Chapter 4
Lyra
Something hooked around the rope tied to my waist and pulled me backward with such force, I tumbled to the ground.
I screamed when a man fell over the top of me, a Dark Watcher, his eyes wild like a blaze in the woods.
A knife was pressed to my throat as the hiss of his words loosed spittle against my cheek. “I will not have you in our borders. How the queen can stomach you near us, I do not understand. You are the cause of it all, the blood, the pain, the suffering. Dine in Salur, Melder!”
Short, jagged breaths lifted my chest; I fought the urge to scream again. Thoughts spun as the sharp sting of steel cut into my flesh.
Until the blade was ripped away.
Shadows, thick as a stormy midnight, encompassed my body. Familiar cold enrobed my shoulders, and glossy ribbons of darkness curled around my limbs. Through it all a pair of vicious copper-red eyes glared back at me.
Skul Drek.
Roark.
My hunter. My protector. My lover.
My liar.
In my time in the mirror realm, where I would go to meld the bones of the fallen, I’d grown accustomed to the sight of the phantom assassin. But to know, all this time, those otherworldly eyes belonged to the man who’d stolen my heart had changed it all.
Skul Drek slaughtered folk. He was wicked.
And he saved me.
More than once. The same as he was doing now.
Perhaps it would be wise to recoil, but instead I leaned in. The darkness cocooned me in a swirl of shadows, a taste of salt and smoke on my tongue. Protected. Shielded.
“Lyra!” Emi’s voice was distant.
Through the mists, I could make out Gunter stepping off the rope, back on our side of the ravine, then handing Emi off. She sprinted forward.
Without hesitation, she reached through the billows of shadows that made up the darker soul and had her slender arms wrapped around my shoulders.
“Gods, I saw Fillip…I tried to call out, but he moved so swiftly…” Emi didn’t finish, merely tightened her hold.
Little by little the dark coils of mists retreated. Through the fading remnants of his crueler soul Roark stepped through. The burn of gold in his eyes collided with the blaze of copper for a fleeting moment.
His jaw was taut, his fists curled. He spared one glance down to where I was wrapped in his cousin’s embrace, then looked to the Dark Watcher.
Fillip backpedaled, the knife still in his hold. “What did you expect? This was bound to happen sooner or later. I’m merely doing every damn kingdom a favor by getting on with it.”
Roark removed a knife from inside his boot.
“Don’t!” I tried to go to him, but he was already out of reach.
“Stop this!” Elisabet pushed between Dark Watchers near the ledge, but her son never even glanced her way.
Roark reached Fillip as the man raised his own knife, but he was no match for the Sentry of Stonegate, the Death Bringer. The moment Fillip went to strike, Roark buried his knife in the side of the warrior’s throat. No hesitation. No remorse.
I clapped a hand over my mouth and watched with a bit of horror as Roark twisted the blade and thrust it deeper into the man’s flesh.
Fillip’s eyes flew open. Blood fountained over his kohl-painted lips. His palms padded across Roark’s chest as though seeking a ballast in death.
Roark’s teeth were bared when he gave another fierce thrust of the blade until the tip of the point jutted out the opposite side of the man’s neck.
In the next moment, Roark tore the weapon from Fillip’s flesh, then stood by as the warrior crumpled at his feet.
Dead.
Roark wiped the blade of the knife clean on Fillip’s unmoving body, then spun on his clan, malice written in every line of his face. His hands gestured frantically.
Emi, her fingers still entangled with mine, cleared her throat. “Your prince demands that you look at this fallen soul.”
Roark’s hand speak was brisk and rage filled; it was loud and suffocating. Voice or not, the same as he’d done as Sentry, he commanded terror-lined silence.
The man was a godsdamned force.
Emi barreled on, more boldness in her own tone. “His vow—not a threat—is simple: touch the melder, and you meet the gods. No questions.”
Elisabet’s brilliant eyes darkened, but I did not think her frustration was entirely pointed at me. More like she was frustrated with her son and would have words with him later.
A Dark Watcher with a fox fur draped over his head stepped forward. “Why don’t you tell our lost prince—”
“I do not need to tell him anything, Ofan,” Emi snapped. “He speaks with his hands but has ears as he always did.”
Ofan glared at Roark. “You are not king. Yet. Do not blame your exile on your clan. You would’ve rejoined us, lived among us, if only you’d done your duty and killed that.
” The warrior pointed at me, hand trembling.
“Yet you slaughter your own folk to keep it breathing. After all that was lost, you chose the melder. King Vishon would be ashamed to call you a son.”
If I’d not been so near to Roark, I would have missed his flinch at the vicious retort. Still, he did not step away; he did not look ashamed.
Roark grinned. If I am a disappointment already, why not seal it by making my loyalty known?
With slow, prowling steps, Roark returned to Fillip’s corpse and soaked his palm in the fountain of blood still leaking from the man’s neck.
“No. That is enough,” Elisabet said through her teeth.
Her son ignored her. Blood on his fingers, his hands, Roark washed the whole of his face in Fillip’s gore. Great gashes of sticky red over his frightening smile.
A few gasps and grumbles filtered through the Dark Watch. They were Draven, the wild, bloodthirsty folk. I did not understand why a bit of blood affected them so.
I tucked myself closer to Emi’s side and watched Roark drag blood down his lips, through his hair, and across his chest, staining his tunic. It was a glimpse of the darker pieces of his heart bleeding through, the depravity that was meant to make up Skul Drek, and I could not look away.
Truth be told, if I had questions about whether I could love Roark Ashwood despite the lies and omitted truths, this moment proved the sharper, crueler pieces of him stirred my soul as much as the gentle.
I did not know what sort of fiend that made me.
“He is shaming Fillip,” Emi whispered. “Draven folk hold a great deal of respect for the dead. They honor their souls and will often paint belongings in blood for their souls to visit loved ones.”
“He is washing himself?”
“It is a sign of disrespect. To bathe in the blood of the fallen shows you revel in their death, you spurn any hope they will find peace. You invite their soul to you so you might torment them even as they dine in Salur. He is marking Fillip as his enemy for what he did to you.”
Roark finished coating his skin in Fillip’s blood and brazenly walked over the body, stepping on his remains like he was nothing but a fallen tree.
Gods, why must he be so grotesquely wonderful? He’d killed a man on my behalf in Stonegate; now he’d done it again.
I did not know if Roark’s brutality would fill the cracks of mistrust in my heart entirely. But for a moment, I stepped nearer to him, stood straighter. A show of support for a man who killed without mercy.
My ally. My protector. My villain.
He raised his hands, still grinning, and spoke to the warriors. Vishon made me. You all made me. But tell me, Ofan, will you kill me? Perhaps you have already killed a prince.
Emi blinked a few times before finishing the translation. Elisabet shot a glance at Ofan.
The man faltered, his eyes narrowed at Roark. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Roark laughed. Raw, breathy, his voiceless laugh. Let us hope that is true.
Ofan’s disdain fell back to me. “I’m merely saying what we’re all thinking. The deledan rite was done to rid the land of melders, now we’re embracing one. Fillip was loyal. Merely doing what you didn’t have the damn stones to do.”
He didn’t wait for Roark to respond before shoving his way back into the crowd of the Dark Watch.
Elisabet blew out a rough breath. Near her side she cracked one knuckle, but after a moment, the queen stepped forward. “We keep going. All these…disputes will be dealt with in our courts.”
She flashed a single glance at where Fillip’s corpse remained and pushed to the front of the line.
Emi let her shoulders slump. “Remember how I told you I missed the wildness of Dravenmoor?”
I nodded, unable to tear my attention from Roark’s profile.
“Well.” Emi shouldered her satchel. “I think I spoke too soon.”
Roark wheeled around to us. I will be called to answer for this when we reach the gates. You two are never to be parted, understand?
Emi shook her head. “You know he’ll be searching for me the instant we return.”
And his position does not surpass mine.
I could only assume they spoke of Emi’s father.
“Listen.” Gunter approached, one hand rubbing his chin as he cautiously peered at Fillip’s body. “I know you don’t think much of us anymore, and I’m trying not to be offended and such, but I’d like it if half the clan didn’t end up slaughtered by your blades.”
Roark glared at Gunter, waiting in dark silence for the man to continue.
“I’m only saying, when you’re called into the úlfur to be reprimanded, I’ll see to it they’re both secure until you return.”
“What is the úlfur?” I whispered to Emi.
“Draven council. Brutal warriors who live by their rituals and laws. They are the councilmen who oversaw Roark’s soul rend to create the deledan—Skul Drek, I mean.”
Liquid heat burned under my skin. I despised the lot of them without even meeting any.
“Believe it or not, my prince,” Gunter went on, “some of us didn’t stand for what was done to you.”
Emi scoffed as though she didn’t believe a word.
“A lot changed after you left, Nightlark. We grew up. Understood more.” Gunter’s words were firm, steady. “We’ve merely been waiting for the end of your sentence locked with some sodding prince and the damn Jorvan king.”
My heart cracked a little thinking of Prince Thane. No mistake, Roark felt a great deal more than he let on about his betrayal of the man. Yes, they were meant to be enemies, but they were brothers, as true as if they shared blood.
And Roark had abandoned his friend—his brother in all ways that mattered—to chaos and danger in Stonegate…to save me.
Unbidden, I gripped Roark’s wrist. Tension flowed in his forearm, but at my touch, his breaths eased.
Gunter let out a heavy sigh. “Come on. You may have no choice but to trust me. Let me at least try to prove it’ll be worth it.”
After a moment of hesitation, Roark adjusted so his fingers slipped through mine, urging us forward to where the ropes to cross the ravine awaited.