Chapter 33
Roark
The length of a whole night. That was how much time had passed since I’d last seen Lyra. There was no longer a point in fighting the darkness. Emi and the others kept a wide berth around my horse, avoiding the frigid shadows, as though I might strike should they misstep.
Only Kyrre ran alongside as though nothing was amiss.
At the word of the queen, no one protested our departure, and the farther we rode, the more I was convinced that Elisabet had had a hand in all this. Whether it meant I would soon destroy my own mother, I did not yet know.
We kept a swift pace to the northern edges of the kingdom, aiming toward the Night Ledges. Knolls and forests made up the border of upper Myrda and Dravenmoor. If a Stav camp wanted to keep a steadier pace and avoid the Black Fjords and the Red Ravines, they would remain on foot.
It was a clearer way to allied territory, without the difficult passages of wilder Draven lands where Jorvans could not outpace my clan.
It was reasonable, and Jorvans were logical. Never truly straying from their comfortable paths. The route made sense.
But more than that, there was a cruel inferno roaring through my veins, nearly compelling me forward, an unseen chain dragging me toward a destination I could not see.
Lyra. The small plucks of our bond began when the sun faded behind the trees. They grew stronger, more frantic. Beautiful, resourceful woman. She was guiding us straight to her. Straight to them.
“Roark, smoke ahead.” Auki drew his horse to a halt.
We followed. I kicked my leg over my horse, drew my hood low on my brow, and crept for the trees. Hickory smoke burned through the woods. A touch of oil and herbs tangled within.
Faint, but there. All the seasons I’d served as their damn Sentry, I’d insisted the guard eat raw, no flames and no smoke when in the wood this near to Dravenmoor.
Their arrogance would get them killed tonight.
“òlmr, scout ahead.” Brynn tipped her chin toward the edge of the tree line.
The gray wolf tucked her snout, crouched on her haunches, and drifted through the night like a haunt in the darkness. Kyrre stood at my side, hackles raised, teeth bared.
“A camp.” Brynn slid off her own gelding and strapped a bow over her shoulder. “She found one not far beyond the trees.”
I tilted my head side to side, rolled my shoulders, and took out the bearded ax from a loop on my belt.
Before I ever found a place in Stonegate, I’d been taught to step lightly in the wood, to use the trees to shield the slightest glimpse we approached. Now, with my split soul, I became nothing more than a shadow in the endless night.
Gunter was lithe, and he favored sneaking across raised roots near the bases of tree trunks. His long limbs made it easier to reach for branches and swing over the soil to a new set of roots. Kept his boots from snapping twigs and dead leaves.
Brynn and Auki were hunters. Their steps were as mist across the forest floor. Low, soft, calculated.
Emi took a bow like Brynn, and when the faint flicker of a flame burned through the night, we pressed our backs against opposite sides of a tree.
A small camp. Four tents built for quick disassembly. I counted four Stav Guard in total but six horses. There were more I could not see. Eyes closed, I desired to surround them, trap them, drain the souls from their headless bodies.
It took no coaxing for the deledan to respond to my desires. All around the camp, billows of darkness wove through the trees and hedges, a dark wall to keep the Stav from fleeing.
I knocked my knuckles against the tree, drawing Emi’s attention. Give them a bit of mercy, cousin. Warn them that they are about to meet the gods.
Emi’s grin held little kindness. She drew the bowstring alongside her kohl-marked cheek and let the arrow fly.
Shouts rose inside the tents at once. The few worthless Stav surrounded the front of one tent. One held a bow, the others their blades. Gods, how perfectly foolish this plan of theirs had become. Step over Draven borders, take Lyra, and expect to escape with so few men?
It was too reckless, too bold. Likely something Thane would do with his misplaced sense of honor if he considered he was saving Lyra from the horrors of his traitorous Sentry.
No sooner had the thought fled my mind than a tall, too-familiar figure stepped to the front of the Stav.
More runes were inked on the shorn sides of his scalp, and his dark, golden hair was braided down the center. Thane’s pale eyes were like the coldest ice. He scanned the trees, blade in hand.
Damn him.
How many times had I told the fool of a prince to stay out of the fight? He put his neck against the blade too much, and one day it would draw blood that could not be stopped.
I did not want to kill the prince. But I would. If he harmed Lyra, believing her to be the killer of the king, I would send Thane to Salur.
I simply would make it quick.
Emi glanced at me. “What do you want to do?”
“You two were close, yes?” Gunter asked, his voice rough.
I nodded.
“You can use that,” he said. “It is what I keep telling you and Lyra. You have the most powerful soul of us all. Use it to command connections.”
He believed I could use the deledan to subdue the prince? The same as I forced Elisabet through our connection, perhaps, if any bond of our former regard remained, Thane could hear me.
“Do we take out the guards?” Auki crouched next to me. “It would be done quickly, especially with òlmr and Kyrre.”
Before I could reply, the prince shouted into the night. “Roark! If that is you, then make yourself known, you coward.”
I recanted. I would kill him should he call me a coward again. He damn well knew it irked me.
Cover me was all I signaled to Emi. I stood, rolled the ax once in my grip, and strode through the trees.
Shadows followed me, a dark river building in my wake, and movement shifted behind me. No doubt, the others were aimed, ready to attack should I need. Kyrre plodded next to me, a low rumbling growing in his throat.
I stepped from the trees, rolling mists coiled around my legs.
The Stav Guard huddled closer to the prince, ready to pull him back at the first threat, but Thane did not look anywhere but at me.
His jaw pulsed, and there was a new sort of wildness in his eyes I’d not seen before. He took in my approach, the shadows of craft hanging over me like the illusion of a cloak.
Where is she?
“Safe now that she’s no longer with you.” Thane used the tip of his blade to point at my heart.
Do you wish to die, you ass?
“Only one of us will be dying tonight. Tell me, does that creature you keep inside feel pain? When I gut you and let you breathe as you bleed out, will it feel the same agony?”
I tossed my hood back. Thane shifted, clearly unsettled holding my stare. Give me back my wife.
Thane watched every jerky gesture. “She is not yours. And now that she’s free of your corruption, I will see to it she has nothing to fear again.”
Last warning, Thane.
The prince had the decency to look a little discomfited. Then he turned to the Stav at his back. “Take the Draven bas—”
He had no chance to finish his command before a rush of ice washed over my skin and darkness engulfed the prince from head to foot.
Together we fell away from the blades, tents, and hatred, and into the cruel shadows where souls spoke.