Chapter 29
Lyra
“Why, in the name of all the gods, would you call this brute of a fara wolf Kyrre?” Gunter looked disgusted.
“What’s wrong with it?” I scratched behind Kyrre’s shorter ear.
“It means ‘peaceful.’ ” Gunter raked his fingers through his hair. “Who wants a fara wolf named ‘peaceful’?”
Throws them off, Roark gestured three times before Gunter made a signal that he’d understood.
“I still think you should’ve gone with Myrkr or something a little fearsome.”
I chuckled and let Kyrre loose to join the other young wolves in the pen. Brynn had insisted upon a strict training regimen for the pup with the keepers first, then Roark would need to learn how his fara would take to his commands.
“With you, I’d use a whistled tune,” Auki had explained. “Specific sounds for commands. Brynn has words she will shout at òlmr. It becomes like you are both warriors, side by side.”
In the days after the attack from the Stav Guard, we’d mourned the fallen, worked with our new fara wolf, witnessed the Dark Watch pike the heads of the fallen Stav Guard at the ravines so any more attempts from Stonegate would be met with a warning, and told the others everything.
From Nivek’s words, to Elisabet’s strange loyalty in one moment, then her coldness in the next. More and more, I was convinced Roark’s mother wore many masks.
Like us, they all agreed that whatever secrets awaited us over the ledges, we had to find them first and soon.
Roark had written a missive to Thane in their coded words and acquired a raven to deliver it. There’d been nothing of a response since.
Truth be told, I wasn’t certain Fadey and Ingir had not intercepted the bird through their blood casts.
“I have five days of rations. Brynn and Auki have a little more.” Gunter leaned over the gates of the wolf pen, speaking low to both me and Roark. “Ought to be enough to get us over the ledges. If this Jorvan prince has the stones to meet, he’ll need to bring his own.”
Thane has the stones. He just might come with blades to our throats, Roark used one hand to reply.
“Then I will raise mine to his,” Gunter said. “I don’t think we ought to include the Jorvan prince.”
“Thane is part of this,” I insisted. “We told you lot about the seer woman’s words. He’s an heir and a firstborn. For all we know, he might have a bone shard without realizing it.”
“Then let us get our bones first, then make our barters. You cannot convince me the future king of Jorvandal did not know his Stav Guard attacked our gates. He is not your friend anymore, Lyra. Nor yours, Roark.”
Gunter was not alone in his concerns. Brynn and Auki remained quiet as they worked with the pups, but discontent about the plan to ally with Thane was written in every shift in their stances, every twist of their mouths, like they might want to argue the notion.
Roark rubbed the healing top of his finger that was missing the tip, the place where the fealty bone was cut off and shattered his loyalty to Thane.
I did not need his gestures or his words to know that for the first time, Roark was beginning to believe the brotherhood he’d once had with the Jorvan prince was gone.
“None of this is even a problem if we cannot find a way past the Dark Watch,” Emi said, her voice low.
True enough, Roark had been given the new watch rotations.
Warriors marked nearly every five paces of the wall through the night and day.
Only narrow roads and a few splotches of forest behind the palace might be left out of sight from the Dark Watchers.
But all of us getting there unnoticed would be nearly impossible.
“We might need to leave in intervals,” Brynn offered.
Dangerous to be beyond the gates without larger numbers, Roark retorted.
After I clarified his words, Brynn shrugged. “True. But I’m not sure we have another way.”
Damn the cruel gods.
Every step we took to end this battle over bones seemed to strike a stone wall, forcing us to draw back and start again.
Why had Gammal told such a tale all those seasons ago? What part did the old woman play in my existence? Her words had destroyed my life when my family was slaughtered, then she taught me how to hide. She knew who I was before I was tossed into servitude at House Jakobson.
It was as though she was preparing me for…this fight.
I did not know where Gammal fit in all this.
But somewhere low in my belly I knew there was more to the tale. I simply did not know what.
—
“What is this?” I studied the different pouches lined up across Emi’s bed four days later.
Powders of gray and silver, crushed leaves that reminded me too much of poisonous firevine, and a few vials of muddy liquids.
Emi dropped a leather satchel over her narrow mattress.
“Yrsa taught me a few things as she was learning more about her blood craft. These herbs can shield against summoning spells. This can make it more difficult for burning casts to harm the skin. And these”—she lifted one of the silver powders—“are a combination of crushed ice stone and grimfrost bark. Minerals from the stone keep thoughts clear, in case a blood cast tries to manipulate the mind, and the bark allows a mind to be aware of craft.”
Impressive. Emi had been wholly unsettled by the blood spell meant to lure me in. When I looked back now, the illusion of Kael had been primitive and easily discernible, but something else within the blood cast had crafted a compulsion I could not ignore.
“Well done, Emi.” I helped stack some of the pouches. “This will be incredibly useful.”
“Here.” She tucked a wrapped bunch of dried purple flowers beneath the clean bandage over my hand.
“I’ve been speaking with the healer, and we both think kalla vine will draw out some of the dark craft from the wound.
I hate to say it, but we may need a blood crafter to actually seal it. It’s a cursed wound.”
I gave her a nod of thanks. Whatever happened to my palm when the blood craft attacked me during the battle had left my skin open and cold around the gash.
In truth, I could not help but wonder if there was more to Ingir’s spell cast than we knew.
And when I fell asleep that night, I discovered how horridly right I was.
—
My eyes snapped open. Black mists kissed my cheeks. I sat up, strands of my hair stuck to the frosted ground. Smoke and brine danced over my tongue.
Why was I in the mirror?
Last I could recall, I’d fallen asleep with Roark’s body curled around mine and Kyrre sneaking onto the bed to nuzzle against me. This mirror…it was empty of the beautiful gold of my soul bond. It was empty of Skul Drek.
The glow of my palm was strange. Here, the wound from the blood craft burned in a dark amber shade, not the brilliant gold like my limbs and middle. The ache twisted to a phantom pain, a dull throb.
In the next breath, a glimmer in the darkness fastened to my palm, burning from the blight of the wound. Threads of hateful red slithered through the rot and decay until they ended in a wall of darkness.
Through the shadows a figure materialized.
The heat of his soul was darker than others. His face was sharply angled, his body strong, but his smile was horrid. Cruel and wicked. “Hello, Lyra.”
“Fadey.” My eyes widened.
His face was different, not quite the same as the mask he wore as Captain Baldur. But there was a familiar fury to his power.
It felt too much like mine.
Plumes of darkness rolled toward Fadey. He used one of the reddened tethers to work his way through the shadows toward me.
I scrambled to my feet. “How are you here?”
I was not melding. I was not even in the sights of my husband. How did he keep Skul Drek out?
Fadey chuckled. “You won’t find him here. As I told you in Stonegate, blood craft is not always the weakest. Challenging as it can be, I’ve found my way back to your thoughts.”
Shit. We were not in the mirror at all. This was in my mind.
“Get out.” Panic choked off my rational thought. I clawed at my skull, frantic, terrified, furious.
All Fadey did was laugh. “Damir never truly understood Ingir’s potential. You’ll need to forgive her for that nasty business.” He pointed at the harsh glow of the wound on my palm. “We needed to know where you were. Tell me, how is it in the royal house of Dravenmoor?”
I clawed at the wound. The spell tracked me? They would know when we left, know our moves. I wanted to shred the flesh off my own hand to be rid of it all if we could not cast a blood spell to remove it.
“How are you still finding me?” I took a step to the opposite side when Fadey approached. “You don’t have enough of my blood to keep invading my mind.”
“You know, I wondered the same thing. The totems and spell casts were long dried up after you fled Stonegate. But Ingir insisted that she had reason to believe we could find a way in, even without your blood. I daresay she’s right.
” Fadey opened his arms wide, beaming. “I’ve found you again, and here we may speak without shadows listening in. ”
I bared my teeth. “Skul Drek will never stop hunting you if you touch me.”
Fadey lifted his palms. “I have no plans to harm you here. I merely want to talk. Perhaps you will not be so foolishly stubborn if you understand what is at stake.”
“You want me dead. Why would I ever listen to you?”
Fadey twirled the gnarled thread connecting us between his fingers. “You can’t go anywhere. Might as well.”
I tried to yank my hand away, but whatever craft held me here would not relent.
“Stop this game, Lyra,” he said in a snarl. “You won’t win. This has been too long in the making. Understand, I only wish for all folk to be reunited in one great kingdom as they once were.”
“With you as the king.”
“I assure you, there are more wretched sorts who rule now.”
“Yet you were the king’s consort.”