Chapter 24 #2
A sob split from her throat. She turned her face into his hand and pressed a kiss to her son’s gleaming palm.
“Who darkened your soul?” Skul Drek’s harsh voice cut through the sweetness of the moment. He glared at Nivek, not out of hate for the fallen prince, more like a building rage for those who’d killed him.
“I don’t know, or do not recall. Should you find whoever slit my throat, make it painful. There were those I was forced to part with much too soon.”
Two strings I’d not seen before, both tethered to his chest, pulsed in light. My throat tightened. Connection bonds, though one seemed to spread like the delicate web of my own bond with his brother.
“They darkened your soul for taking my melder?”
Nivek stared into the distance, a touch of whimsy on his face, before he faced us again.
“I cannot say. I suppose it’s possible. But there is something that brings me to pause, a tale I’ve forgotten.
Another reason for bloodshed, perhaps. Either way, I am glad my death was not for nothing.
” Nivek looked at me again. “The melder. You stand with him, every part of him.”
“Yes.” I slid a palm around Skul Drek’s shadowed arm. Ribbons of cold slipped between my fingers like he was tangling his grip around my hand in return.
Nivek dipped his chin. “Good.”
“Thank you for—”
“No need.” The prince shook his head. “Simply honor the bond between you. It is the greatest gift one can have, a true love that burns in the soul.”
Nivek looked about dreamily. Much the same as with his brother, it seemed souls were distractible, hardly there.
I waved a hand, drawing Nivek to look my way again. “The queen said you might have answers. We, uh, we seek the Wanderer’s bones.”
“You’d be wise to take care with your words.” The prince looked to the darkness at one side. “Do you not sense it? There are threads of craft reaching for you, Melder. Always. Enemies hunt you.”
“He’s here?” Ice filled my blood. I looked about for any glimpse of Fadey.
“Not yet.” Nivek’s voice was dark, harsh. “But there are powers seeking you here. We should not talk long lest they find you.”
“I will find them,” Skul Drek bit out. “Their souls will burn.”
A shiver danced up my spine.
Skul Drek grumbled. “The first king’s soul is hunted by the dark melder and my melder.”
“The one you sense is another melder,” I explained. “He hunts me to meld my bones to his since he believes I have the stronger craft to seek out the Wanderer’s lost bones.”
“You do. After all, you are the melder fated to destroy our world. Daughter of the god-queen.”
Fadey had insinuated a connection to the fabled queen much the same way. “I don’t understand.”
Nivek smiled with a touch of sadness. “You summon me now because of what I know, yes? You wish me to aid you on this deadly quest?”
“Queenie says answers are in the souls of princely brothers.” Skul Drek paced behind me.
“Nivek.” I called him by name when his attention fell to somewhere in the distant shadows again.
“Your mother believes some of the Wanderer’s bones might be over the Night Ledges.
At least some connection to him.” I spoke soft as a breeze and looked around as though Fadey might be standing behind me.
Alone, I went on, my voice low. “She said you would have answers. Did you hide a shard?”
The prince smirked. “Not as you might think. Nor, I daresay, are the bones you seek exactly as you imagine.”
“Four bones of the Wanderer,” Skul Drek grumbled. “Four pieces lost. The arm, to swing the sword. The ribs, to wear his armor. The—”
“The breast, to have his warrior’s heart,” Nivek interrupted. “And the skull, for his wisdom. Yes, I know the tale, brother. And I say again, not all is as it seems when it comes to the Wanderer’s bones.”
Damn the cruel gods. Could anything ever be clear?
“Prophecies were seen and written about the dangers you now face,” Nivek said.
“And set the Thief King out to hunt my melder.” Shadows around Skul Drek thickened with his disdain for King Damir.
The man would always be the Thief King to my husband.
Nivek did not acknowledge the outburst. “You wish to know what we were told? I shall tell you, then: Gifts of the Wanderer form within the heirs of bone, blood, and soul when a god-queen’s daughter finds life of her own.
Through death, hate, and war, she unites these crafts once thought broken, forevermore.
Heed not this fate and leave the divide, then blood will come and three kingdoms shall not survive. ”
Cold, worse than the frosted air of the mirror, bit against my flesh. Long, flowing mists curled around my waist, dragging me into the cloak of Skul Drek. He clacked his teeth at the prince, a warning, a bit of rage at the words.
“Those were the words of the seer?” I whispered.
Elisabet hugged her middle. “We interpreted her first words to mean the firstborn heirs of every kingdom would have some connection to ancient craft. But we did not understand how it was possible that war and death were in our futures. Because of this, the clans agreed to meet. Every kingdom in a moment of truce.”
I looked at Nivek. He kept glancing to the shadows as though searching for someone. Roark’s brother was the firstborn. If he knew the perceived connection, if he hid some piece of the Wanderer over the Night Ledges, did it mean he’d known his life was at risk?
I did not have time to ask before Elisabet went on. “By the time the seer came, every clan had a firstborn heir. Each clan took some pride in believing their child had a destiny of power.”
She spoke of Yrsa, the heir of Myrda. Of Prince Thane.
Elisabet moved to stand nearer to Nivek’s soul.
“But we could not agree on the rest of the seer’s words.
Other than that they seemed to hint that a new melder would be the cause of the destruction.
Most of us believed that it meant uniting all three crafts, for only a melder can bind the bones.
But to do so would mean she would become like a reborn Wanderer King with every vein of craft united within her. ”
In the tales, the Wanderer poisoned his own young ones, his greed so corrupted he forced his wife’s hand to give him the power to meld soul bones, all to save them. For he desired power from the dead; he desired to become indestructible.
“Lyra.” Elisabet drew my attention back.
“The seer spoke of a daughter, so when a rumor spread of a girl with silver scars in her eyes, born after every other heir, we believed this new melder had the strength of the god-queen. We believed she had the power to unite all the crafts somehow through our heirs. But also the power to destroy our world. Some believed it was the gods’ vengeance, at last, falling upon these lands for the curse of the first king.
Many voices throughout the kingdoms wanted to stop it from happening. ”
Dammit. They believed I, a child, had the power to destroy thrones, realms, the very world in which we lived.
“The clans set out to find her, each for their own purposes.” Elisabet studied me with intent. “Jorvans sought the girl for selfish reasons. Myrdans, to study the power. And Dravens, to stop whatever battles might be coming.”
“Is that how the raids began?”
“No. This was seasons before the raids; you would have been hardly a season old.” Elisabet’s eyes flashed.
“Vishon and I went against the truce, severing alliances. But, like the others, we still hunted the young melder. We planned to shadow her craft, to make the lands forget there ever was a god-queen daughter.”
The gleam of Nivek’s soul brightened.
A soul shadower. Roark told me his brother had the power to shadow the soul—hiding memories, truths, perhaps even craft.
My pulse raced. Shadows tightened around my limbs; Skul Drek held me steady, a strength in the darkness.
“You wanted to take me, to hide my craft?”
“My king had no intention to kill an innocent child,” Elisabet insisted.
The long fingers of Skul Drek gripped the back of my neck. “They came to darken her soul, and princely brothers were darkened all the same.”
Nivek chuckled. “What strange ways wickedness speaks.”
My husband hissed back.
“But what of the final warning?” I asked. “To leave the crafts divided seems to insinuate that these lands will end. Either way, it seems we are destined for destruction.”
Elisabet nodded. “We believed if we found you as an infant and never allowed your craft to take hold, the rest of the prophecy couldn’t come to pass.”
Something inside me twisted—a nudge, a fear. There was more to the seer’s tale, like an unspoken warning whispered in my ear. I simply didn’t know what it could be. “When I was a babe, no one found me.”
“Some did. With wretched blood casts and hunters in Myrda and Jorvandal, the Jorvan king found you,” Elisabet said.
“Damir and Fadey tried to gather you but failed. Your folk were wise and ran with you, hiding you away from it all. With you lost to us, and with the Jorvans’ depravity and desperation for melding craft, that was when my king made his sacrifice to protect the souls of the fallen. ”
The king rent his soul in two. He became Skul Drek.
I closed my eyes. “Then the raids came seasons later. Right?”
“Yes.” The queen nodded. “When word rose again that the girl had been spotted, it became a battle to reach you first.”
“And since the Jorvans used melding craft to corrupt…” I could not find the words to finish.
Elisabet did not speak right away. “The úlfur made the decision that it was better to destroy the risk. Fadey had become known for his brutality. The Jorvans would have made you the same.”
What was there to say? Damir did try to make me a monster, bound to do his desires by corrupting and twisting souls in the bones of the living and the dead.
But to know so many lives were lost, all in an attempt to erase mine, stacked heavy on my spine.
“Now we face the same trouble,” I said, my voice low. “This is why Fadey believes my bones will give him the power. It’s not because I fall into a stronger melder’s trance. It’s because I’m a woman and a seer said I was the one who could unite the craft of the Wanderer King. It’s madness.”
Skul Drek clicked his long fingernails. “A dark melder will not touch my melder’s soul.”
“I have no plans to die.” I spun toward Nivek. “We must go to this bone you were given as the heir. You were given one, right?”
“I know of the Wanderer’s bone that connects to soul craft, yes.” Nivek’s grin teetered on something wickedly playful.
“We must retrieve it. If I am to unite all the bones to save these realms from falling in needless battles, then so be it. But in truth, I want to find them merely to keep them from Fadey.”
“I hid it quite well, but I will say again, not all is as it seems,” Nivek said. “Go over the Ledges, to the River Clan. You will learn what you need to know. What comes after will be up to the Norns.”
Vague. Not exactly helpful, but with Fadey invading the mirror, it wasn’t unwise to speak in such a way.
“Will you tell me where you hid the bone? What it looks like? How large?”
“I cannot say. I hope the bone has grown strong and sturdy after all these seasons. When you find the one who now holds it, tell him I wait for him in Salur. Tell them both. Won’t you?”
He left the bone with someone over the Night Ledges? Perhaps two people? “I will tell them, if they even trust us.”
“Wise thought. Tell them this and they should trust you: memories are always inked on my heart, my bones, and my soul.”
Elisabet studied her son with a touch of uncertainty, as though she wanted to press him for more, but bit her tongue.
Skul Drek trailed a cold finger down my arm. “Time grows short.”
The mirror would need to fade. Roark could not remain divided for so long. Already, Nivek wore the same whimsical smile, like his thoughts were drifting elsewhere. “Brother.”
It took a nudge from my hand to draw Skul Drek’s attention from me to the soul of the prince.
“Remember the tale I have told you tonight. It would be wise to recall that you will need the firstborns of craft. Don’t forget them, for they have a part in this fate, and if it fails, they will not survive, much the same as the kingdoms.”
“Wait.” Panic tightened in my throat. “Are you saying Thane and Yrsa are in danger?”
Nivek took a step back. “Just keep them in mind as you go. Mother.” Nivek waited until Elisabet looked to him. “Father misses you and saves a place at his side for when you meet again.”
She pressed a hand to her heart, and the faintest glimmer of something golden burned from the second bone in my palm to the queen. Dozens of silky threads from her head to her foot, much the same as mine to her son.
My breath caught.
As the rot and decay of the mirror faded, as the playful gleam of the prince who’d saved me returned to wherever he rested, I knew the truth—the Draven queen carried with her a soul bond.
One that had never broken.