Chapter 38
Lyra
Gods, please be another twisted blood cast. Kael, or a man who looked like a twisted version of him, slammed his heavy seax against Roark’s ax.
Seasons as the Sentry made Roark Ashwood a deadly opponent. His weapon was smaller, but in one swift motion, Roark had a dagger drawn in his other hand and slashed it over Kael’s gambeson.
“Kael!” I screamed, rushing for Roark. “Stop this!”
His gaze found me over Roark’s head. Dark, deadened. Those were not the playful, mischievous eyes of the boy I knew. Cruelty, hatred, and violence replaced the light he always carried.
Berserksgangur.
My insides backflipped. Kael was broader than he’d once been. His thighs were bulky, as though stones were stuffed beneath his trousers. His jaw was too square, and his forearms rippled like divots were carved into his bones.
No. Gods, no. Fadey had melded him. Time and again, that bastard had forced soul bones beneath Kael’s flesh.
He was a Berserkir.
No mistake, Fadey would’ve chosen the most corrupt of all soul bones, forcing Kael to blot out the goodness and honor of his soul and turn it into twisted, bloodthirsty impulses.
Another cry tore from my throat. Pain, anguish, guilt—all of it encircled my heart. More Stav kept coming. I turned away from Kael and fired.
Fibers of craft had little time to shape around the bone shafts of the arrows, but still I connected them with the bones of guard after guard.
Blood stained the soil.
I ran forward, desperate to reach the two men who mattered most to me. Each striking to kill the other.
Skul Drek’s shadows were frantically attacking. Roark held control of his split soul, using the shadows to carve into the Stav Guard until they wobbled on their feet. Auki, Thane, and Gunter cut them down in the next breath.
More and more, the attack was dying out, but not Kael and Roark. Pounding steps raced beside me.
“Kyrre!” I pointed toward Roark. “Go to him.”
I was not bonded to the fara wolf, but he quickened his pace all the same. I didn’t flinch when Kyrre leapt onto Kael’s back. I wanted the beast to dig into his skin, to give us time to stop him. To save him.
Kael roared in frustration.
He swung his arm, and Kyrre, the swiftly growing wolf pup, was flung to the side. When he landed, he let out a whimper and tried to stand again, but Roark waved one hand and the pup halted.
Kael was too strong for a young wolf.
Roark stumbled against Kael’s relentless strikes. My husband was formidable, nearly impossible to best in a fight, but to control so much craft, to take so many souls, and to keep his strikes sure against a Berserkir—Roark was losing.
Kael brought down his sword against Roark’s ax. It dropped my husband to his knees.
“Kael, stop! Gods, please!” I skidded in front of them.
My brother’s sword was pressed to Roark’s throat. Both men breathed in heavy, rough gasps. With an ugly sneer on his face, Kael gripped Roark’s hair and forced him to face me, the sword against his pulse.
Inky night surrounded me like a cloak. The touch of Skul Drek curled around my wrists, a tether. A silent warning I was not to take a step closer.
“This is not you, Kael. They’ve corrupted you.”
He laughed. “I’m seeing more clearly than I ever have, Lyra. And you were warned about this. If you have come here unprepared, that is your fault.”
“What are you talking about?”
Kael tilted his head but tightened his grip on Roark’s hair.
“You are to bring what you find over the ledges back to Stonegate. Or”—he pressed the edge of his blade against Roark’s throat until a trickle of blood trailed down his skin—“the poor Sentry will die. His life is in your hands, Lyra. Make your choice.”
Fadey’s promise. He told me in those dreams he would see to it that I had no choice but to bring Nivek’s shard to him.
Roark’s eyes were hard. He gave a slow shake of his head. One hand at his side was moving with words. Do not move.
Over and over, the same command.
Tears burned. I tightened my hold on the bow in my hand. “There are no lines. I told you already.”
Coils of darkness knotted around my wrists, my throat, my waist. The hands of Skul Drek tugged me back, choosing me instead of himself, kneeling beneath the blade.
I resisted, heart breaking, and aimed an arrow at the man I’d always called brother.
For a moment, Kael looked befuddled. “You would kill me? After you abandoned me to Stonegate?”
One tear dropped to my cheek. I drew the bowstring taut. “I never wanted to leave you. But I will not let you take him. The Kael I know would never do this.”
Could I release the arrow? This was not Kael’s doing. This was Fadey, and he knew to use my brother against me was the only leverage he had. But…the melder was a fool and did not understand how deep the soul bond, the love, I had with Roark Ashwood had burrowed into me.
He was in my blood, my mind, my heart.
He was my whole soul.
And Kael, the beautiful, joyful man I knew, would never want to live like this.
“Lyra.” Brynn stepped beside me, one hand rubbing her chest. “I’ll stand with whatever you choose, but for your sake, aim for the leg. The side. Try to give him a chance.”
At Brynn’s voice, something shifted in Kael’s focus. For a moment, he looked at the woman as though trying to place her. A flicker of the gentle summer blue of his eyes was there beneath the berserksgangur curse.
It was the distraction we needed.
With Kael’s attention on Brynn, Roark spun out of his tepid grip. In the next moment, Skul Drek enrobed my husband. Shadows, thick and cold, wrapped around my brother’s bulky throat, choking him. His flesh turned a sickly shade of puce. He swatted at the unyielding grip of Skul Drek’s darkness.
Roark’s fists were clenched. He looked nowhere but at Kael.
When my brother slumped forward, eyes rolling back in his head, Roark slammed the handle of his ax against Kael’s skull.
He fell forward, facedown in the soil, unmoving.
Shadows faded, the heated copper-red of Skul Drek’s eyes slipped into Roark’s gold. I didn’t move, watching as Roark checked the pulse in Kael’s neck. My husband lifted his glare to me. He nodded sharply, then gestured for the others to bind Kael before he woke again.
Stav Guard bodies littered the path. One guard wandered aimless, soulless. Yrsa was the one to slit his throat, giving him peace in Salur rather than a life of emptiness.
Thane sat on a boulder and studied Kael. “He’s been melded. Fadey really is there.”
“Did you not believe them?” Gunter pressed.
“I did, but…” Thane shook his head. “Part of me hoped…I don’t want to have to kill my mother. She has done this, and she will face her end, just like Fadey.”
My heart cracked for Thane. He spoke true. Ingir would meet a dark fate if we stopped Fadey.
Roark wore a look of violence when he came to me.
I held his face and inspected the wound on his throat, a little frenzied to calm my fear and assure myself he was alive. He was unharmed.
“They weren’t dreams,” I whispered against his lips. “Fadey can find me, even with Ingir’s blood craft healed. It is like he speaks to me in the mirror the way we do.”
Roark’s eyes narrowed. His mouth tightened in rage. He said nothing and gave me a fast, hard kiss. A vow that the melder would pay. The possessive nature of Roark Ashwood would take his infiltration of my mind as one of the more grievous sins the dark melder had committed.
A low growl from òlmr sent a new rush of panic down my spine.
“Is the beast tamed for now?” a smoke-ragged voice called from above.
The dialect was common language, words understood across all the lands. Often tide wanderers, the folk who believed the sea was more their home than any kingdom, would speak it at the docks in Skalfirth to better handle their trade.
Along the dark cliffs of the Night Ledges, shrouded heads peered over. Furs or cowls half covered every face that appeared along the jagged switchbacks of the upper pathways. Spears made of blue asp and onyx stones were in one hand, bronze blades in the other.
Footsteps scraped along the grit and soil of the pathway. Roark had one arm in front of me, his ax in the other hand. I raised an arrow. Thane backed away from Kael’s slumped body as four figures emerged among the fallen.
“Saw the beast attack.” The figure in the center gestured at Kael’s body. Tall, strong, with a slight limp in one leg. I assumed by the tone of voice that the person beneath the mask and hood was a woman. “Why let it live?”
“Don’t,” I shouted when another figure used the point of a short blade to nudge Kael’s hip. “He means a great deal to us.”
“He’s lost, little one,” said the woman. “You wish to risk your lives by bringing him?”
Bringing him? I did not have a chance to respond before òlmr took a possessive stance in front of Kael, fangs bared. As though Brynn had silently commanded her fara to stand watch.
“I am not leaving him.” I lowered my bow, taking a risk. I let it drop to the ground. “Are you of the Unfettered lands? We…have need to go there.”
The woman chuckled. “Aye, little one. Saw you on your way, so we felt it might be prudent to meet you.”
“What in the two hells does she mean?” Gunter muttered at Auki.
The other man said nothing, but simply kept a tight grip on his blade.
I didn’t understand their arrival, as though we were expected, when the Unfettered had not raised a blade. They had not attacked.
“Will you take us over the ledges?” I asked.
The woman stepped forward and tugged down her half mask. Her skin was a light shade of brown, and short, dark hair curled over her brow. She looked to be near the age of Elisabet, but swirls of inked runes and patterns of serpents and vines coated her throat and under her jaw.
Tales of her life. Old Gammal told me that Unfettered Folk inked their flesh with their achievements. A grand tapestry of their journey.
“We were sent for you, so yes, we’ll take you.
Best to see what sort of fate the cruel Norns have planned by entangling our paths.
” The woman looked down at Kael. “If you insist on taking the creature, he must be bound the whole of the way. No exceptions, no matter what he says. How do you plan to heal him?”
I swallowed. “Remove the corrupted bones. Slowly.”
Memories of tearing a Berserkir to pieces thudded in the back of my mind. I would take care with Kael. Little by little instead of all at once. I would unstitch those bones until he was free.
No matter how long it took.
The woman studied Kael. “I suppose we’ll see. Come. If you wish to reach our lands before nightfall, you’ll want to keep up.”