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Emi took a bow like Brynn, and when the faint flicker of a flame burned through the night, we pressed our backs against opposite sides of a tree.

A small camp. Four tents built for quick disassembly. I counted four Stav Guard in total but six horses. There were more I could not see. Eyes closed, I desired to surround them, trap them, drain the souls from their headless bodies.

It took no coaxing for the deledan to respond to my desires. All around the camp, billows of darkness wove through the trees and hedges, a dark wall to keep the Stav from fleeing.

I knocked my knuckles against the tree, drawing Emi’s attention. Give them a bit of mercy, cousin. Warn them that they are about to meet the gods.

Emi’s grin held little kindness. She drew the bowstring alongside her kohl-marked cheek and let the arrow fly.

Shouts rose inside the tents at once. The few worthless Stav surrounded the front of one tent. One held a bow, the others their blades. Gods, how perfectly foolish this plan of theirs had become. Step over Draven borders, take Lyra, and expect to escape with so few men?

It was too reckless, too bold. Likely something Thane would do with his misplaced sense of honor if he considered he was saving Lyra from the horrors of his traitorous Sentry.

No sooner had the thought fled my mind than a tall, too-familiar figure stepped to the front of the Stav.

More runes were inked on the shorn sides of his scalp, and his dark, golden hair was braided down the center. Thane’s pale eyes were like the coldest ice. He scanned the trees, blade in hand.

Damn him.

How many times had I told the fool of a prince to stay out of the fight? He put his neck against the blade too much, and one day it would draw blood that could not be stopped.

I did not want to kill the prince. But I would. If he harmed Lyra, believing her to be the killer of the king, I would send Thane to Salur.

I simply would make it quick.

Emi glanced at me. “What do you want to do?”

“You two were close, yes?” Gunter asked, his voice rough.

I nodded.

“You can use that,” he said. “It is what I keep telling you and Lyra. You have the most powerful soul of us all. Use it to command connections.”

He believed I could use the deledan to subdue the prince? The same as I forced Elisabet through our connection, perhaps, if any bond of our former regard remained, Thane could hear me.

“Do we take out the guards?” Auki crouched next to me. “It would be done quickly, especially with Òlmr and Kyrre.”

Before I could reply, the prince shouted into the night. “Roark! If that is you, then make yourself known, you coward.”

I recanted. I would kill him should he call me a coward again. He damn well knew it irked me.

Cover me was all I signaled to Emi. I stood, rolled the ax once in my grip, and strode through the trees.

Shadows followed me, a dark river building in my wake, and movement shifted behind me. No doubt, the others were aimed, ready to attack should I need. Kyrre plodded next to me, a low rumbling growing in his throat.

I stepped from the trees, rolling mists coiled around my legs.

The Stav Guard huddled closer to the prince, ready to pull him back at the first threat, but Thane did not look anywhere but at me.

His jaw pulsed, and there was a new sort of wildness in his eyes I’d not seen before. He took in my approach, the shadows of craft hanging over me like the illusion of a cloak.

Where is she?

“Safe now that she’s no longer with you.” Thane used the tip of his blade to point at my heart.

Do you wish to die, you ass?

“Only one of us will be dying tonight. Tell me, does that creature you keep inside feel pain? When I gut you and let you breathe as you bleed out, will it feel the same agony?”