poured wine we never drank, tried to play a game with smooth wooden rune chips that was inspired by battles between the different realms of the gods, and paced and paced and paced. Sunlight deepened in the sky the more the sun faded toward Dravenmoor.
Hilda replaced me at the window, and Emi kept clicking two game chips against each other, watching them collide and snap apart.
The door burst open, wood clattering on the wall.
Kael, sweat-soaked, hair on end, and blood over his lip, gasped in the doorway.
“Kael!” I nearly tripped over my hem with my hurried steps.
“Ly…” He tried to gather his breath. “Hurry. We…we need you. Hilda, Nightlark, you too.”
“What happened?” Something had gone horribly wrong.
Kael raked dirty fingers through his hair. “Skul Drek.”
Dammit. A vow, a threat, a promise to attack had felt half like a dream. It was a nightmare. The phantom of the mirror land also lived in reality—not a myth, but a true killer.
A killer who knew exactly who I was.
Out in the corridor, Kael tried to keep a cool demeanor as we hurried down the staircase, hallway, then another winding set of stairs, leading toward the Stav Guard wings.
Kael paused outside a door. Behind it, muffled voices gave up at least two other people in the room. “You must keep quiet. We don’t want a panic. He was…he wasn’t supposed to be there.”
I spared a glance at Hilda and Emi, but nodded and followed Kael into the room.
My pulse froze.
Blood-soaked linens covered a bed. Edvin moved about gathering supplies, cursing and pleading to the gods all in the same breath. Roark was hunched over the man on the bed, holding wounds closed with his bare hands. Sprawled on his back, tunic shredded over his bloodied chest, Prince Thane was unmoving, too still, too pale.
“ Thane .” Emi rushed to the bedside of the prince.
Her cry drew Roark’s attention. In his eyes was a look of pure fear. In three steps the Sentry was in front of me, bloody fingers waving in a panicked plea I couldn’t follow.
I clasped Roark’s fingers; blood—the prince’s—was slick on my palms.
“Roark,” I whispered gently. “Slow down. What do you need me to do?”
He blinked through his haze, swallowing with effort, then lifted a trembling hand. Soul bone .
It was then I took note of a basket—taken from the king’s stores, no doubt, and filled to the brim with pale bones.
“For Prince Thane?” To heal him, the way it had healed Kael.
Roark’s mouth tightened. He gave me a stiff nod.
“Yes,” I said, squeezing his hand still locked in mine. “Of course.”
The Sentry did not approve of soul bones—to ask it meant he truly believed the prince would not survive without one.
“Edvin.” I knelt beside the prince’s bed, taking up a shard. “Will you mark it?”
He didn’t hesitate. His ability to bend and manipulate bone grooved new rune etchings into the flat piece of bone, symbols to summon the essence of the soul who’d left their bones behind. When the edges burned in the familiar gold, I pressed the bone into one of the many wounds over Thane’s chest.
I let out a rough gasp when golden threads burst from the edges of the shard like iridescent yarn. Hands on the prince, I began to stitch it in place, sinking the piece deeper toward his breastbone under the blood, the sinews, and torn muscle.
I stitched the strands until darkness pulled me away.
Fear did not come when black water dripped down the rotted walls of the space.
Soon, Edvin’s form glowed with his frantic steps, and Kael’s gilded body didn’t move, a silent observer, but his arms were folded in a way that had me convinced he was gnawing on the nail of his thumb. On the opposite side of the bed, a glowing Hilda and Emi had taken up the positions of Kael and Edvin, likely manipulating any broken bones on the prince while I melded.
Silky shadows draped over my shoulders. Cold and smoke filled my lungs.
He was there. I didn’t need to turn around to know it. I ignored the ominous presence of whatever piece of Skul Drek stood at my back.
Was he like me? Able to slip into this plane when soul bones were used? Was he a true demon, a spectral sent by cruel gods?
“I don’t know how you cross realms. I don’t know if you’re a melder—”
The shadow hissed in disgust.
“It doesn’t matter,” I went on, voice rough. “But you attacked a good man. A kind man.”
My fingers worked quickly, securing the soul bone against Thane’s chest. When all the stitches were placed, I cupped both palms over the top, embracing the heat under my skin. The bones brightened as the edges grew molten, fusing into Prince Thane’s natural bone.
I sat back on my knees once the heat faded, glaring over my shoulder.
Red eyes were buried under the misty cowl, but bits of his gray skin were visible, not so shielded. His golden rope, which disappeared into the distance, was tattered and weak.
But the new strand that fashioned between us during the rank melding was thicker and stronger.
I looked away from the unwanted golden rope tying me to a monster, more vengeful than afraid. “Why him? He does not have craft and he isn’t selfish or cruel. The prince is no threat to you.”
Billows of darkness rolled over Skul Drek’s shoulders in greater swells, and I was beginning to think the heaviness of his shadows was his only tell of emotion, a source of feeling. Cruel or gentle, I couldn’t know. He’d left me in peace to work, but still studied me like he craved the sight of my blood.
“Four souls were stolen, four souls must take their place. It is not a matter of choice, but purpose.” There was tension in the rasp of Skul Drek’s voice, like he spoke through his teeth.
I followed his burning gaze to the bone under my hands. Perhaps it was the exhaustion from a day of worry, perhaps it was anger that the prince—who’d been kind and safe—had been harmed, but I faced Skul Drek, fists tight at my sides. “Then change your damn purpose. He deserves to live, you bastard. Give one soul away, even this once.”
Skul Drek took a moment to speak. “Perhaps.”
Was he complying or mocking me?
“What do you want? You attack without care, slaughter men with lives, homes, with people who love them. You’re a monster .”
“Like you will be.”
I looked down at the threads of golden light fastening my heart to his. With a cry of frustration, I pulled and yanked, desperately trying to be free of him.
“You’re keeping me here with you.” I bared my teeth. “Is that what happens when I meld? Is this how my heart is corrupted? You destroy me.”
For a long pause, Skul Drek said nothing. “You brighten the dark. It calls to me, it reminds me…”
The shadows of his form shifted, as though he turned his back on me.
Bursts of warmth cut through the cold. I was falling back. I made a move to turn away, but let out a scream when all at once, Skul Drek’s phantom was a mere pace away. The cruel shade of his eyes pierced through me, like he’d never seen me before.
“Melder.” The word hissed against my skin, a scent of brine and sea, as though a storm made the shadows. “Not all is as it seems.”
My chin trembled. “The prince did not deserve your wrath.”
“Then the Thief King must stop the search.”
“Tell me what he wants me to find, then.”
Another hesitation, another pause. The rope keeping Skul Drek chained to the darkness flickered, almost growing dimmer. He faced me again. “Hear me—let him rest. More blood spills if he does not rest.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” I tilted my head, watching as the great Draven assassin—or the ghost of him—looked about, almost like he expected an attack from behind. I followed his gaze into the unknown darkness. “Are you…are you protecting something? Does that strand of craft that holds you lead to something hidden?”
“Something hidden.” Skul Drek’s words were jagged as broken glass. “Not all is as it seems, Melder.”
There was something of power here. Something King Damir wanted. Something Skul Drek did not seem entirely free to mention.
“What is here? What is the king looking for?”
Skul Drek faded more into his darkness while the heat of the bedchamber called me back.
But his final words cut against my heart like the crack of a lash. “The Wanderer.”