Chapter 25
Lyra
Three days since meeting his fallen brother, Roark’s fatigue still left him sleeping like the dead each night.
Each day after the nightly meal, I could see the exhaustion settle in and insisted he let his craft recover. The control needed to hold our souls in the mirror for so great a time made him come damn close to collapsing.
Sleep abandoned me well before dawn. Seated on the edge of the bed, I brushed a lock of his dark hair to the side.
He slept with a furrowed brow, like he might be in pain or still locked in the constant rage of Skul Drek. With my thumb, I rubbed away the tension until he sighed in his sleep.
Pain lived in the gold of his eyes when we emerged from the trance. Roark tried to hide it, naturally, but it was there. An ache, a longing, one I only saw in his features when Thane was mentioned.
Doubtless, Roark—this part of my husband—yearned to speak to his brother without the rage, the obsession, the bloodlust of the crueler layers of Skul Drek.
I leaned over and gently pressed a kiss to his temple.
In the corridor, Emi was there, braiding the end of her hair. “I feel this is retribution for all those mornings I woke you before first light in Stonegate.”
I snickered. “Don’t feign like you were sleeping. You, Emi Nightlark, are the only soul I know who greets every sunrise.”
“How is he?” she asked when we emerged into the outer courtyard.
“Drained. He has only ever spoken with one soul at a time. But using Nivek’s bone helped.”
“Gods. To see Nivek again.” Emi looked to the sky. “He was always teasing us young ones and playing games. Young as I was when he died, I loved him.”
Warmth bloomed in my chest, but beneath it was a fierce ache. Nivek had not deserved to die.
I squeezed Emi’s palm. “We’re going to find who killed him. They need to pay for taking him from you all.”
“Good.” Emi held one door open, waiting for me to step into the somber morning light.
“Gunter explained how souls weave small bonds on their own and by the time we all meet Salur we have multiple threads, like a tapestry of the connections made in life. But I never thought, well, I never thought Roark could speak to those who’d fallen. ”
By the look on her face, I had no doubt she thought of her lost mother.
I let my hand fall to her shoulder, uncertain what to say. At times, to say nothing, to merely stand at the side of a broken heart meant more than words.
The courtyard was larger than it seemed, with long, wide walks made of mossy flagstones.
There was a peace here. Trees towered over fragrant shrubs, and vines climbed along stone walls and wooden trellises. It felt like stepping from the harsh world to a land where worries could fade.
When we reached the far edge, my wing of the palace was nothing but dark walls and a distant spire. Emi unlatched an arched gate and led us into the outer wood where trees grew close, rows of sentinels shielding life in the court, and strode down a dirt path.
Dark Watch archers perched in the trees, clad in black and masked from the nose down, but they hardly moved as we strode beneath them. Doubtless more guards stood in the shadows, always observing.
Near a gentle creek was a small clearing separated from the wood by a thin fence. Each post was wrapped in twine with totems—skulls of ravens and hares, and talons—and dried floral vines.
Wooden pails were settled inside the gate, one filled with water and the other with red powder.
Emi dipped her fingers into the water, then the powder, dragging the crimson paste down her features. She signaled me to do the same.
“It is a symbol that we mean no harm to the resting place of the fallen,” she explained, her voice soft. “We merely wish to remember.”
Mounds adorned the space. Small blossoms coated some, and others were marked with heavy stones, but three near the back were raised and had a small opening covered by wooden doors. Three tombs.
Emi knelt in front of the smallest of the three. She clasped her hands in her lap. I settled next to her, studying the burial mounds.
“Some wish to be burned when they meet Salur. We set them on the river or on the battlefield with gifts to take to the gods,” she whispered. “Then we set the boat or the altar aflame.”
I nodded. “We said farewell to folk much the same back home in Skalfirth.”
“Others are buried beside us.” Emi pointed to the mounds.
“The hope is their wisdom and guidance will aid our royal house, our nobles, and the captains of the Dark Watch. Elisabet did not need to do so, but she gave my mother a royal burial after her body was found in the wood a season after her exile. My father raged for days to think his whore of a wife was buried here.” She nodded to the largest mound in the center.
“Especially after his brother found rest beside her.”
King Vishon.
My jaw tightened. Emi’s mother’s mound had fresh flowers in front of the small door. I doubted a great deal that they were left by her horrid husband.
“I am Virki’s blood,” Emi said, never looking away from her mother’s resting spot.
“Gunter even tried to tell him. I was not yet eleven seasons, and I can still recall this stupid, feckless boy who hardly knew how to weave souls shouting at the king’s brother that he was hurting his blood daughter. ”
“He could smell your connection.”
“An elder soul weaver said much the same.” Emi let her shoulders slump.
“I don’t know why my father started to despise us so fiercely.
I don’t know why he did not listen. My mother’s craft was remarkable; she could read the true desires of a soul.
It was how she always knew when I wanted a tale read or a sweet.
She’d grant my soul’s desire, as she put it.
My mother would climb the trees with me; she taught me the wild ways of the Draven folk. ”
I laughed softly.
“I loved Virki, admired him. Gods, so much.” Emi used the back of her hand to wipe away a stray tear. “I didn’t understand how someone who once claimed to cherish me could hurt me in such a way.
“When I fled to Roark, I vowed never to love. I’d seen what had become of my cousin for bonds and what became of me.
” Emi’s voice grew more frantic, heavier.
“Then…then, Yrsa arrived at the keep and I had my first meeting with the foreign princess. It was as though a fist shot through my chest. I was only sixteen when I saw her for the first time, and Roark, in all his grumbly gestures, had to be the one to explain he believed a soul bond was there. She…she robbed my heart straight out from behind all those walls I’d built. ”
A sob broke from Emi’s throat, as though the pain she’d kept buried from leaving Yrsa so abruptly broke free.
When she doubled over, I wrapped my arms around her shoulders, holding her close, letting her rage.
“I love her,” Emi said through a sob. “And I betrayed her heart the same as…as my heart was betrayed.”
“No.” I shook her shoulders slightly and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “No, Emi. You saved me. You saved Roark. You never hurt Yrsa the way your father hurt his family.”
“Forgive me. I don’t know what came over me.
” Emi straightened and laughed a little nervously.
“Just…thoughts of her, of my mother, I think they would’ve gotten on so well.
Yrsa is a royal, but gods, she has a wild spirit.
No one loves to swim or climb or take risks in the shadows quite like her.
I think that is why she and Thane are such good friends too. ”
“They are both reckless fools?”
Emi laughed, loud and free. “Yes. I suppose you could say that. I have no doubt, left to their own devices in Stonegate, soon we will hear of the whole ancient keep being scorched to the ground by mistake.”
“You will see her again, Emi.” I squeezed her hands. “We are finding a way back into Stonegate, for Kael, for Thane, and for Yrsa. Do not doubt for a moment that she is not in our thoughts as one who is in danger.”
“I have no doubt the prince and Yrsa are wed.” Emi stared at her hands. “I did not want to be the mistress, but I wanted to be there for her. For Thane.”
“We don’t know what’s happened since we left,” I told her. “Until we do, you cannot dwell on what might be. She needs you to fight against enemies she does not know are there. Yrsa loves you. She might be hurt, and I understand such hurt, but she will listen to you.”
Emi gave me a wan smile. “I hope you’re right. Truly.”
I helped Emi place new blooms on her mother’s burial mound, then King Vishon’s, then the third—Nivek’s.
“We’ll find the truth,” I whispered, a burn in my blood, like the prince could truly hear. “We’ll stop the bloodshed. You did not allow me to say it before, but thank you. I swear to taunt him a bit in honor of you.”
A commotion rose at the end of the wooded path when we reached the courtyard again.
Brynn was there, laughing until tears fell to her cheeks.
She had her hair braided over her shoulder and wore tattered trousers and a tight top made of linen and leather that revealed a great deal of her middle, and across her belt were pouches that smelled of meat.
Auki tromped down the steps into the courtyard, shouting. “Stop flailing. Gods, are you Draven or not? You need to command, no…command him!”
Emi and I shared a bemused look, then quickened our steps to the courtyard.
There, we saw a pack of young fara wolves, yapping and nipping at a few fara keepers’ belts, where more pouches of meat were at the level of their snouts.
Fara pups struck my upper thigh, but Brynn taught me that in the weeks after a wolf bonds with a soul, that is when their frightening height and strength take hold.
For now, this young pack would remain the size of true wolves while being tamed and trained by the keepers.
Brynn had lost her ability to keep upright, and doubled over, laughing, gasping.
I understood why.
Roark was cornered near the wall, fighting for his life.
A fara pup panted and yapped and attempted to howl more than once.
The creature jumped, trying to lick the prince’s face, then the wolf would land and spin around, its backside curling inward as though he could not contain his delight at the sight of Roark.
Overpowered, all the man could do was try to shove the pup away to get his palms positioned to calm the beast.
Auki kept shouting curses and his disappointment for the prince’s lack of skill. Brynn’s laughs trailed off, but her face was the shade of a bloody sun and damp with tears. She blew out a shuddering breath, blinking rapidly until she found me and Emi.
“Lyra.” She bit down on her bottom lip until her voice steadied. “I think you may have just added to your household.”
Dammit. “The wolf is bonding…”
“Seems so,” she said when I did not go on. “I’d bet my life that your husband finally got his wolf.”
A loud grunt escaped Roark’s throat when he managed to push the excitable pup. With the help of Auki, he placed his palms over the brow of the panting wolf, and little by little, the creature fell to one side, slumbering, jaws open, like it was smiling.
I bit back a laugh and slipped my arm around Roark’s waist. He jumped in surprise but relaxed when he recognized me.
With a quick kiss to my head, he waved one hand in front. Damn beast won’t leave me alone.
“Hmm. I think you might be glad about it.”
A flush of red bridged over Roark’s face. He didn’t speak for a long pause. I always wanted a fara, but things are different now.
The wolf pup was bony. Its fur was a midnight shade of black with silver on each paw. One ear was curled and half the size of the other, as though it never grew properly. I knelt beside its sleeping form and stroked its wiry fur.
“Things may be different,” I said and looked over my shoulder. “But surely they’re not that different, are they?”
The smallest smile teased his mouth. You want an enormous wolf following us everywhere?
I kept stroking the large head of the pup. “Well, it’s not like I can blame the poor thing. I know what it is like to be bonded to you, and it is a coveted experience.”
Roark laughed softly. He wanted the wolf—the truth of it was in the way he kept glancing at the beast—but he did not want to inconvenience me with a burly creature bonded to our household, our family, until we went to Salur.
I wanted Roark to be Draven, the clan of his blood. I wanted him to have the wolf he drew in his boyish art as a child. I wanted him to find a bit of the happiness he was robbed of so long ago.
But I could not tell him any of this before a horn blared over the courtyard.
Roark stiffened at once and hurled me to my feet.
From one of the towers near the gates, a Dark Watch warrior called down. “Stav Guard! They’ve breached the borders! Dravenmoor is under attack!”