Beyond the walls, just where the wood began and Stonegate ended, pikes with bloody heads were aligned in front of a torchlit evergreen shrub. Arrows with blue and gold fletching had pierced through each skull.
They were the Stav Guard who patrolled the wood.
From this position, the clang of steel on steel sent a shudder down my spine. The guards from the revel flung blades at men in dark cloaks. The gleam of the white wolf on the Stav Guard flashed here and there.
“What a cunning queen Elisabet has become.” Thane tightened the bowstring again, his eye ticking as he tracked movement. “This is an act of war, but she will deny involvement since they fight ravagers down there. They’re considered rogues, not under her command.”
“You think the Draven queen commands them?” My voice was hardly steady, nothing more than a rough whisper.
“I do. Along with that bastard assassin of hers.”
Skul Drek. Hair lifted on my arms. Was the unkillable assassin out there?
“Once we fire,” Thane said, a touch of warning in his tone, “Dravens in those trees will fire back. They always have a few archers hidden in the dark. Watch your heads.”
I kept low beside the prince. Hilda knelt on his other side, frantically tugging at the end of one braid.
Thane cursed when a Stav Guard ran past the wall, a ravager with a long, bearded ax three paces behind. The prince let an arrow fly; the point split through the side of the ravager’s neck.
“By the gods.” I stumbled back when he loaded another arrow.
Thane winked. “I’m more than just pretty, Lyra Bien.”
Hilda let out a scream when—as promised—the thud of a stone arrowhead pierced the side of the hut in the trees.
Thane fired below, unable to see an archer in the trees, but reeled back inside the protection of the hut in the moments before two arrows returned, missing the window by two fingers.
“Let us pray they do not light the tips,” the prince said, quickly loading another bone arrow.
I blew out two sharp breaths, then spun toward the window and steadied my borrowed bow. The trees were haunting and dark, and this range was wickedly far, nothing like I’d done on Skalfirth.
With the string taut beside my cheek, I scanned the branches. A hum of warmth brushed against my face, and for a moment I could’ve sworn a glimmer of gold burst in the trees and along the arrow shaft. Like the threads of my craft.
I aimed for a tree near the wall and let the arrow loose. Thepoint struck the soil ten paces from the trunk. A poor shot, but it drew a nearby ravager’s attention long enough a Stav Guard was able to strike his knee and bring him to the ground.
“Don’t overthink the shot,” Thane said when he fired another. “Be quick, be steady, and trust your eyes to get that arrow where it must go.”
Warmth bled from the second arrow I nocked. Now there was a distinct glimmer of threaded gold coiled around the bony tip.
A wicked sort of grin teased my lips. A bone arrow could meld to other bone.
In position to fire again, I scanned the tree line.
I blew out a breath, embracing the heat off the arrow until it glimmered like the fealty bone shard. My pulse slowed, and for a heartbeat, it seemed as though the entire world grew darker, colder. The mirror land.
Golden filaments erupted from the towering limbs and branches across the wall. By the gods, I could make out the Draven archers’ every movement, their every bone was a brilliant burst of gilded light, there to guide my arrows in the dark.
Threads of craft floated eerily around the sharp tip. With one finger, I touched a thread and pointed at the nearest pine where a ravager sat poised to fire another shot into the madness.
The thread shot forward, a tether of light from the point of my bone arrow to the skull of the distant attacker.
I let the bowstring go.
“Lyra, by the gods.” Thane’s voice shattered the dripping shadows of the mirror land and snapped me forward into the moment. The prince looked at me when an archer fell from his perch in the trees. “Woman, nowthatis the proper way to shoot an arrow.”
I blinked, stared at my palms for a breath, then grinned as Inocked the next arrow. More than rank melding, more than fealty bones, I could meld damn arrows to the bones of our enemies.
“There’s Edvin.” Hilda’s fingers curled into fists. I wasn’t certain she even breathed.
