Across the breast of his leather jerkin was a double-headed raven. The emblem of Dravenmoor—the enemy kingdom. The land behind the raiders.
By the gods, they’d found her and the curse in her eyes had finally destroyed her entire world.
1
Roark
The boy’s death was myfault.
Uther was found facedown in the river near the stone walls of the royal fortress before dawn. A new Stav Guard in the unit assigned to my watch, a mere boy of eighteen. The body was rent down the middle, chest flayed, ribs torn apart like a cracked goose egg.
He was sent to the hall of the gods in Salur too soon.
The flat cart holding the young guard’s corpse rolled past a line of stoic Stav. The palace healer attempted to cover his pulpy face, tinted blue from a night in the water, but when the wheel struck a stone in the path, the linen pulled back.
My fists curled, digging into the callused flesh of my palms.
Uther’s pale eyes were left open, too stiff to close, staring lifelessly at the noon sun in a wash of fright. Splatters of blood coated his neck, his lips, his shredded black tunic of the Stav.
“Dravens,” a lanky Stav Guard murmured to another. “Had to be. Uther was a bone crafter.”
I closed my eyes, despising the truth of it.
Tales of the different crafts of magic were written in the sagas of the first king, the Wanderer, who rescued a daughter of the gods. As a reward, the Wanderer was given pieces of the three mediums of the gods’ power—bone, blood, and soul—to strengthen his fledgling kingdom.
Most within the realms of Stìgandr believed the tales were mere fables, but magical craft was real enough.
Bone craft manipulated bone into blades that were nigh unbreakable. It crafted healing tonics from bone powders, and poisons from boiled marrow. Blood craft used blood for spell casts and rune work. Soul craft took power from the dead, and was the common gift of Dravenmoor, the kingdom across the ravines.
Dravens despised King Damir of House Oleg, the king of Jorvandal, insisting he used craft to strengthen his warriors and armories through corrupt and forbidden ways.
I would not say they were wrong, but it did not lessen the rage in my blood that a boy was slaughtered for merely doing his duty.
“If I could, I’d burn every damn Draven on a pike,” the guard went on.
His fellow Stav hissed at him to be silent, his gaze finding me—their superior and a Draven.
My blood belonged to the enemy kingdom, but fealty belonged to Jorvandal after being left for dead at the gates of the fortress a dozen winters ago.
But to some, even my own men, I would always be their enemy.
The heel of my boot cracked over the pebbles when I spun into the arched doorway of the Stav quarters, a longhouse built to fit dozens of men.
In the great hall, flames in the inglenook were dying toembers, and drinking horns of thin honey mead were toppled from recent nights of debauchery. Stav trainees had spent the cold months at Stonegate, but after the revelry, they were all now returned to their families and villages across the kingdom to await orders from the king.
A few younger Stav staggered to their feet, readying to greet me. I could reprimand them for not standing by for their fallen brother, but at the sight of the green tinge to their faces, the red in their eyes, perhaps they simply couldn’t bear it.
I ignored their murmured salutes and strode into the larger chambers meant for Stav officers. My chamber was more a wing than anything. A library and study, a bedchamber, and a washroom. I bolted the door behind me and crossed the woven rug to the washroom in ten long strides.
Along the jagged scar that carved across my chest, throat, to the hinge of my jaw, was a roaring ache, like I’d swallowed the howling rage of the sea.
Bile rose in my chest, a harrowing sort of shadow coated my gaze.
I gripped the clay washbasin, breaths sharp and deep.
Violence was no stranger to me, but it grew harder to keep the lust for blood tamed. I was the Sentry of Stonegate, and the Sentry was meant to be the stoic measure of restraint.
In this moment, I wanted to be more of a monster than those who’d slaughtered Uther.
