Chapter 43
Lyra
Roark looked like a villain from dark legends. His black tunic, leather, and boots stood out among the brilliant colors of the Unfettered attire. He leaned back at the table, glaring at the revelry with a dose of heady disdain.
Jordis was there, complying with the commands of Brokk in the hall. She poured ale, avoided Brokk’s taunts, and Sindri was not welcome at all. Brokk insisted that the boy had tasks left to complete at his longhouse.
Brokk thought it was a bit of delight, ordering his thralls about in front of a prince who’d yet to take ownership of the debt; I knew his every action was being stitched to the memories of a darker piece of my husband.
A darkness that would not soon forget.
Roark Ashwood was a man who defended his own. He would be a villain on their behalf.
The hall was not as grand as Stonegate or the Draven palace, but it was warm and spiced with herbs. Folk danced, ate, and sang folk songs I did not recognize. Thane and Auki took up conversation with the Lawspeaker.
The man was listening to the Jorvan prince, but when he would reply, Thane’s face would flush in a touch of frustration. My heart tightened at the sight of Emi and Yrsa seated down the bench, heads close, whispering.
Gods, I hoped after all this their hearts could still heal. We would need to stand with one another if we were to stop Fadey and Ingir.
“They’ll need to die.” I turned on the bench to face Roark. “Fadey and Ingir.”
That was always my plan. He pressed a kiss to the center of my palm.
“I thought we’d need to destroy the Wanderer’s bones and that would be enough to stop him. I thought they were buried. It is no wonder that I could never see them but Skul Drek could sense them.”
They are buried. The lore simply never specified that they were buried within the living.
I chuckled and traced the lines of his hand with my thumb. “Sindri is one of the remnants now. Fadey does not know of him, but he knew of the heirs. He must suspect something.”
Roark used his other hand to gesture against the tabletop. He will never get the chance to learn of him.
“We will need the Dark Watch,” I said. Thoughts I could not shake rolled through my mind. “I don’t know what becomes of us when we return over the Night Ledges. It feels like there has been a shift in the very soil, as though the land knows a battle rises.”
Roark picked at a sliver on the table for a breath. Thane is trying to convince the Unfettered to join us. Fadey is one of their own, and he has gone against their laws.
“Do you think they’ll stand with us?”
So far, it seems like the Lawspeaker is not interested.
I looked back to where Prince Thane sat. He was tipping back a drinking horn, face as stone. No doubt annoyed the Unfettered Folk were not leaping at the chance to join the cause.
Auki and Gunter plan to ride ahead and send word to the queen.
My stomach backflipped. “It is truly happening. All our lives we have been pawns in this game of twisted lies and betrayal. Now…it ends for them, or us.”
Roark cupped one side of my face. This is not where we end. But I plan to gift each royal a remnant of Fadey’s bones.
I snickered. “Is that so?”
It is. Roark’s thumb tugged on my bottom lip. Thane will be welcome to fashion Fadey’s arm into a bow. Yrsa might want to make a chair from his ribs. Sindri will make a better knife with the breastbone, and you, wife, you will have his head.
“I’ve always dreamed of mounting a skull on my wall.”
I thought as much. Roark leaned in to kiss me.
His lips had hardly brushed over mine when a throat cleared. Gammal, gripping her walking stick in hand, beamed at us both. “Pardon. Heard deals with Brokk are being made.”
I sat back. “Seems that way. You could’ve told us Sindri was Nivek’s son.”
“I believe I told you the boy was unique and you might want to get to know him.”
My mouth parted. “Gammal, that’s not telling us he is the heir to the Draven throne.”
“Well, there were other matters to discuss, elskan.” She clicked her tongue, like I was the one being foolish. “By the by, your poor melded brother is asking for you.”
The woman gestured toward one of the back doors. There were no additional rooms in the great hall of the Unfettered clans, simply smaller huts and structures for different uses like cooking or bathing.
A small hut ten paces from the hall was lit with a small lantern.
Kyrre and òlmr were both sprawled over the stoop.
When Kyrre caught sight of Roark, he shot to his feet, his tongue lolling out one side of his mouth.
He nuzzled our hands as we strode past, practically wriggling free of his coat when I scratched behind his bent ear.
Inside the hut, Kael sat against one wall, bare-chested, arms tied out to his sides. Gods, gashes painted his body, all in various marks of healing. Lumps and nodules bulged beneath his skin.
I had no doubt Fadey had melded Kael with a soul bone every day. Perhaps multiple.
His brow dripped with sweat. His breaths were heavy. Jaw tight, he lifted his head. “Ly.”
The word, so simple, came out like it was painful.
A fur covered a second entrance. Brynn emerged with a bowl of water and a linen in her hand. She jolted at the sight of us. “Oh, good. You’ve come.”
“What is this?”
Kael grunted and tugged against the bindings around his wrists. Brynn dropped to his side and pressed a palm to his shoulder. “Think through it.”
“Godsdammit.” Kael’s eyes clenched, and he puffed out jagged breaths between his teeth.
Brynn’s eyes were glassy. “He has so many corrupted souls fighting his own. The berserksgangur keeps taking hold, but he is beginning to fight it.”
Why? Are you guiding him with your craft?
Brynn tugged her bottom lip between her teeth. “Something like that.”
Roark stepped in front of me, one hand on the blade strapped to his waist. The bloodlust only worsens over time. You must be doing something.
Brynn dipped the cloth into the water and dabbed Kael’s brow. He let out a sigh, as though the touch soothed a festering burn on his flesh. “He’s fighting, you can see.”
“Take one, Ly,” Kael gritted out. “Please.”
“There are many, elskan.” Gammal rested a hand on my shoulder. “But it is the only chance he has.”
“You wish me to unmeld them, Kael?”
He turned his head, as though leaning nearer to Brynn, and nodded. “As many…as you can.”
I knelt beside my brother. He recoiled at first at my touch. Brynn let her hand fall to his shoulder. “It is not simple, but I’ll try to take as much as possible. As long as it takes. The pain will leave soon.”
Kael closed his eyes. “Do it, pest.”
Emotion thickened in my throat. “I’m getting to it, fool.”
Roark lowered to one knee at my side, still coiled to strike. My fingertips ran over Kael’s chest. So many lumps and divots embedded around his heart.
Damn Fadey had done it with intent; he’d wanted Kael to suffer swiftly.
A nodule on his ribs burned beneath my palms. A soul bone, but not beneath the curve of the ribs, on the outer edge. Smaller, easily gripped. When I touched the spot again, a web of gilded stitching gleamed under the surface of Kael’s skin.
Patterns where the threads began and ended. Their origins and tension against his bones.
Craft rushed through me like a rogue wave on the sea. The roar and brine and smoke coated my tongue. The burn bit at the tips of my fingers.
I held out a palm to Roark. “May I have your knife?”
He handed me a small blade from one of the sheaths on his forearm and settled lower on his knee, readying to greet me in the shadows.
Upon the first cut, the mists pulled me away.
—
Kael slept beneath a fur quilt, his wrists still bound, a new bandage wrapped around his middle. Fever burned through his flesh. Once, I was told that soul bones yearned to live again. They would fight to keep their existence, leeching on to a new soul.
Bones scattered across Kael flared in poisonous red, black, and green threads when I unstitched the smaller piece from his side. Then another near his hip. I only managed to get a third nearer to his chest before his body shook too violently to continue.
The bones shadowed the brightest pieces of his soul, shadowed the tethers of bonds and connections he’d built through his life.
I thought I’d noticed a strange tether, but more of the darkness from the corrupted bones blotted out the shine before I could be certain.
Doubtless, the rest of his melded pieces would fight to keep him.
I leaned against Roark’s shins from where he sat on a bench in the hut. It would take careful planning, careful selection, before I removed the remaining bones.
In truth, I wasn’t certain I could take all of them without killing him. Fadey had placed one bone directly over his heart.
Brynn bustled around Kael, gathering the bloody linens and seeing to it that the fur remained over his body. She’d even summoned òlmr to sleep beside Kael.
By now, I knew Brynn Oakbriar was a genuine soul, a warrior. But she’d been strange since the pass, almost like she was battling her own fever.
“Brynn,” I whispered in a soft voice. “Why don’t you go rest?”
“Oh.” She smiled, but it was more like a wince than anything. “I’m all right. I can watch over him if you both need to rest. I’m certain that to unmeld is taxing. Looked difficult, at least.”
Roark leaned forward, his hands falling over my shoulders. What is wrong with you, Oakbriar?
She scowled. “Nothing is wrong with me. Why don’t you go sleep, my prince? You look like you’re ready to murder half the Unfettered Folk.”
I canted my head, studying her fidgety hands. She would reach for Kael, then pull back and tidy up a space that had no need to be tidied. Brynn would wheel around with every moan of pain Kael freed in his sleep.
She was not herself.
“Brynn.” I played with the ends of my hair. “You know when I use my craft that I fall into a sort of trance within the realm of souls. Which is why Skul Drek is there too.”
She ran a quick hand down òlmr’s head, then looked to me. “Yes. I’ve witnessed you fall into it.”
“Funny thing is, while there, I can see things. Souls. Connections, like Gunter describes. Kael’s are utterly tangled because of the soul bones. But they remain, some old, but some looked new.”
Brynn’s face heated. “What are you saying, Lyra?”
“Nothing.” I looked down at the ends of my hair again. “I’m merely, you know, curious if you might’ve felt anything when you met my brother.”
All at once, Roark’s spine straightened like a stern rod. Oakbriar.
“What?” Brynn picked up one of the clean linens and twisted it about, as though looking for some sort of use for it. In the end, she merely wrung it between her hands. “It wasn’t right away.”
Dammit. Roark gestured his curse. His brilliant eyes were wide, stunned. Truly?
Brynn’s chin quivered. “It was after the Unfettered arrived. When he was sleeping, when the curse of those wretched bones was not taking him. I didn’t mean for…I didn’t want…” Her words broke off.
I rose and crossed the room to her. Brynn stood taller and stronger than me, but she practically collapsed against me when I embraced her.
“What cruel gods we have.” Brynn sniffed.
“I was told a soul bond does not take the choice from us.” I pulled back. “The decision is yours.”
Brynn nodded. “I know, and I have fought it. But…then he looked at me, like he felt it too. He…he started trying, Lyra. He started fighting the pull to darkness. I do not even think he knows about soul craft or new bonds, but he is still reaching for it.”
Roark crossed the space. But is it what you want, Oakbriar?
“When you saw Lyra for the first time, I mean during the raids, what did it feel like?”
Roark glanced at me for a breath, then back to Brynn. It felt like my soul finally breathed. I felt like she was mine to protect instantly. And I was hers, should she want me.
Brynn looked down at Kael. “Then I now understand why you risked your life to save her.”
All gods. Brynn Oakbriar had found her soul bond.
And he was another life destroyed by Fadey.
Roark cleared his throat, drawing Brynn’s attention again. He used one hand to speak. With my life, Oakbriar.
She laughed, wet and tearful, but nodded. “I’ll hold you to that, you sod. Because there may be a few times when he tries to kill Lyra or something, and you can’t slaughter him for it.”
Roark let out a breathy chuckle. For the first time since learning all the dreary truths of the past, our present predicaments, and our unknown future, there was a bit of light we could hold on to.
For now.
Dawn brought more unknowns, and I could not help but feel like fate loomed nearer and nearer.
And I did not know who would arise the victor in the end.