51
Lyra
I woke to the snap of twigs underfoot. Mists curled through the small bower hut and the surrounding wood like serpents. On the edge of the camp, Roark stood, facing the darkness of the trees. He was still dressed in his Sentry black, but his weapons were shed and his tunic was half-untucked.
For a moment I could see him as before, the Sentry, handsome and mysterious, silent and passionate.
Those hands touched gently and killed brutally.
Then on the second look, I saw the eerie eyes of a darker soul, the cold touch, the hiss of a rasp. He was Skul Drek, the assassin who'd slaughtered many, an enemy living within the walls of Stonegate.
But if he didn't realize…
I eased off the ground and rubbed the chill from my skin. Arms wrapped around my middle, I went to him.
One pace away, Roark turned his head, but he looked at me only when I came to his side. For a breathless moment, we studied each other as if we'd forgotten how to speak.
When he made no move to form a gesture, I spoke first.
"I never saw the glow of your form."
A groove formed between his brows.
One corner of my lips curved into a weak smile. "When I would meld, anyone in the room glowed while I was in the trance. But not you. I didn't realize it until now."
Roark squared to me. The pastes had dried and chipped off his scar. It looked as it always did now. Raised, red skin from jaw to the opposite side of his chest.
"Whenever I went into the mirror," I repeated, "I didn't see the light of your soul because you were there with me."
He held out a hand, but recoiled when I flinched.
Roark dropped his chin. You did not see the light because it does not exist within me and you were never meant to see my darker pieces .
"So you would've gone on lying to me, letting me love you?" My voice croaked. Roark's head snapped up, but the words would not stop. "I told you about how I feared the shadows, how I feared him, how I was drawn to him, and you said nothing.
It should never have meant anything . Roark took a step closer. I was supposed to despise you, hunt you. Instead, you've brought me to my knees, begging for more of you .
He towered over me, our chests touched, and I didn't step back. We faced each other, a challenge, a desire.
Roark's eyes softened, and he spoke close to my face. Break me, I no longer care, as long as it is you who wields the destruction .
"I don't know what to think. Emi told me you could not control it, but now you can." I closed my eyes for a heartbeat, trying to slow the noise in my thoughts. "After all that has happened, all the lies from everyone, I only want a bit of truth."
Roark swallowed, and when I sat on a fallen log, he sat beside me.
Yesterday was the first time I commanded the divide within me . His gestures were slow and deliberate. He did not want me to misunderstand a word. I think that is why it erupted with such violence.
Roark gestured at his scar .
I lifted a hand and ran my trembling fingertips along the jagged scar over his throat. "You told me this was done to you."
He nodded. It was done as punishment, cursing me to be the one forced to find you.
I blinked. "But why?"
Roark looked at me, eyes shadowed . I remember the raids now. Everything.
"You remember that night?" I swallowed. "You were the one who took me away…to the sea, weren't you? I was placed on a longship."
I was there.
I pressed my fists to my forehead, moments spinning, some felt like a dream, others real enough I could smell the sweat, the spray of the sea. "A tide wanderer brought me to Gammal. I…I think we met in a market and she took me to the young house."
Roark nodded. The woman was from across the Night Ledges from one of the Unfettered clans and cared little about craft. She would not give you up.
"Why were you there, Roark?"
He bent his knees and let his forearms drape over the tops. I wanted to be one of the Dark Watch. I followed the prince's raiders, got turned around in the wood, and stumbled down a knoll into the goat pen of a small house .
I closed my eyes. "I remember. My mother sent me to lock the goat pens. We didn't know what was coming." I blinked my gaze back to him. "Why didn't you kill me when you saw the scars?"
Roark pressed a hand to his chest, then with a bit of hesitation, reached across and touched the place over my heart. You brightened my soul and I knew .
Blood thudded between my ears. "Knew what?"
He held my stare for a long pause. You were mine .
Mine. Skul Drek said my soul was his; Roark claimed the rest.
With the heel of my hand I swiped away a stray tear. "How could you know?"
Soul craft is in my veins, Lyra. Because of it, soul bonds are felt so fiercely it is undeniable. They are sacred in Dravenmoor. I felt it the moment you touched me that night .
"But you hated me in Skalfirth."
Roark dropped his chin and traced the long trail of his scar. The bond was shadowed. For a moment. That first damn star plum you threw at my head cracked the shields against you. I could not take my eyes off you. If I hated you, it was because I could not understand why I wanted you .
It had been much the same for me, from the way Roark had pinned me to him in the great hall in Skalfirth, to moments on the longship. I'd yearned to detest him, but found a calm around him in the same breath.
"I lied to you," I said slowly. "About learning your words. I felt them from the beginning."
Roark's jaw worked for a breath before he looked to the soil, as though he didn't know what to say.
I cleared my throat. "You say you were punished because you got the prince killed. Is that the truth?"
His palm rubbed the side of his neck. Prince Nivek saw me speaking to you. When he cornered me in the wood, I told him the truth. The melder was supposed to be a monster, a brute we should delight in killing. Not a girl who burned through me. Once the prince believed me, he agreed to help hide you .
"The arms in my dreams," I whispered more to myself than Roark. "Why don't I remember?"
The prince was called the soul shadower . Roark's eyes burned with regret. His craft helped him darken experiences a soul has endured .
"And doing so takes the memory?"
Shadows it .
I coiled a lock of hair around my finger. "Until you. The memories returned the more I was around you."
Perhaps I was not the only one who brightened a soul.
"The prince took me to the sea. He saved me." I didn't want to ask the question. "How did he die?"
Roark raked his fingers through his hair. My uncle discovered what we had done. Our people determined the prince was a traitor, and…slit his throat before he could even get a trial .
All gods. Bile burned on my tongue. An enemy prince saved me, then lost his life for it. "And you? They did this to you?"
My fingers gingerly touched the cursed scar.
My mother pled with the council to punish me another way. Used my youth as the bargaining chip. They agreed to split my soul, forced me to kill, until the lost melder was found again. They knew you were still alive. I wasn't welcome to wait with my clan and was left at the gates of enemies. If I survived, if I proved myself, then I would earn a place in the clan again .
"And how were you supposed to prove yourself? I've seen you kill many Dravens."
Roark let out a breath. I was to kill the lost melder when she was found .
It was as though a fist struck my throat, robbing me of breath. For a moment we were still, silent.
"But you didn't."
Roark shook his head. Before you ever reached Stonegate, I was planning to kill you, but I was already drawn to you. When the fara wolf was sent, I couldn't let you die .
"Sent?" My voice cracked. "The wolf was sent to kill me?"
Yes . Roark studied his palms. The attacks came to the walls because I betrayed my folk again .
Because he didn't kill me. The same as he'd done as a boy.
"Why were you not supposed to kill Fadey?" I asked. Roark's soul had been divided while Fadey still served as the melder.
I had to learn to fight. The more blood I spilled as a Stav, the darker the soul became. Fadey was allowed to meld, so attacks would be leveled at Stonegate, to give me a chance for bloodshed .
"But you killed your own people."
Roark's face was twisted in bitterness. Ravagers are expendable. Thieves, rapists, traitors. To fight against the Stav is their trial. Survive, and they can return. Die, and their penance is paid. I didn't mind killing them .
"I don't know what to think," I said, voice soft. "Did you know the darker soul spoke to me in the melder's trance?"
No. Only a sense, at first. The more time went on, the more I recalled and was drawn to you .
"Did you truly have no control over the attacks after soul bones were taken?"
His fingers moved slowly. Control belonged to another. I gained more as time went on, but there was always a divide until this .
He waved a hand around at the trees.
Fate or something crueler had always been there, weaving my path with Roark Ashwood.
"How does"—I struggled to speak the name—"Skul Drek kill if it is a dark piece of a soul?"
Roark studied me, remorse in his eyes. By killing a soul .
By the gods. "How?"
I can attack piece by piece until a soul's light flickers out and nothing but a husk is left behind for blades to finish .
"The soul bones shield against it, though, don't they?" I thought back to the endless battle with the Berserkir. Only after the shield of soul bones split was it possible to destroy him.
Roark gave a stiff nod.
My head spun in endless questions. "Will those who controlled your darker soul retaliate, knowing they've lost you?"
Roark looked over his shoulder toward the cliffs in the North. We should make our way to the Night Ledges before we find out .
"I cannot leave Kael at Stonegate, not with Fadey and Ingir. They will hurt him. They could hurt everyone."
Roark's fist curled over his knee. He spoke briskly with the other hand. We need to plan before we return.
"You'll…you'll go back for him?"
Roark's gaze burned when he met mine, the same familiar viciousness of the Sentry written in his features. I swear it .
The declaration was simple, but each gestured word cut to my marrow, a vow deeper than blood.
I did not know what to make of him. A liar? A protector? A lover? I looked down at my hands, tangling my fingers in a patch of long grass. "Thane didn't know about Skul Drek, did he?"
Anger faded from Roark's features and they filled with pain. He shook his head.
"And you weren't pretending to care for him?"
He narrowed his gaze. Thane was the brother I did not expect. I betrayed him and will deserve his hatred . My folk wanted my loyalty after tearing out my voice to split my soul, but my fealty to Thane was not a lie. I simply had more loyalty to you in the end.
I rested a tentative palm on his leg. "How is it Skul Drek can speak?"
He shook his head. With a bit of hesitation, Roark touched the place over my heart with one hand, and spoke with the other. Soul to soul .
My breath caught. The more I thought on it, the more it was true. Skul Drek spoke to me with only his rough, strained voice when we were in the mirror land. "The soul was speaking to mine?"
I didn't know such a thing was possible . The slightest grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. He looked at his bandaged fingertip. We will need to find a way to warn the prince about his mother. If he will even listen to me.
"Thane will understand."
Do you?
I wasn't certain how to answer.
When I took too long, Roark looked away. My duty was to destroy melders, even if it meant harming Thane. And I did, remember?
"I remember the prince was attacked by Skul Drek." My voice was steady, gentle. "And I recall the despondent Sentry who sat by his bedside until he was healed. A man who, I now realize, was likely blaming himself for something beyond his control."
Roark looked at me like he hadn't truly seen me before. I never lied about what I feel for you, Lyra. Do you know that?
Perhaps it was true, but he'd been the man fated to capture me, destroy me. Then again, he'd saved me as a girl and loved me as a woman.
Both Roark and Skul Drek had become a united force to keep me alive.
Roark rubbed his thumb over the back of my hand. There is something else you must know about me—
"We're not alone." Emi shoved through the bower, blade in hand. Her pale hair was wild and tangled, and her stormy eyes were red and swollen. Did she cry for Yrsa? For Thane? For her cousin? Likely all of it. But there was the warrior gleam in her eyes now as she scanned the treetops. "We're being watched."
Roark stood, one hand on my arm. He urged me behind him. Emi tossed him his bearded ax. He caught the handle and rotated it once in his palm.
I saw nothing, heard nothing, until a twig snapped. Until dark figures split the mists. Shoulders, broadened with furs and cloaks, stepped into our hideaway. Some held blades with black-leather-wrapped hilts. Others kept arrows made of wood with raven-feather fletching trained on our hearts.
My heart stilled when half a dozen fara wolves entered the clearing, heads lowered, jagged teeth bared. Each wolf had runes painted on their fur and leather bands around their neck, as though they were common hounds.
"Saw you in the trees." A man tossed back his hood, revealing similarly inked runes across his brow and a tight ridge of dark hair braided in a long plait, the sides of his hair shorn close to his scalp. "Been some time since I laid eyes on you. Finally saw it done, then?"
Roark stiffened, and nausea rose in my stomach. They were not Stav, but they did not dress as tattered as ravagers.
Emi let out a sharp gasp when two archers parted and a woman stepped between them.
She was beautifully frightening. Sharp features, dark lips, and amber hair wrapped in tight braids around her head. Blue eyes took in each of us as they swirled and thrashed like a cerulean tide. She laced her fingers together, the bloodred paint on her sharp fingernails a contrast to her dark gown and bear fur mantle across her shoulders.
Atop her head was a circlet in the shape of black ivy.
I did not need to see the warriors nearest to her genuflect to know her—Elisabet. The queen of Dravenmoor.
"I have awaited this day for so long," the queen said, her grin pinned on Roark. "This is the melder, I presume?"
Roark stepped in front of me, his grip tightening on the ax handle.
Elisabet's features hardened. "You still protect her? After all I did to keep you alive."
She tried to keep Roark alive?
He spun the ax in his hand again as a reply.
The queen rolled her shoulders back. With a glance at her men, she waved her hand toward me. "Seize her."
The instant the shrubs moved with Elisabet's Dark Watch, shadows surrounded me and Roark's hand took hold of my wrist, but there was more.
The Draven warriors reeled back when Skul Drek's menacing presence enveloped me—a dark shield between me and them.
I leaned into Roark, holding steady, ready to reach for the dagger sheathed to my thigh if it came to that.
Another sigh, and the queen waved off her guard. "Enough."
Little by little the darkness of his divided soul faded, but the ferocity of Skul Drek remained written on Roark's face as he made swift, threatening gestures to the queen.
"We do not stand down if the melder is not given safe passage with your men," Emi translated, a slight quiver to her tone. She feared the queen.
Rightfully so. When Elisabet looked her way, a snarl curled her painted lips. "Your father will be looking forward to seeing you, niece."
Niece? My insides tightened.
Roark cast a look my way. I was trying to tell you .
He didn't have time to go on before Elisabet lifted her hand. "Lower your blades. We are kin. If safe passage home is what you require for the woman, then you shall have it."
Swear it , Roark demanded.
Emi's voice was not so sharp when she relayed the command.
The queen's peaceful facade cracked for only a moment before she snapped her fingers at the man who'd first spoken. "Fillip, tell the others in the trees the melder will reach our gates unharmed."
A man with golden hoops pierced along the curves of both ears dipped his chin, and barked orders at the others. They wasted no time raiding our camp.
Elisabet looked back to Roark. "We're not here to battle, after all. We only have cause for celebration. My second son, our prince, has finally returned home."