“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 loyaltyafter 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 ceruleantide. 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.
