Chapter 46
Roark
Lyra was crying.
Her sobs were muffled, like she screamed at me from behind a thick door. I rocked. Again. Again. I was shaking. No, someone was shaking me.
“Roark.” My wife’s voice cracked.
I hated it.
Slowly, I cracked my eyes. Through the haze of dim candlelight, I made out Lyra’s tearstained face. Behind her Brynn hugged her middle, Thane looked murderous, and Emi clung to Yrsa’s hand like she might snap off her fingers. Even Darkwin, clutching a new wound on his hip, looked despondent.
A wet, hot tongue teased my ear.
Gods. Kyrre, stupid wolf, licked the side of my head.
“Roark.” Lyra’s fingertips stroked the side of my face. “Roark, look at me.”
I reached for her cheek. What happened?
Lyra’s chin trembled. She shook her head, took my face in her palms, and kissed me. Deep and needy.
Fine enough with me. Answers would come later.
My palm went to the back of her head and I held her against my mouth, tasting her, needing more of her. The possessive nature I kept tamed felt unbalanced. Darkness clawed just beneath the surface.
Lyra broke the kiss but kept her brow to mine. She pressed her palms to my chest. “Fadey did something to you, do you remember?” A tear fell from her lashes to my cheek. “I think he summoned me because he wanted to get to you. He knew you—Skul Drek—would come for me.”
Fadey. Vague, uncertain thoughts filtered through my head. A haze shrouded them, but I could draw out the voices the deledan heard. Fadey ripping Lyra from me, the frenzy, the panic. I wanted to destroy him, and I…struck.
My brows cinched together. He burned me.
Lyra shook her head. “I don’t know what he did, but he wrapped you in these bright—ropes, thorns, I don’t know—and you…faded. Gods, I thought I’d wake to find you…” She didn’t finish and buried her face against my neck.
“I don’t want to point out the obvious, but something is still happening to him.” Thane’s voice was a sharp rasp.
“It’s true,” Brynn said. “I didn’t know what to do. You both fell over and those…spread all over him.”
I glanced at my palms, my vision clearer. My veins were raised, pulpy, and black.
“Your eyes are awful too,” Darkwin offered glumly. He did not mince words, and I didn’t know if it was from the soul bones or because he simply didn’t have the strength.
Yrsa stepped forward and held out one of the thick bangles we’d used to purchase Sindri’s debt. The piece was wide and polished, so it served as a makeshift mirror.
Looking back was fiery red. Not my eyes. The same dark veins webbed out from the sockets, down my face, over my throat.
“You said it happened when his darker soul touched Fadey?” Yrsa asked.
Lyra nodded. “Immediately. Like I said, I think Fadey came to draw me away with the intent to hurt Roark. What did he do?”
She clung to my palm like she would never release it.
Yrsa knelt beside me and opened a small pouch she’d pulled from inside the cloak on her shoulders. “I know a cast that can reveal if any curses or spells were placed on you. I just need a drop of blood.”
The princess pricked my finger. Yrsa never proclaimed to be a strong blood crafter, but she was one of the most knowledgeable of the craft. Always reading and learning and memorizing herbs for casts.
She took the blood and spread it along a strange blue leaf. Eyes closed, the princess touched the edges until the smear of blood turned black.
Yrsa’s shoulders slumped. “They’ve cursed you, Roark. Well, what I’d guess is that Fadey has blood casts around him, so when you touched him, the curse took hold.”
“What sort of curse?” Emi asked.
“I don’t know.” Yrsa tugged on the end of one braid. “I’m not skilled with curses, more healing spells. And I don’t fully understand your soul craft.”
“Can we get it out of him?” Lyra’s hold on my palm tightened.
The princess looked a little defeated. “There usually are counter curses, but I don’t know what they’ve done well enough to even begin crafting an antidote.”
“It’s something in your soul,” Lyra whispered.
I rubbed a palm over my chest, hate and violence too close. I feel like I am more him than me. It feels like the darker soul has not settled, but is hovering just below my skin.
A throat cleared. Jordis. Her long hair was braided now, and she’d lined her eyes with kohl like many of the other Unfettered Folk. “Lyra, Gammal’s returned. She may have something for you.”
Jordis shot me a sympathetic look, then stepped out of the cavern.
I staggered to my feet, every limb feeling as though it was weighed down by stones. Lyra slid her arm around my waist, allowing me to brace against her as we walked out to the camp.
Sindri looked at me with a touch of horror, his hand on Kyrre’s head. The pup whimpered. I let my chin fall, avoiding the scrutiny, the fear of others.
“Elskan.” Gammal held a bit of thin parchment in her fingers, her eyes milky and distant. “Sit. Sit.”
“Did you see something?”
The old woman swayed. “A soul of shadows burns in chains made from vengeful hate. Freedom is found through the blood of the maker of this cruel fate. Take care, for should the chains not be shed, a dark soul is as good as dead.”
A soul of shadows. Me. I was a dark soul. The barbs, the bright tether, it had to mean something had poisoned my soul, and my soul would be the price to pay if we did not find a way to remove it.
Lyra’s gaze was burdened. No mistake, she understood the riddle as well as I did.
I slipped my fingers through hers and pressed our knuckles to my lips. The burn of cruelty was there, but somehow I managed to dredge up a touch of tenderness. This is not our end. Do you believe me?
She nodded, glassy tears in her eyes. “Don’t break that promise, Ashwood.”
No lines. I kissed her knuckles again.
“You cannot meld again, Lyra,” Darkwin said. “Or unmeld. Not if Fadey keeps finding you.”
“At least not until we know more,” Emi interjected. “No one knows a deledan rite better than Elisabet.”
Lyra brightened. “She might understand what happened.”
“Then let us hope your men found the soul queen with haste,” Gammal said. Her eyes were clear again, and she wore a sad smile. “For I do not think your enemies will wait much longer.”
—
We stood at the impasse of pathways that flowed into Dravenmoor.
Gammal reached for Lyra after we finished watering the horses. The old seer pressed a kiss to Lyra’s brow. “You have a fate to meet, elskan. From the first inkling of a daughter from the god-queen’s blood, I have felt you will change these lands.”
“Destroy them,” she whispered.
“Destruction does not always mean the end. From the ashes, do new blooms not grow stronger? I do not know what the Norns have in store for you, but trust your heart, elskan. Fight for all you have won, for all those who stand with you here.”
I sat atop a horse and took in the sight.
Unfettered Folk, Jorvans, a Myrdan royal, and Dravens. We all stood together, and we all desired to let the Wanderer King rest. Men like Fadey and Damir were the cruel hearts who misinterpreted the lore of restoring the first king’s bones.
Such power was never meant for one soul; it was too fierce, too corruptible. Like the god-queen tried to show her greedy husband, the gods’ gifts were meant to strengthen every land.
I did not know how Lyra would be the one to restore the power of the Wanderer without the bones, but I knew enough to understand that lore and fables were never direct. Lessons were learned through their tales, and only after did one truly find the meaning behind the words.
“This is where we part.” Gammal held Lyra’s face. “But I pray to the gods that we meet again.”
Jordis and Sindri bid farewell to the Unfettered who would stay behind. My nephew smiled with a bit of shyness when some of the men made him vow he would not become a pompous, spoiled prince.
Lyra settled in front of me, unbothered by the horrid, pulpy veins on my flesh; the tension in my muscles; or the red of my eyes. In truth, she held me a little tighter than before.
Those who remained with the seemódir raised their fists, shouted farewells, and stayed on the edge until the long line of our growing army faded around the sharp path down the Night Ledges.
—
“Roark, you’re burning.” Lyra pulled back on the horse and turned to inspect my head.
I feel him, I gestured with a shudder. Trying to get out.
“Dammit.” Lyra kicked her leg over the horse. “Scoot forward. I fear you’re about to fall off.”
I didn’t argue as we maneuvered into new positions on the charge, Lyra holding one of her slender arms around my waist and me slumped over the neck of the mare.
The gnawing at my flesh from something within me was maddening. I could hardly keep focused as we descended the switchbacks. When we emerged from the pass, the bodies of Stav Guard remained where we’d battled them, gray and sunken in the faces.
We left them again.
One palm fell to Lyra’s thigh. I spoke to her there. Lyra. I need you to know that you have always brightened the night inside me. You made my dark existence worth living.
She covered my hand, squeezing my fingers. “Don’t. You’re talking of endings, Roark. You told me our bond shattered endings. There are no endings, not with us.”
I lifted her palm and pressed a kiss to each fingertip.
No true endings. But we could be separated. Like Nivek and Jordis. Like my mother and father. Soul bond or not, if the gates of Salur called, there would be no stopping them.
“Hold.” Brynn led the caravan, but she held up a fist when the two fara wolves raised their hackles. Oakbriar lifted a notched arrow and aimed for the darkness. “Make your name known.”
Silence.
Weak, overheated, and locked on the edge of violence; it did not matter. I reached for the hilt of my sword, ready to stand between enemy blades and Lyra.
“Sister. I thought we were closer than this, being twins and all.” Auki, hooded and with half of his face shrouded by a mask, stepped onto the path. Four fara wolves surrounded him.
A low, hesitant chuckle rippled down the line.
Brynn lowered her bow. “You did that on purpose. Foolish of you, Auki. Gods, we’re all wound in tension. I could’ve shot you.”
Auki tugged the cloth off his nose and winked at his twin. His levity died when he saw me. “Good gods, Roark, what happened?”
“Fadey.” Lyra spoke instead. “Change of plans. We need to get back to the queen, see if she knows what was done to the deledan. It has altered Roark’s craft somehow.”
A shadow crossed Auki’s face. “No need. Follow me. The queen has come to you.”