Chapter 19
Roark
“You sent the two archers to slaughter the melder, Asmund,” Emi relayed, her voice low.
Asmund’s eyes went wide. “Of course not. I’ve no power over the Dark Watch.”
My grin widened. Slivers of darkness peeled off my skin, like a true shadow emerging from under my flesh.
Asmund cried out when the skeins of black wrapped around his wrist, dug into his bones. I closed my eyes, breathing deeply, letting the beast I kept inside taste the guilt on this bastard’s soul.
I flashed my teeth when more inky night clawed into Asmund’s body, tasting, slicing, hating. The councilman began to sob when the deledan soul engulfed him.
“Roark.” Elisabet clapped a hand on the table.
I held up a hand, silencing the queen to a few murmurs of the council. In the next breath, I pulled back the vicious night, commanding the splintered pieces of my soul to retreat.
When the murky shadows no longer blotted out the light of the room, I spun on the queen. His guilt burns in his soul. Dark Watchers gave up his name as the one who spoke the order, defying you.
Emi translated my words to my mother in a brisk whisper.
Little by little, the queen’s eyes deepened with her own anger.
She cast a narrow look at Asmund. “Speak the truth, Asmund, and if you have done this thing, you will be offered a warrior’s death so you might greet Salur with honor.
Deceive us, and your soul will be marked for the hells. He can sense turmoil in your soul.”
For a long breath, Asmund said nothing, merely kept one fist clenched over the table, scanning the úlfur as though they might come to his aid.
Not even Virki spoke for him.
At long last, Asmund let his shoulders slump. “I believed your word to be misguided, my queen. I believed our borders to be vulnerable should Jorvandal attack. I sent the archers. A melder’s craft is too dangerous to live among us.”
The queen’s jaw pulsed, but with a wave of her hand, two Dark Watchers were summoned and Councilman Asmund was led from the chamber, chin high, subtle prayers to the gods to open the gates of Salur to his soul.
I followed his every step, locked in a desperate need to darken his soul, to cut open every bit of flesh before, at last, sending him to the gods.
A hand clapped on my shoulder. Gunter offered a grin. “Let the clan have the honor of disposing of a traitor. It will be done.”
A subtle way, no mistake, for my boyhood friend to urge me not to spill more Draven blood.
The council was silent for a long while.
Yanson cleared his throat. “This council was never meant to be made up of traitors. We vowed to always serve the best interests of our folk and follow our queen’s word.
May Asmund meet the gods in humility for his error.
” After a few murmurs of prayers from other councilmen, Yanson went on.
“As Asmund mentioned, concern for Jorvandal taking back the melder is a legitimate issue. I suggest she is proffered freedom to move about the palace grounds but not to leave the borders of the royal land.”
I ground my teeth together. This had been expected. The refusal to allow Lyra to leave the walls was a nuisance but one we’d need to find a way around should we ever find whatever was hidden over the Night Ledges.
“I agree with Yanson,” said Kaysar, the twins’ father. “She’ll be protected here with her clan.”
A vein pulsed in my uncle’s neck when he spun on the queen. “You accept this bond, Bet? You trust it?”
Coils of darkness wrapped around Lyra on instinct, ready to pull her away should the queen falter on her own vow.
Elisabet considered Virki’s protestations for a moment. “I am never one to speak against a bond, but I can see the úlfur is discontent. So we must make our next moves with the majority word. Agreed?”
A few mumbled words of acceptance rolled down the table. Virki’s face was a shade of red like a setting sun.
“What does that mean?” Lyra whispered.
They will vote. I gestured the words briskly, jaw set. We knew this would happen.
“If they vote our bond is forbidden…” She looked to me. “I’ll fight if you will.”
Unbothered if any of the council saw, I pressed her knuckles to my lips and tucked her against my side.
“From witnesses, we know the prince and the melder fashioned a bond long ago,” the queen said. “Even with our…efforts to dissolve the connection, it was restored again. A feat believed to be impossible.
“The melder made Berserkirs for the Jorvans, a crime to our clan. Then again, she stood against them, without their knowledge, and aided the deledan soul in a scheme to find the Wanderer’s bones at the risk of her own life.
Those are the truths we know. Speak your thoughts on these truths only. I will hear you now.”
My chest felt too tight to even take a breath as one by one the council cast votes. Virki and Sampson gave resounding votes against us, but so did four others. I memorized them all, marking their features, embedding the taste of their souls to my own cruelty.
Next, Yanson sighed, attention on the table.
“We are a strong clan. We do not fight for glory or prestige. We fight for our folk, for our love.” With a clap to the edge of the table, Yanson looked me in the eye.
“I stood against the soul rending a dozen full seasons ago and was overruled. Once again, I stand with you, my prince. And you, My Lady Lyra.”
Lyra’s cheeks filled with a splotchy red, but she gave a jerky nod. Five more after Yanson.
Six stood against us. Six stood with us.
The final word belonged to the queen. Elisabet smoothed her hands down her gown and looked to me. “I have nothing to say, save for who am I to stand in the way of fate?”
Virki’s fist clenched over the table. “Elisabet—”
She held up a hand, silencing him again. “My son has taken a wife. And she is now of Dravenmoor.”
Those who stood with the queen and Yanson pounded fists over their chest. Those who had been overruled overturned their drinking horns, spilling out the ale or wine onto the floorboards. Nearly as one, they placed the horns on their sides, then pressed fists to their chests much the same.
A symbol of being overruled, but accepting the word of the clan.
All except Virki.
My uncle rounded the table to my mother’s side. I shoved Lyra behind me, but Virki stopped his pursuit ten paces away.
He jabbed a finger at my mother. “This will do nothing but put our people at risk. Lives were lost to see to it melding craft never infected Dravenmoor again.”
“I’m wholly aware of those who died, Virki.” The queen lifted her chin in a touch of defiance. “The woman is part of my household now, and she will be afforded the titles, the protection, and the respect proffered to this house.”
It took a moment, but Virki sniffed and nodded. “Very well. As you see to your house, I am within my rights to see to mine. I demand my wife’s daughter be returned to my household.”
“No.” Lyra reached for Emi, who’d gone pale as the frosts.
The queen’s face did not flinch. “You still claim her after she left that scar on your throat?”
“I’m sure I’ll find uses for her.”
I would kill him before he harmed Emi again. The memory of finding my bony cousin outside Stonegate—five of her fingers broken, bruises across her jaw, both eyes so bloody in the whites I could not make out her true color, and gaps of her pale hair missing—was still burned across my brain.
One spot still did not grow new hair, and Emi had learned to braid it in such a way that her scalp was concealed.
Elisabet let her shoulders slouch. “She is of your household, and it is customary for daughters to live in the houses of their birth if they do not have one of their own. Unless, of course, she was positioned elsewhere.”
Gods. Was the queen truly relenting to this?
Brynn held up a hand. “There is no lady for the prince’s new wife, my queen.”
Virki shuddered in unbridled rage. “You would be wise not to speak again, Oakbriar.”
“And you would be wise to not threaten my daughter.” Kaysar glared at Virki over the lip of his drinking horn.
Kaysar was brutal, but so was Virki. Brynn was taking a fierce risk. When she looked back, I shook my head. My uncle would retaliate against her.
Brynn held my scrutiny and whispered, “A vow to protect your bond with my life. Remember?”
Damn her. She knew exactly what she was doing to protect not only Lyra, but also Emi.
“A lady.” The queen hummed as she considered the proposition. “Not all find such a position necessary, but perhaps it would suit the melder since she is unfamiliar with our lands.”
“No,” Virki snapped. “Emi is of my house, unwed, and I have need of her.”
“I would be honored if Emi Nightlark served as my lady,” Lyra blurted out. “I am so out of sorts here, and I have few doubts Roark will be taken for meets and…and such. It would be of great use to have someone familiar with the territory at my side.”
I scoffed. I doubted there would be many meets and councils where I would be wanted, but Lyra knew what she was doing.
“If Nightlark agrees, then it will be done,” said the queen.
Virki shot a threatening sort of glance at Emi.
There was no pause before my cousin squared herself against him and said, low and steady, “It would be my honor, my queen. I accept, gratefully.”
Elisabet dipped her chin. “Virki, Emi Nightlark is now part of our household.”
My uncle turned his ferocity toward his queen. “I do not know when you lost your spine. Not everyone will wait for its return.”
Without another word, Virki abandoned the council room and a wave of relief filled my veins.
“Lyra.” Elisabet approached.
Lyra stiffened at my side. “Your highness.”
Whatever the queen was feeling, she did not show it on her features. Stern. Collected. Unmoved. Almost soulless. “My husband’s brother spoke true. You sealed this bond in the shadows, and it has left you wholly unprepared for life as Draven royalty.”
I rolled my eyes and looked away but caught the crack in Elisabet’s mask. For a moment she looked like the mother who’d scold me when I’d grown too raucous.
She turned back to Lyra. “We will have a feast to bring you forward to the clan. I will expect you to learn our customs and your position as the wife of my son.” The queen lowered her voice.
“I may have made a vow that I cannot end your life, but I assure you, many here will be waiting to find every fault to use against you. Be wise, and do not let them.”
I waved a hand, gesturing for the queen to look at me. We will not be here long, don’t you remember?
“I suppose we’ll see if an opportunity presents itself,” Elisabet said once Lyra repeated my words. “But the úlfur ruled she will not leave the borders. As predicted. Be on your guard until then.”
Elisabet regarded Lyra once more before mutely abandoning the council room without a backward glance.
My body shook when Gunter gripped my shoulder and one of Lyra’s. “Toss me in the molten hell,” he said, his voice light. “For a moment I wasn’t so certain it’d turn out in our favor.”
Lyra let out a shaky chuckle but curled her fingers around my arm. “What do we do now?”
I looked down at her. Be ready to meld again. We have the Wanderer to hunt.