Chapter 37
37
Lyra
Silken darkness whipped around me. The phantom of Skul Drek was a silent observer as I melded jagged bones to the Myrdan king’s knuckles.
The tether between us was stronger, but the first rope that led off somewhere deep in the shadows of the mirror land had shredded into something brittle and weak.
Skul Drek said nothing as I worked.
Hundur was vicious and he wanted it to be known. Seen as a threat. Instead of hidden soul bones, he insisted they be cracked into shards with points. A bone crafter was summoned, and he made quick work of shaping the soul bone piece into ten curved claws to be melded on his top knuckles.
I glanced at the assassin. There was no time to be demure. “Why does Damir want the Wanderer?”
Skul Drek shifted and his cold voice breathed against my ear. “Why tell you when you serve a Thief King?”
I had already inferred Damir was the Thief King. Truth be told, I found the title fitting. “I only find the bones for the king to strengthen his army.”
“Making him powerful.”
“That isn’t what I want.” Ribbons of darkness caressed my cheeks like cold fingers. “You seek to kill us on the other side of the mirror whenever I meld bones. What if I helped you, so you could leave us be?”
“You take a soul from its rest, I take one to replace it.” Skul Drek’s thin lips curled.
“You could stop.”
His sneer faded. “Not all is as it seems.”
“I’m sure it isn’t, but I do not want to be a pawn. Help me and no more souls will be taken from their rest.”
“Tell me why, Melder.”
I took a cautious step closer. “I think you might want to. I think…you don’t want to kill me. Do you?”
Skul Drek said nothing, but turned away, looking off into the darkness where his battered, splitting rope faded.
“Our desires align,” I said. “We could help each other. The king finding the Wanderer’s bones frightens you. Why? What would happen?”
Hot, crimson eyes locked with mine. Teeth clicked. A low rumble of a growl rattled from somewhere in his cloak of shadows. “The power of all. A new Wanderer, a lord over the lands. All the gods’ power would once more belong to one. A soul to corrupt, a soul to enslave, a soul to rule all.”
“Because soul bones from the Wanderer would have every vein of craft. Is that why? He was the last to have all three. Only melding had to be shown to him, a craft used for greed.”
Skul Drek hummed his agreement.
I faced another hooked claw, watching my fingers meld the golden hook to the gleam of Hundur’s form. “I don’t want Damir to have all the power. I want to be free. Perhaps you do, too, from whatever curse keeps you killing for the sake of soul bones.”
Half of Skul Drek’s face was hidden in darkness, like a mask of night, but his eyes flashed like he might’ve grinned. “You brighten the night, Melder.” A coil of shadows flicked the golden band between our hearts.
He spoke in riddles, but there was meaning underneath it all. I simply needed to discover it.
Another step closer. I could breathe in the salt and chill of his skin beneath the darkness. “I want to help. I don’t want any more deaths. I don’t want to die.”
Copper red deepened in his eyes. A coil of darkness wrapped around my throat, not enough to choke off air, but enough I could not move. I wasn’t certain I wanted to.
“Once you know, you cannot unknow. I speak the truth to you, then you cannot betray it.” His shadowed mouth brushed across my ear. I held my breath. “Or I will find you; I will end you. I will not be able to stop.”
“I want to know.”
Without a word, Skul Drek stepped back and sat atop a heap of darkness that could’ve been a mirrored chair or windowsill.
“The first king lies in places unseen.”
“Places?”
“Four.” Skul Drek spoke clearer, firmer. As though I were speaking to a simple man and not some spectral of a killer. “Four pieces to make the bearer the gods’ ruler of their craft. The arm, to swing the sword as the first king. The ribs, to wear his armor. The breast, to have his warrior’s heart. And the skull, to claim his wisdom.”
I pressed a hand to my stomach, ignoring the final two fingers of Hundur, and knelt in front of Skul Drek. “Are the bones of the Wanderer all here in Stonegate?”
Skul Drek clicked his tongue twice. “I do not know, but…some have felt close.”
Close could mean the damn fjord beyond the wall, for all I knew. “This is why your ravagers hunt the Stav. To slaughter them before anyone can stumble onto the Wanderer’s bones.”
“And to leave fewer warriors for the Thief King.”
“What if you’re wrong?” I said. “What if the Jorvan king is hunting only for soul bones to build his army? He rarely keeps them for himself. You might be slaughtering people for nothing.”
“So sure?”
I added another bone to the glow of Hundur’s hands. “No, I’m not sure, and that is the reason I’m asking you.”
“Should the Thief King find the power he seeks, those he has bound to new souls will bend the knee to their first king.”
“I don’t understand.”
Skul Drek hissed like I’d angered him. “The Wanderer’s soul commands all craft and it will bow to him. Soul bones are crafted, are they not? Manipulated and filled with a melder’s touch.” Skul Drek’s eyes turned a poisonous sort of red. “No crafted soul will be free of their king and all will bend the knee to the new Wanderer.”
Shit. King Damir was not simply crafting Berserkirs.
He was crafting an indestructible empire where no one could stand against him.
“I want to find the bones.” I lifted my gaze to Skul Drek. “I want to find them, so he never does.”
He cocked his head. “To hunt the bones you must take them. You will be hunted in turn.”
“Then stop.” My voice came sharp and edged in ice. “You are the one hunting and attacking us. Stop doing so and give me time to help.”
Mists billowed, hiding his eyes for a breath, then Skul Drek stood a pace away. “Not all is as it seems.”
Gods, I didn’t know how to do this. To find the bones, I needed to be connected to the dark mirror land. I needed to meld. Should I meld, Skul Drek seemed content to continue attacking as penance.
“Time grows short.” The assassin took a step away. A skein of darkness flicked the strange tether between us again. “I may find ways to stay my sword. Will you keep your word?”
I didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
His cold grin sliced through the shadows. “I suppose we shall see.”
The final threads tugged the hooked claw onto Hundur’s knuckles and, as though a rope fastened around my middle, I was pulled away.
I took another sip of the pungent tea. It tasted a great deal like sap and tree bark, but it softened the furrow of Roark’s brow and he eased back on the bench. If not for the Sentry insisting I’d exhausted myself from the use of my craft, I was certain Damir would’ve forced me to parade around the luncheons and game yard.
Hundur needed to reveal his new horrid claws, after all.
I was becoming a reminder that the Jorvan king had a weapon.
A weapon the Death Bringer saw as weak enough he forced fetid herbs down her throat, like a tonic on a deathbed.
“I’m fine, Roark,” I said, forcing a weak grin when he tapped the edge of the table again, a signal I needed to drink more.
You were entranced too long .
Entranced. It was a good way to put it. Emi always described my eyes as a glassy lake. Glazed over with a sheen they could not break through. Not until I was thrust out.
I winced through another sip. Part of me yearned to tell Roark the truth, of the conversation I’d had with a phantom of Skul Drek. Some sort of dark spell craft was at play.
It meant the phantom knew exactly where I was in both the mirror and the waking world.
But his threat of giving up what I knew would not leave me. Doubtless Skul Drek would make good on his threat to find me, to end me, should I betray him. Of course, he might betray me first because he was a killer at heart.
He might be using me to find the Wanderer for himself.
I returned the tin cup to the table, one half of my mouth twisted in a grin. Roark’s eyes heated, watching me as I drifted around the table and took a place at his side on the bench.
A muscle jumped in his jaw when my palm dropped to his thigh.
“Worried for me, Sentry?” My whole body was alive with a rush of desire. I was not one to be bold or licentious. Life had trained me well to be demure and unseen. When I realized what I’d done, I slowly drew back my hand.
Roark caught my wrist. His fingers came to my chin and tilted my head so I could meet his dark, golden eyes. He was close enough I could feel the deeper draws of his breath against my hair.
The rough tip of his thumb brushed over my cheek. Roark did not gesture or write a response, merely nodded and hooked an arm around my waist, urging my body closer.
Close enough I leveraged my legs on either side of his hips, straddling him.
My brow pressed against his. Roark dug his fingertips into my hips, lips parted. A dark groan rumbled against my body, and in this moment, whatever he asked of me I would do. I wanted to scream at him to command me, to take the whole of me.
I was overwhelmed, confused. I did not know how to stop the spinning that rotated around a man who should’ve been revolting, should’ve been an enemy.
Now I could not get my fill of him.
Roark held my gaze. One palm roved up the side of my waist, his long fingers touching every divot of my ribs. The other hand glided down until he reached the ruffled hem of my skirt gathered around my bent legs.
I hooked my arm around his neck, my fingers playing with the ends of his hair, and I watched as his hands disappeared beneath the folds of my skirt.
Everything slowed. His palm on my bare thigh drifted slower, drifted higher. My blood was molten. I couldn’t think.
For a man enrobed in darkness, he touched with a scorching gentility that drew out ragged breaths and embarrassing moans I could not stop if I tried.
Roark gripped my jaw in his palm, drawing my eyes back to him. He released me only long enough to say, Tell me to stop.
“We should.”
He nodded, but his hand remained under my skirt, his thumb drawing small circles on the sensitive skin of my inner thigh. This would not be accepted. King Damir’s prize with the prince’s personal guard would be seen as a distraction the king would not allow.
“We should stop.” My lips hovered over his. I adjusted my position on his lap, settling my core over his hardness. Roark hissed through his teeth, and his fingers dug into the flesh of my leg. I tilted my head, drawing my lips to his ear, and whispered, “But don’t you dare.”
A breathy sort of groan was all I was given before Roark kissed me. Where his touch had been gentle, his kiss was desperate. Fingers tangled in my hair, he pulled me closer. I clawed at his shoulders, gripped his tunic in fistfuls, circled his neck to allow me to lose myself in the feeling of his hard body.
His domineering mouth parted my lips and gave me the warmth of his tongue. He tasted like mint and heat. A fierce collision that tilted the ground beneath me.
A shudder of a gasp fell against his mouth when Roark’s fingers teased the line of the thin undergarments over my core. His eyes spoke a thousand words, a dark declaration to stop him was there, but underneath was a hope, a plea that I wouldn’t.
I clasped a hand around his wrist, guiding his palm to the slick heat of my center.
Roark breathed heavily against my skin, one finger touched me, teased me, then slipped inside me.
I bared my throat, wishing I could bite back the mortifying sounds. His hips bucked gently and the Sentry added a second finger.
I kissed him. The movement of his mouth spun my head in as much delirium as the curl of his wicked fingers. Roark’s mouth claimed my jaw, my throat, his teeth scraped over my skin. With his other hand, he tugged the sleeve of my dress off my shoulder and kissed me there.
I held the back of his head against my skin, my body arching into his touch, his tongue, his kiss.
I wanted to unravel him the way he was destroying me.
With one hand, I reached between us, gathering the latches of his trousers, but Roark pulled my hand away and shook his head. His eyes burned in a molten blaze when he opened his palm over my heart, patting the place three times.
A gentle declaration this moment belonged to me alone.
My neckline slipped low over my chest, barely shielding the peak of one nipple. Roark slid his fingers deeper inside, and his thumb rolled across the sensitive apex between my thighs, in the same moment his mouth found the swell of my breast.
His touch was too much, it stole my restraint, and I bucked my hips with every motion of his hand.
Roark grinned against my skin when I whimpered. Heat coiled taut in my lower belly. My thighs clenched. As though sensing the build, Roark lifted his head, holding the back of my neck, and crashed my mouth against his.
I broke.
Roark kissed me through the wave of my release. His name rolled over my tongue. He held me closer, pulsing his beautifully cruel fingers in and out of me, and in the same breath steadying me through the rush until my pulse slowed again.
One palm brushed over his flushed face. I traced the curve of his lips. He studied me, face unreadable.
What were we doing?
“I want to touch you,” I whispered, embarrassment heating my cheeks.
Roark’s eyes glistened with dark need. He seemed to consider the words, no doubt weighing the risks and worth of this, then gave me a slow nod.
The way I’d done to him, Roark guided my palm to the front of his trousers where his desire strained against the laces. I stroked him over his trousers for a moment, then reached for his belt. My palms settled on his thighs. “I have never done this, but will you…let me taste you?”
Roark’s jaw flexed. He took hold of my wrist and flattened my palm so he could speak across my skin. I do not expect it .
“I know,” I whispered. “I want to.”
His eyes heated. A small smirk teased the corner of his mouth. Roark gripped my chin with one hand, drawing my mouth close, but with the other he made certain I understood his every command. On your knees .
All gods.
I leveraged off his lap and lowered to my knees between his legs.
My fingertips slipped under the waist of his trousers. Heat swirled in my belly when I brushed over the taut crown of his length. I lifted my chin, taking note of the way Roark’s fist clenched when my fingers gently caressed back and forth.
One breath, another, and Roark readjusted on the sofa, helping me tug down his trousers. The ruddy length of his cock sprang free. I swiped my tongue over my lips, uncertain if I was bold enough.
I closed my eyes and sealed my lips around the tip.
A sort of rough cough broke from Roark’s chest. His hips bucked on instinct. With another groan, he let his head fall back, his fingers tangled in my hair, holding me in place when I took him in deeper.
I dragged my tongue along the underside of his length until he looked down at me with hooded eyes. Roark’s lips were parted; he was panting softly. What he did not speak with words, he said with touch. Every lick, every kiss, Roark would tighten his fingers in my hair, he would stroke his thumb across my cheek, my throat.
When he gently tapped my shoulder three times, then again, emotion knotted in my throat. Mine . He kept claiming me—Lyra—not the melder, but me.
And I wanted to claim him. Not the Sentry, not a brutal Draven, but Roark Ashwood.
The taste of his skin and musk pooled heat between my thighs. My tongue curled around the tip of his length. What I could not take in, I covered with my hand, stroking in tandem with my mouth.
One glance at the flush in his face, the way his body rocked with pleasure, and my core throbbed as I watched the desire written on his face. There was a wondrous power that came from knowing I brought those breaths from his lungs, that it was me he touched.
Roark thrust into my mouth deep enough I let out a strangled cough. He stilled, but I shook my head, gripping his thighs, a wordless command for him to never stop.
A moment longer and Roark frantically tapped my face, he tried to pull back.
I didn’t stop, not when his breaths were sharp and jagged. Not when he groaned and pressed his fists against his eyes, I wanted all of him and did not stop until his hot release was spent on my tongue.
When it ended, I pulled back, smiling and wiping my lips. Roark let his palms slide down his face, a heat to his skin. He cupped the back of my neck and pulled me over his exposed lap, kissing me, hard and deep.
“I want to—” Words were cut off by voices, laughter, and footsteps outside the door.
We froze for half a breath, then made quick work of untangling from each other. I shot to my feet. Roark refastened his belt and trousers, adjusted his tunic, and helped me with the sleeve of my dress.
He’d taken four swift paces away from me by the time a heavy knock pounded on the door and, without invitation, Kael strode inside.
“Oh, good. You’re back.” Kael looked between me and Roark, a glimmer of suspicion on his features. “I was going to wait for you. Emi asked me to help keep watch on the princess in the market. She thought you might want to join. If the Sentry agrees, of course.”
Roark was all warrior, all somber shadow once more.
“Princess Yrsa…wants me?”
Kael clasped his hands behind his back. “Seems most of the women are going to market today to commission gowns for the vow feast.”
“We just commissioned gowns not long ago.”
“Seems you get a gown for every occasion. I know little else except she thought you might want to join after dealing with that bastard Grisen. Apologies for my harsh words, Sentry Ashwood. But it’s true.”
“Oh.” I swallowed, forcing a smile, praying he could not see the flush to my face. “I, well, if it’s all right.”
I glanced to Roark, not truly asking his permission, more hoping we might find a way to continue whatever was happening here.
Kael’s smiled faded. “Well, it does come from the word of a princess, who you will likely be serving until we all have flesh sagging off our bones. Might be wise to befriend her early on.”
I knew the tone in Kael Darkwin’s voice. A tone he used often in the past whenever stable hands commented on my features, or if village boys tried to get me alone. Kael was always there with a warning in his eyes and threats at the ready should they be untoward in the slightest.
He was suspicious of us, protective of me, and now wary of a man he’d always respected.
Roark must’ve heard the same, since he moved for the door. Myrdan guards and Emi will be with you, I shall give you ladies time to yourselves and go see to the prince .
I wanted to tell him not to go, but in the same breath, feared if he remained, the way I could not cease looking at him would make it quite clear to the entire palace what we’d done here.
With a slight nod at Kael, Roark quit the room.
I bit the inside of my cheek and smoothed my dress. “Let me…just get a cloak.”
“Right.” Kael folded his arms over his chest, watching me disappear into the bedchamber.
When I returned, he was already standing in the open doorway. I forced a smile and pinched the back of his arm for good measure. “Shall we?”
“After you,” Kael said once we were in the corridor. “But you might want to let down your hair.”
I flipped my braid over my shoulder. “Why?”
Kael lowered his voice. “The Sentry left his bite behind.”