Chapter 16
Lyra
My pulse wouldn’t stop racing. The steady thud echoed in my skull when I followed Roark to the center of the room.
Gunter was half dressed, his hair a little wild, and there was a red raised mark on the side of his neck that seemed made by teeth. In this moment, he fit the feral reputation of the Draven clan.
A piece of me did not want to trust him easily, but when Gunter flashed me a grin, for a moment, my heart slowed.
“Melder, you’ll stand here.” He positioned me in front of his shoulder, facing Roark. “I suppose I ought to stop calling you melder since you’re my future queen.”
Blood drained from my face, noticeable enough that Brynn and Emi chuckled at our backs.
“Remember? You stole my crown.” Brynn twirled a lock of hair around her finger.
I looked over my shoulder. “I…I haven’t the slightest idea how to be…anything like a queen.”
Three slow squeezes to my palms drew me back to Roark’s piercing regard. He turned one of my hands palm up and spoke. Nor do I.
“You were born to royalty.”
But have lived apart in the role of Sentry. I never expected to survive Stonegate long enough to inherit my title.
My throat tightened. Roark planned to die as Sentry?
No doubt he expected that if ever he slaughtered the king’s precious melder, he would be executed.
Damir held no qualms about placing Roark on his front lines.
If he survived punishment, I had few doubts Roark anticipated falling in battle one day.
To imagine a world where he was not here sent sick waves to my insides.
I returned the pulse of a squeeze to his hand, a silent way of telling him I was glad to be standing here. With him.
“All right, let us begin.” Gunter’s eyes fluttered closed. He paused for a heartbeat, another, then his eyes snapped open. The blaze of his lavender eyes shifted to a rich shade of indigo. “A drop of blood for aligned minds. May your thoughts and dreams always find a way to unite on the same path.”
I jolted when Brynn tapped the hilt of a knife against my arm.
“You’ll need to cut your palm,” she whispered.
I blinked. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Didn’t even explain the ceremony to her?” Gunter clicked his tongue at Roark and took the knife. “There will be three cuts for each of you. Tell me, Meld…Lyra, you’re not queasy when it comes to the taste of blood, are you?”
“I…don’t know.”
“I suppose we’ll find out together.” Gunter leveled the point of the knife against my palm, sliced a shallow cut, then guided my palm to Roark.
I froze. Without looking away, Roark lifted the gash to his lips and licked a drop away. I had no time to think on it before Gunter did the same and I was urged to take a bit of Roark’s blood on my tongue.
Where I anticipated the sharp tang, instead there was a bite of heat, like a hidden spice settled onto my tongue.
Gunter cleared his throat and went on. “Another drop for united hearts. May your desires and passions belong to each other always.”
Again, Roark’s blood fell onto my tongue the same as he took mine.
The spice and heat intensified, flowing from my mouth down my throat.
I stepped closer to him, some force, some need, urging me to feel him, breathe him in.
Roark seemed to feel something much the same.
One of his palms drifted from my hands to my waist, to his fingertips touching every divot on my spine.
“For the final draw”—Gunter took my other hand—“the drop for entwined souls. May your love, your life, and your death be bound together into the long halls of Salur.”
My fingers trembled when I placed my palm to Roark’s lips.
When it was my turn, the moment I licked the drop of blood off his skin, a shudder racked my body.
I braced against his chest, desperate to touch him.
A feeling so fierce, so consuming, enveloped me until it seemed there would be no relief if I did not crack open his chest and nestle inside his ribs.
Somewhere inside me was a heat unlike any I’d felt, not harsh like an unforgiving sun, but gentle, intoxicating. A tug and a stitch, a pull and a jab, it felt as though threads replaced my veins and a loom worked them nearer, tighter, against Roark’s body.
Perhaps he felt much the same, for in the next moment, Roark’s hand abandoned my hips and spine and gripped the back of my neck, holding my brow to his. He drew in a long breath, his jaw tense, as though the same need devoured him.
Soft laughter filled the room. Gunter placed a hand on my shoulder and one on Roark’s, urging us to part, and I was not certain I could recall a time when I yearned to kill a man so fiercely.
He grinned. “I must secure the weave of your souls, then you can have your way with him. Right now they are completely bared to each other, and it can be intense.”
I would not call the fire engulfing me intense. It was staggering.
With another long draw through his nose, Gunter pressed one palm against the place over my heart and his other over Roark’s. He closed his eyes. “As I weave them together, it helps keep them clear in my craft if you speak your own vows.”
Roark’s eyes burned like embers. He wasted no time before he had one palm against my cheek. You brighten the night, you brighten my soul, and you have from my first glance. I swear I will try each day to do the same for you.
The sting of tears blurred my sight. I covered his palm on my face. “You are my hunter, my protector, my lover. I swear to you, all that I have in my heart will be yours.”
Another pull yanked me forward, like a hook beneath my breastbone. The sensation was fierce enough that I let out a rough cough. Gunter did not open his eyes, merely placed the palm that had been on my chest on Roark’s, then did the same to me.
“Keep going,” he said, his voice so low I almost missed the command. “I am all at once realizing a split soul takes more intricate weaving.”
Roark touched his thumb to my lip. To love you is my honor, my privilege.
I did not need to look at his palms. His words stunned me, a shock to the heart. I was lost in them, never noticing the shift of the room, the way warm air turned frosted.
“I swear to choose you, Melder. Your soul remains bright over the rest.”
All gods. Skul Drek held my burning face in his cold palms.
Between us the threads of gold split and spread, like a dozen ribbons binding every part of me to every shadow of him.
The gold sank deeper into my shoulders, my throat, my chest, my middle.
From the darkness, I could make out Gunter’s glowing shape, moving and adjusting the bonds. Almost the same way I melded bone.
I stepped against Skul Drek, nestling into his darkness. I placed a palm beneath his cowl, touching the icy mist of his face. Here, in the mirror, he was not the same as he’d been in the bedchamber. He was a phantom, but he was mine.
“I promise that with what we face, there is no one I wish to stand beside more than you,” I said. “For you alone, I would give my soul. It was always yours.”
Filaments binding me to Skul Drek burned between us. A thousand ropes of golden steel, unbreakable, unmovable. I was his, he was mine. Always.
When the mists of the mirror began to fade, I rose onto my toes and pressed my lips to the cold shadows of his face until warmth replaced the cool air and Roark’s tongue brushed with mine, again and again.
Light returned, the gleam of the bond fastening us together faded, but the power remained. A draw unlike any I’d felt before cleaved me to Roark Ashwood. It was not forced, and I knew it.
Strange, but should I choose it, I knew I would be free to walk away. The thought simply made me want to retch.
Roark’s fingers dug into my hair, tousling my braid. He kissed me fiercely for another breath, then pulled away, breathing deeply.
My hands rested against the stubble of his face, my brow pressed to his, and I could not stomach the idea of not touching him.
Until a throat cleared, and I realized that we had unknowingly smashed half of Gunter’s body between our chests. With a touch of reluctance, I pulled back, but kept one hand laced with Roark’s.
“Many thanks.” Gunter faced the others, arms open. “I present our newest sjeleven bond. And with such a bond, our newest member of the clan, Lyra.”
Emi bounced on her toes, then rushed over to where we stood. Her arms were slim, but she managed to hook one around each of our necks, squeezing me and Roark against her.
“I hoped from the earliest days this would happen.” Emi patted Roark’s face. “You deserve it, cousin. Perhaps you’ll learn to smile a bit more.”
Roark only scowled in return.
Eyes wet, Emi took hold of my hand. “You are Draven now, Ly. You are my folk. I love you as I’d love any sister.”
A sting built behind my eyes when I embraced her again. Draven. I was not only a melder, not a Jorvan servant. I was now a Draven by bond. To the damn royal house.
Gods, how the twisted Norns spun their webs of fate.
Gunter glanced at our bound hands and wiggled his fingers. “Now let us see.”
Roark unfurled his hand from mine and lifted our fingers.
My eyes widened. Soft, nearly iridescent bands of gold flashed over our skin, dainty runes that glowed like the first spark of a flame.
When the light faded into my skin, a sharp bite followed, but the rune marks still glistened over our flesh.
I shook out my palms, and Roark clenched his fists.
At long last the sting faded, and Gunter barked a laugh. “Took straightaway. Not that I doubted. Good gods, I have never been connected to such a bond. The only trouble came with that damn deledan. Skul Drek seemed to want you only for himself, Lyra.”
I arched one brow. “I am his if I am Roark’s.”
“He saw it differently.” Gunter lifted our hands to the others.
Brynn beamed at us. Auki gave a small applause. Emi wiped her eyes with the heel of her palm.
Gunter shook our hands. “Sealed as mates of the soul, in this life and the next.”