For the first time, Solveig’s face paled. No lady of Myrda would want to be excluded from the royal wedding. The woman hesitated for a pause, then lowered her head and scurried away.
There was rage inside me, unwise and unexpected. Lyra’s shoulders curled, and the light that was in her eyes not moments before dimmed.
“Think nothing of it, Lyra,” Thane insisted.
“Truly.” Yrsa lifted her horn. “Solveig has yearned for the eye of House Grisen since our gentry studies. She must’ve heard about what happened.”
“It isn’t like Hundur is being silent about it,” Thane snapped.
Yrsa’s mouth tightened but she nodded in agreement.
Lyra gave them both a tentative grin, but it was a mask. There was pain behind the mottled dyes in her eyes.
I moved my palm higher on her leg and took on a firmer, near-possessive grip. She sucked in a sharp breath and shifted closer. Lyra held my open palm over her leg, a silent encouragement to never let go.
I didn’t. Not until more drunken fools tried to speak with her, some begging for their own claws like Hundur’s.
Through the corridors, I kept a hand on the small of her back until we reached her chamber door.
“Is it true?” Lyra turned to me. “What Solveig said? Did the heir of Dravenmoor die trying to take me from the raid?”
I winced.
“That is my answer, then.” Her tone grew cold.
I waited until she lifted her gaze back to mine.I don’t recall everything about that night. But I know the prince helped hide you.
“Why?”
I didn’t know what to say, how to explain what I wasn’t entirely certain I understood myself.
Lyra studied her hands for a breath. “I keep having these…dreams. Someone is holding me and running through the wood. At our backs there’s only smoke and screams.” She rubbed herbrow with her fingers. “He tells me to keep my eyes closed. What if it’s not a dream? What if it’s a memory?”
Dammit. Her dreams aligned with my own, and I couldn’t explain any of it.
I don’t know.I brushed a lock of her dark hair off her brow.Queen Elisabet hates Damir’s use of soul bones. But her son had mercy on a child.
There was a new somberness in her smile. “Then I will always have a debt I cannot repay.”
She did not know that I did too.
I touched my thumb to her bottom lip, tugging gently.Ravagers have ways of knowing when bones are melded. Be on guard these next days. Royal vows make threats worse.
“I don’t go anywhere alone, thanks to you.”
Sometimes it was not enough. It was not the ravagers I did not trust; they were predictable enough. It was the one who led them.
Lyra turned to me. “If it is true. If an enemy gave his life for mine, I cannot—will not—ever be the melder Damir desires, Roark. I don’t want to meld for Stonegate, and I know you might find that treasonous and cowardly, but—”
I cut off her words with a kiss, hard and deep. Lyra moaned against my lips, her arms wrapping around my neck.
How long I took her mouth, I didn’t know, but when I pulled back her lips were full and swollen, her visible silver scars pieces of moonlight.
I pressed a palm to her cheek, and with my other hand, I said,You are no coward, Lyra. You are no monster. Your soul is too bright.
Lyra laughed softly. “You’re not the first to mention the brightness of my soul.” I tilted my head, but she waved the thought away. “Never mind.”
Shoulders to hips, I pulled her closer.I regret taking you from a safer home, but I am not a good man. I have no regrets that you are here.
