“Draven made.”
She ignored the bite in my tone and nodded. “Craft does not have all the power. Sometimes our greatest gifts are found all around us in the water, the soil, the trees. This uses a moss that grows on the underside of logs. It seals wounds, reduces the chills of fever, and even extracts toxins from the blood.”
I arched a brow, intrigued but furious enough to feign indifference.
The woman barreled on with her explanation as though her own concoction fascinated her. “Much like firevine and rosewood burn toxic in crafter veins, this moss is amplified. I found it heals a great many ailments for our folk.”
“Ourfolk.” I snorted and looked to the empty sea. “You are Draven and nearly killed him. You’re not ours.”
“Not the first I’ve heard those words.” Her palms stilled. “I am born of both worlds and rejected for it. Because of this, I had to find my place and learn my craft. You will need to do the same.By using your craft to save him, the strength of it will grow. It is like it has awakened, and will flow in your blood. Should your craft go dormant again, it will fester.”
“Why should I believe you?”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t believe me. Believe the burn you felt when you touched that soul bone. Speak true: you felt a power unlike anything before.”
I looked away, refusing to admit the truth.
The woman sighed. “I learned my craft well, Melder. Stonegate can help in that way. Be grateful it was me in the great hall. Darkwin would not have gone to Salur under my hand.” With that, she stood and handed me the pouch. “If his fever remains, add more once the first layer has gone dry.”
With each step she took toward the stempost, she sang the somber lines of the song—at gafa skugga maðr…
I blinked against the sting in my eyes, from the sea spray or something else, I didn’t know. Softly, I murmured the final line in time with the Draven bone crafter, as though we were more alike than different for a moment,Min sála, min sála. My soul.
It was harrowing and true. Soon Stonegate would own not only my life, but my very soul.
“Crafters, pay attention.” At thedawn, the bone crafter stood a few paces from the stempost. Her braids looked silver in the early threads of morning.
The second ship was spotted in the mists, distant from ours, but remained the only other sight. No land. No villages. Only Stonegate lay ahead.
Roark leaned against the coiled neck of the sea serpent stempost, arms folded over his chest, and faced the inner ship.
With my focus on Kael most of the night, I’d hardly taken note of the Sentry. Now he was a wash of somber, wretched beauty. Something cruel and hard, save the few moments of interaction he had with the Draven woman.
When she spoke to the Sentry, his features softened. The longer she whispered to him, the less tension seemed to stack on his taut body.
She mattered to him.
A lover, perhaps? I shuddered to think any sort could love a man like Roark Ashwood. Hate her as I did for the pain she’d caused Kael, the bone crafter had healed his fever. Without her rancid herbs, Kael might’ve faded from the infection and wounds.
“We will reach the shores of Stonegate by the morrow’s nightfall,” she announced, turning her back on Ashwood…as he turned to me.
The weight of his gaze spread an unnerving heat up my arms. A dozen stinging thorns on my skin. I kept my focus trained on the distant sea mists.
“The fortress is in the hills and will be reached by foot,” she said. “Until then, you are under the watch and protection of Sentry Ashwood.”
“We view protection as vastly different things, then.” A low rasp jolted my heart.
My arms had long gone numb, locked in place around Kael’s shoulders, but I shifted to peer at his face. He cracked one eye, and a weak smirk played in the corner of his mouth.
“Gods.” The word slid over my tongue in a kind of plea. I hugged his back to my chest and practically throttled him from behind. “I think I hate you, Kael Darkwin. Don’t you dare come so close to dying again.”
“As you say.” He let out a soft chuckle and gingerly rubbed my forearm around his chest.
A cinch of guilt tugged in my belly. “Kael, if I knew they planned to hurt you, I would never have argued with the Fox. Baldur knew what I was, and I…I tried to keep the lie too long.”
“Don’t.” Kael squeezed my arm. “It isn’t on you. I promised to keep your lies, and death isn’t a sturdy enough threat to change that.”
I rested my cheek on his brow, listening as the bone crafter went on with her instructions.
