Chapter 12 #2
This almost felt normal, like nothing had happened to drive a cruel, bloody wall between us.
But our lives were never destined to be normal.
My smile faded and I spoke with one hand. There are things I must tell you. And I’m almost certain you’re about to get angrier with me.
“Not a promising start.” Lyra sat on the corner of the bed, releasing the pillow she embraced, and folded her hands in her lap. “What happened with the council?”
I made it clear I was no longer their creature.
The word pinched her face. “You are not a creature.”
I dragged a dusty chair to the place in front of her and sat, leaning forward with my elbows on my knees. My hands formed the words in the space between us. Did you not once think the same?
“Only because I did not know my craft, nor understand why I was pulled into the darkness.” A new gleam of fire burned in her silver scars.
“Or do you not recall the night I confessed all my truths to you? I admitted I was captivated by the assassin of Dravenmoor. In that moment, why did you not tell me the truth?”
I wanted to. Each gesture was brisk, a sign of the shouts, the anger, the hate for what I was. A voice she could not hear, but one I hoped she could feel. I shook my head and slowed my hands. Perhaps I ought to have tried. I was certain I did not have full control, and feared…
When my words stalled, Lyra’s face softened. “Feared what?”
I feared my clan would come for you directly if they knew I’d confessed the great Draven scheme to the melder.
They would know the chains keeping me under their command had severed.
I shook my head and shot to my feet, pacing as I spoke.
Not that any of it mattered. They have come for you, and now we are here.
Lyra’s chin dropped. “Could you truly not sense that your soul was not so divided anymore?”
How could I explain any of it? From living a life knowing a piece of my existence could be commanded to slaughter souls, leaving folk helpless to the blades of the Dark Watch, to sensing the severed pieces being stitched together, little by little, the longer I was near this woman.
I lowered to one knee in front of her, hesitated for a breath, then took her palm in mine.
She did not pull away.
Against her hand, I gestured, I knew I felt whole near you, and I did not understand it. All my life I was told that a soul rend left the split soul under the control of the render until the end.
Her fingers curled around mine. “A soul render. Are there many folk with such craft here?”
I shook my head. Only the queen.
Lyra blanched. “Your mother controlled you?”
Elisabet of Dravenmoor no longer made much sense to me. Not after our interaction and the conflicting emotions of icy indifference and passionate devotion when speaking of her family.
She did. I held Lyra’s gaze. And I was not the first.
She tugged on the ends of her hair, glancing toward the window. “Emi mentioned you were not the first Skul Drek, but I did not realize the same person controlled them all. Who else?”
There are sagas and records of split souls over the centuries, but the only other one done at the hands of my mother was my father.
“The king? And you knew this?”
I didn’t for much of my time in Stonegate, but the more control I regained of my soul, the more memories were restored.
She nodded. “You know it was the same for me as well.”
Much like mine, Lyra’s memories of the raids and her past were shadowed. Hers were darkened by Nivek’s craft, mine because of the curse of a divided soul.
Now I remember knowing my father protected the fallen souls in a world we could not see with our eyes.
I rose and took a place beside her on the bed.
Since the first Jorvan king used soul bones for corruption, Draven folk have used soul craft to stop them.
Most attempts came through forced bonds, usually during battles.
Some soul craft can bind souls to souls. They are called soul weavers.
“How?”
I wore a grin with little humor in it. Bring a man to the brink of death, and he will give nearly anything to live a little longer.
“And these soul weaver bonds would keep them alive?”
For a moment. Forced bonds are not favored; they’re dangerous.
To possess or overtake another soul is against Draven law.
But it was an evil the clan believed necessary at the time.
Most would command the bonded Jorvans to slaughter their own folk.
Then soul weavers would release their souls, letting them die as they should’ve before.
“I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
Jorvans retaliated, I went on. To avoid soul weavers, they learned that by creating Berserkirs, not only would they have impenetrable warriors, but weavers could not bond with so many souls melded to one Berserkir.
Lyra drew her knees against her chest. “I think I understand. Because of the Berserkirs, Dravens needed to find a way to protect the souls of the fallen from being used. And they believed the answer was to split souls, even knowing the risks. It’s written plainly in Tales of the Wanderer what happens when a soul is split. Blood is claimed.”
Yes. I patted my neck over the scar that robbed me of my voice. It requires sacrificing something through the blood spilled to divide the soul.
“Did your mother know that using her craft in such a way was the answer? Or was it always a risk?”
Berserkirs were crafted before my father was king, but for seasons, Dravens scoured lore to find the answer and read about other divided souls. It was only after my father was king that they determined splitting souls again was a necessary risk.
“How convenient his wife was a soul render.”
I scoffed softly. I’m told some took it as a sign from the Norns.
“Why the king? Why not others?”
I once thought it was that because my mother and father had a soul bond, it was believed there would be less risk.
But I am not sure any longer, for it shattered the bond.
I cracked one knuckle before going on. I remember being told by my brother that our clan insisted on taking such a risk because we had to protect the strongest souls.
“You mean the Wanderer specifically.” Lyra’s voice was soft, but a bit of a thrill lived in her tone. As though she could not help but revel in the idea of learning more about a past we’d only begun to recall. “Skul Drek was the one who told me Damir was hunting the bones, which means you knew.”
I nodded. When you were lost after the raids, I was placed in Stonegate to await any hint you still lived. It was believed so fiercely that should you aid in the hunt of the bones, Damir would find them.
Lyra’s chin trembled. It seemed as though she held back words, likely the truth that I was placed in the Jorvan royal keep to kill her.
She cleared her throat and looked down at her fingernails. “When did the Dravens learn the truth about the Wanderer’s bones?”
I was only a boy. I stilled my hands for a moment.
The truth would be another layer of mistrust for Lyra.
Or perhaps it might give her clarity to every thread of wretched fate that tore apart both our lives.
A seer woman from the Unfettered clans left the Night Ledges to speak to my father after she saw something horrid in the future of all clans.
“She would’ve risked her life to do so.”
I nodded. I was eight seasons when she came. My folk listened to her tale of the hunt for the Wanderer’s bones, but she told them more. She spoke of you.
“Me? She saw me?”
I took hold of her hand again, using her open palm to form my words. I was told she spoke of a melder, a girl, hidden in the lands. A melder as strong as the god-queen.
Lyra’s eyes narrowed when I did not go on. “I feel like you’re not telling me everything. I swear it, Roark, if you keep secrets from me—”
Her words faded to a sharp gasp when I gripped her chin between my thumb and fingers, drawing her mouth close to mine. A slight movement to one side and I would taste those lips again.
I raised one hand to her cheek, speaking slowly, carefully. There is more. The seer told my folk that this melder would destroy the lands.
Lyra swallowed, her breaths deepened. “The raids.”
My thumb brushed over the edge of her chin. The raids are not on you, and they were not the destruction of which she spoke. They were done to prevent it.
“No.” Lyra pulled back enough to drag her fingers through her hair. “I am not as powerful as a legendary queen.”
I tugged on her wrist. The seer knew your potential strength. And you are stronger than Fadey.
“Yes, and he wants my damn bones because he believes the same.”
Fadey was a mystery in many ways. I could not shake the unease that there was more to his desire for Lyra.
I spoke gently over her palm. The seer cared for you.
“What do you mean?”
I swallowed. You knew her. She was with you as an Unfettered servant.
“No.” Lyra’s face pinched. “Gammal?”
Lyra had mentioned the old woman who’d cared for her before she was taken to work in the household of Jarl Jakobson. A woman who’d given an orphaned child a bit of kindness.
I nodded. After she left her meet with my father, Gammal sent word that she would not be returning straightaway to the Unfettered lands over the Night Ledges. She insisted that if ever there came a time when we had need of her, we call upon her.
“But Unfettered Folk don’t have craft. Gammal told me.”
I don’t know much about their clans. But whatever her gifts were, they convinced my mother and father that she spoke true. The words were not spoken as hatred for you, merely to warn folk what was coming.
“Gammal.” Lyra bit down on her bottom lip as small, jagged gasps rolled from her chest. “She…she told me to keep hidden, taught me to use the dyes. She taught me all I knew of craft. Gods. All that death during the raids came from the fear of one woman’s word.”
Lyra shot to her feet and paced in a bit of frenzy.
I followed her panicked steps, slid one arm around her waist, and pulled her back to my chest. I moved my words against the place over her heart.
It was a game of power, Lyra. Dravens wanted you dead, Myrdans wanted to study your blood, and Jorvans wanted you to find the bones of the first king. It was not on you.
She spun around, her eyes bouncing between mine. “So after Gammal’s predictions about my craft, your mother and father took drastic steps to protect the soul bones by splitting the king’s soul?”
Yes. There was no need to mince words. The clan believed that with the Jorvans’ hunt aimed at the Wanderer, we had to do something equally monstrous.
“So your father became a divided soul. Your brother was assassinated. You lost your clan and your voice.” Lyra stood at my shoulder, a shadow over her features. “Why do you defend me, Roark? All my existence has ever done is cause you pain.”
I lifted her hand and pressed her palm to the steady thrum of my heart. Because this lives for you.
She blinked, and a single tear fell from her lashes. Her fingers curled around my tunic. “Will you tell me of your father and how such a burden is now yours?”
I did. I spoke slowly, at times even tore bits of parchment to be certain not a word was missed, despite Lyra insisting she had no trouble.
The tale was gruesome, and I despised the whole of it. I told her how Vishon was torn in two by the soul render, a rite so vicious it destroyed the vows of his sjeleven bond with my mother.
I did not have a sealed bond with Lyra, only a thread, but even so, I could not imagine doing anything to harm her or risk severing it.
My jaw tensed. I will never trust the queen entirely because of it. To destroy such a bond is believed to cause the same greed and bloodlust that befell the first king.
“Did your father lose his voice too?”
I shook my head. His mind. There is always something taken. My father suffered delusions. There were times he recognized us. But the longer he was divided, the less we had him. The crown fell upon my mother’s head in his absence.
“By the gods.” For a long pause, Lyra was silent. “If the queen did so much before, there is no telling what she will do now.”
She won’t touch you.
“I know you want to believe that,” Lyra said, “but she tore apart her own husband, Roark.”
I own her soul. I leaned closer to Lyra, the tips of my fingers running along her jaw as I spoke. She made a vow, soul to soul, to never bring harm to you. Should she break it, I will turn her into nothing.
Lyra’s brows raised. “Why would she agree to it?”
She knows of Fadey. She knows we hunt the Wanderer’s bones ahead of him and plan to destroy them.
Understand, Lyra, I have not forgotten nor will I forget Darkwin.
And we will go after him, but the bones are what Fadey needs most. We must find a way to leave here, but the queen is not confident anyone will let you leave once word of Damir’s death reaches the clan.
“So what are we to do? Wait until someone kills me in my sleep?”
I could not put off my plan a moment longer. Lyra would either mock me openly, flee from me, or…agree. There is a way to make you untouchable to all Draven folk. By law. It is stronger than a vote of a council.
“Is this the part where I will get angrier?”
Heat prickled up my neck. Likely. But it is a legitimate way to keep you safe.
Lyra folded her arms over her chest. “What is it?”
One breath, two. Seal our bond.
“What would that do?”
As I said, it is sacred to my folk. If someone kills one half of a sealed bond, the punishment is execution. If we complete—or seal—our bond, to kill you would mean they die too.
Lyra blinked. “Unless the council agreed with their actions.”
Not on this. It would take you doing something horrendous, like murdering the queen, or me, or half the clan.
She arched a brow. “I’m supposed to believe that if people are bonded, they are safe from punishment because their bond is so sacred.”
I grinned. No. Many a ravager is bonded, I’m sure.
They are sent to fight, where they die or live if the Norns smile upon them.
A law is enforced should anyone slaughter an innocent who is bonded.
You are innocent, and the council knows it.
They know melders are forced to use soul bones.
But you are here now, no longer forced to serve the Jorvans.
If anyone were to harm you for merely having melding craft, it would be my right to kill them.
They know after Fillip I would not hesitate.
“If I do this,” she began, voice soft, “seal the bond, what exactly does that make me to you?”
For a long, drawn moment I did not make a gesture.
Then, You’ll be my wife.