Chapter 30
30
Lyra
I did not know how to speak of Skul Drek. Truth be told, I was half-convinced Thane’s injuries, the deaths that followed, were wholly my guilt to bear. But the warnings of the phantom would not leave me. Let him rest .
The Wanderer.
The damn Wanderer King was meant to be a myth based on dozens of sturdy kings. A saga to explain the origins of craft. He was not meant to be a man who once lived in these knolls, with bones buried in this land. Bones coveted and sought for the power of the Wanderer’s soul.
Once Thane was no longer at risk for the gods’ table, the king pressed me on whether I had sensed any bones in the ground. The way Damir spoke, I wasn’t certain Melder Fadey stepped into the mirror land. It seemed more like the former melder had inclinations or instincts where new bones might be found.
I wanted to know why Skul Drek could step into the mirror like me, then kill beyond the gates as well as a Stav. I wanted to know why he spoke to me, why a thread of craft seemed to tether me to him whenever I melded.
Several days after the prince recovered, mists crept over the lawns of the fortress like spreading poison.
I tightened a fur mantle around my shoulders, watching as a line of cloaked Stav Guard rode into the gates, saddles laden with pouches and bags.
They’d recovered the bones I’d seen glowing in the rotted knolls after the rank melding.
Across the courtyard, I caught the king’s gaze. It wasn’t kind; his eyes burned with something sharp and greedy. Damir dipped his chin toward me, a grin spreading.
He was pleased.
He would ask for more; he would search for more.
Let him rest .
I did not know how to end it. If I did not comply, perhaps Kael would be used against me.
If I did as the king asked, a deadly creature built in the darkness would level his blade at my throat soon enough.
“I don’t even know where to go for a fitting.” I finished tying off the end of my braid and faced Emi, who looked less like a Stav Guard and more like one of Queen Ingir’s courtiers in the pale dress. “In Skalfirth, ladies did not get fitted for gowns. They had us—their servants—make them.”
“Your days of pricking your fingers and untangling yarn are over.”
I tossed my braid over my shoulder, inspecting my face in the mirror. Since using my craft for the king, the scars of silver in my eyes had brightened.
In truth, I rather enjoyed the times when Lady Jakobson would demand her daughters’ or her own dresses be sewn. Selena and I would sit and snicker with other women, catch up on gossip, who might be courting whom, while Kael got to go gut rancid fish and eel in the deep seas with Thorian.
I slid my palms over my hips. Fuller than they’d been back home. The hearty meals sat on my bones better than seed breads and root stews.
Emi offered me a bemused look and nudged my side with her elbow. “You’ll enjoy yourself, I swear it. The market is diverting and you could use it. These last weeks, you’ve been jolting at everything.”
“Could it be because ravagers have attacked? The prince nearly died? Feels like I brought a curse to this place.”
Emi tilted her head back and forth. “You certainly brought changes, in more soul than one. Come on, you’ll enjoy the market.”
A bit of heated panic rose like a wave from my belly to my throat. “I’ve spent most of my life avoiding strangers and folk I don’t know.”
With a gentle smile, Emi placed a hand on my arm. “I’ll be with you today. No market beginner should haggle with Margun alone, it’d be rather cruel.”
“Margun is the silk merchant?”
“I suspect she’s a troll in a woman’s body.” Emi waved a hand, erasing the thought. “She’s tricky and loves a good scheme. Cunning as she is, the woman knows how to supply this fortress with the finest of silks, yarns, and wool.”
All the ladies of the palace were to be fitted. The watchtowers blew their horns before the sun rose this morning, a signal the royal Myrdan caravan was spotted beyond the knolls and would be here by nightfall. On the morrow, Damir ordered, a celebratory feast to honor the Sentry and me would occur at the first star of dusk.
I plucked a cloak from a hook near the door and draped it over my shoulders, glancing at Emi. “Why are you in such a pleasant mood?”
Emi blew out her lips. “I am never in a foul mood.”
“Stav Nightlark,” I taunted, “only this morning you rampaged over the consistency of your pottage. I think you even insisted the cook was trying to poison you.”
Tucking a stiletto knife in her boot, Emi lifted her gaze. “Don’t let her fool you. She has it in for me. Loves Darkwin, though. His plate arrived with two additional spiced rolls.”
I snickered and stepped into the sitting chamber of my room. Truth be told, I was a tangle of thoughts. One moment, I was knotted in my stomach with excitement at the thought of leaving the inner walls of Stonegate again. Then, in the next, I did not want the crowds, the questions, the glances.
Weeks here, and…some of it I did not despise. Emi. Prince Thane. Where I thought I would hate them, I dared consider them friends. Stonegate was a force, and I feared it was drawing me in, deeper and deeper with its mystery and glamor.
Emi spoke true about Súlka Margun. One bell toll in the market found me perched on a stool as the woman circled me, a wolf with its prey. She tapped one hooked finger against her lip.
The silk merchant was slender, with sunken cheeks, but she moved like a queen in her own shop. Margun brazenly inspected the length of my hair, my hands, my arms, my shoulders, the natural bend of my knees, all while her knuckle kept tapping her lip.
Where I wanted earthy brown, Margun insisted on evergreen. When I said silver trim suited the shade well, she smacked my hand away from the threads and held up an iridescent spool of thread that reminded me of starlight.
I argued over the plunge of the neckline; she battled me on the cut of the sleeves, hem, and bodice.
By the end of our encounter, Emi was red-faced from holding in laughter, and I had a roll of different silks draped over my arm to choose from before Margun finished the gown.
When all the selections were made, I scurried from the silk shop—a satchel of lace and ribbons Margun insisted ought to be braided into my hair tossed over one shoulder—and into the streets of the market, desperate to finally breathe again.
Emi paused to inspect a cart with bone and jade bands, and woven necklaces.
“I didn’t take you for a woman who wore stones?”
The curves of her ears heated in a soft pink. “I was thinking it might be a fine welcome gift for the princess Yrsa. She’s remaining at Stonegate from now on, after all, and I thought it might suit her.”
Generous. Yrsa was a mystery to me. Rumors insisted King Hundur was a protective father, and some said he never allowed his girl beyond her own private gardens lest she was visiting her betrothed in Stonegate.
Still, Emi seemed to hold the woman in high regard, and Thane did not loathe his match.
I looked forward to meeting her.
I leaned against a stone wall near a short tunnel that cut across one side of the market and opened in the other. Young laughter drew my attention.
I peered around the wall and a flush of heat prickled across my cheeks.
Roark, clad in his Sentry tunic with his crescent moon sword on his waist, was turned away from me. A trio of Stav were with him, grinning as the Death Bringer held his hands up over the heads of a gaggle of young ones.
Tucked between each of the Sentry’s fingers were parchment-wrapped sweets—smooth creams made from honey and milk and sticks with sugary glaze.
Roark would taunt the littles by tempting them with the sweets, then tuck them behind his back, slip them into a pouch tethered to his waist they could not see, and return empty-handed.
I muffled a laugh when the groans echoed along the tunnel.
Until the Sentry held up one finger, telling them to be patient.
In a few theatrical motions, Roark reappeared eight sweets, one tucked between every finger. Cheers, giggles, and muttered thanks followed as Roark and the Stav gave up the sweets, watching the young ones scatter gleefully through the market, their prizes in hand.
I leaned against the curve of the tunnel. “I’ve been your charge for some time, Sentry Ashwood, and I’ve yet to receive anything sweet from you.”
The three Stav at his back dipped their chins at the sight of me. Roark spun around, eyes like a fading sun drawing me into its brilliance.
Gods, I was a fool. Yes, he was handsome, and competent, and loyal. Perhaps he was not the worst of company to keep, and now I knew he respected the most innocent, but he was still Roark Ashwood, a man who saw me as a duty to his position.
I had no business wishing he might come a bit closer.
Why are you out here alone? He wore a shadowed expression.
“Emi is only there.” I gestured toward the pearl cart with one hand, adjusting the weight of the satchel on my arm. “I’m not a fool, and I didn’t mean to interrupt your time away from your nursemaid duties to the melder.”
Roark tilted his head, then replied with his fingers against my cheek. A secret delight of mine. A duty I enjoy.
He pulled his hand away as though he’d replied without thinking. The Sentry rubbed the back of his neck for a breath, then took note of the leather pouch filled with ribbons.
With a signal to the Stav Guard, he instructed them to take my things to my chamber.
Do you wish to return? he asked once the three guards had gone.
“No.” I allowed my eyes to flutter closed. Scents of baked breads and rosy skin oil, leather and a bit of woodsmoke. “I was going to beg Emi to stay a bit longer. I’d like to see the whole of the lower township.”
Roark glanced over my shoulder. You have been abandoned .
I followed the point of his finger. True enough, Emi’s tight, icy braids were nearing the bridge to cross over onto palace grounds. She held her own purchases, but waved wildly as she bid farewell. With the distance between us I couldn’t see her sly grin, but I could damn well feel it.
My insides twirled when I faced Roark again. “I should follow her, I suppose.”
He shifted on his feet for a breath. I can stay with you .
What was this new…pressure that always seemed to gather in wretched places near Roark Ashwood? Chest, head, and somewhere low, low in my belly. “Well, then, lead the way, my lord Sentry.”
He feigned irritation at the mock propriety in my tone and stepped into the flow of the market, keeping close to my side.
Strange, but folk in the market seemed to revere the Sentry more personally than the Stav Guard.
Old women slipped him more than one fresh herb roll or strip of seasoned venison. Carpenters and street sweeps waved and bid him a good day. Roark responded with respect and something gentle, but there was a touch of shyness in each dip of the head, each twitch of his mouth. Seemed the Sentry cared for the attention of others as much as me.
The sun hung low in the sky when we paused over a wooden bridge to eat a parcel of sugared nuts one of the merchants had practically shoved into Roark’s belt.
I popped a nut onto my tongue and spun around, so my back was against the rail of the bridge. “I never knew you were so beloved, Sentry Ashwood. It is you who slows our pace from all the greetings and well-wishes.”
He stared at the nuts, a bit of heat in his face. I’ll try to be crueler so I do not delay your market days in the future .
“See that you do.” I grinned and stole another nut from his palm. “Is Dravenmoor like this? Markets, trade, old women trying to pinch your ass when you pass by?”
Roark smiled, and a sort of grumble rose in the back of his throat—his laughter—a sound I could pick out of a boisterous hall by now. I was young when I was exiled, but I recall each Jul going into town, lining up with other children, and receiving a sweet stick if I had been well-behaved.
There was an ease to his features as he spoke of childhood, even with the proof of agony and pain carved into his flesh.
“Selena, a cook in Jarl Jakobson’s house, would take me out to the star plum trees when they bloomed. We’d spend half a day braiding flower crowns and eating berries, then she’d tell me I was the queen of the whole orchard.” I smiled with a touch of sadness, and looked down at the river below. “I think she did it to brighten my heart whenever noble folk spoke cruelly.”
Roark’s shoulder brushed mine when he leaned onto his elbows over the rail. Then you’ve known good people .
“Yes. Some of the servants took to looking after me and Kael more than others. Selena is always convinced water nyks or huldufólk are invading, but she is so gentle. Thorian is a groundskeeper and fisherman. He knew Kael would be forced to see his father disregard him over and over, but never spoke of Jarl Jakobson. Instead, he taught Kael to fish in rough seas, told him he was powerful and a good man.”
I paused, sparing a glance at Roark. His eyes were focused nowhere but on me. I tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. “I’m sure it seems rather simple, but when I could not show the truth of myself, it felt nice to be accepted for any piece of me, I suppose.”
Roark’s brows tugged together. He faced the river. His reply was slow, gentle. Whenever the Sentry responded—frantic, stiff and stern, or slow and calm—I imagined it like his voice might be. Brisk or soft. In this moment, I imagined it low and kind.
All pieces of you are not so bad.
“I think you nearly gave me a compliment, Sentry.”
You read my words poorly.
I laughed. “I read them perfectly.”
Roark stared over the rail of the bridge. Together, we reveled in silence for a time until he brushed a hand across my arm, drawing my attention. You are more than the scars in your eyes.
On instinct, Roark rubbed the line of puckered flesh on his throat.
Blood heated. I drifted nearer to his side, so our bodies touched from shoulder, hip, to legs. This close, I was surrounded by his strong oaky scent.
“You are more than the scars on your skin.” I shuddered when his eyes dropped to my mouth, unashamed.
Roark tilted his head. Heat and desire pulsed across my body. His mouth, full and parted, drew closer. A need to lean in, to taste him, throbbed low in my belly. I tilted my chin up, and our noses brushed, a whisper of a touch.
The gods-awful ram horn bellowed from the towers of Stonegate.
Roark blinked, his heavy breath heated my lips, then wretchedly slow, he pulled away. The Myrdan caravan has arrived.