Page 147

“Too long, Melder.” He reached for me, ready to force me from the trance, but when I held out my hand, something stronger yanked me back.

My eyes flashed in panic. The cruel study of Skul Drek flashed bloodred. “Melder!”

His roar of violent rage was the last thing I heard before I was yanked out of the rotting cavern into a deeper, colder darkness.

—

I landed on my back. The force was harsh enough that my thoughts spun. All around the mirror was open, no longer shrouded by the cavern walls. Here, trees curved as though they’d been beaten by furious gusts of wind since they were saplings. Leaves dripped in decay and darkness.

“Lyra.”

I jolted, the gilded edges of my form flashed to hot white. “Fadey.”

Between us the wretched, narrow thread burned like rust over iron. Dreadful and unwanted.

The dark melder sat atop a murky boulder. “I missed you.”

My jaw pulsed. All that I knew, all that he’d done, seared through my soul like a molten blade.

Fadey cocked his head and laughed. “You know something? Found something? What is it you’ve learned?” His fingers plucked the thread between us.

A father’s bond to a blood daughter.

No sooner had the thought rushed through my mind than Fadey’s eyes narrowed. “What was that thought?”

Shit!

The bastard glanced at the tether between us, his mouth tight. “No. She would’ve said…a kinship bond?”

“Has your lovely blood crafter been keeping secrets from you?”

His glare lifted to me, his shoulders rising in heavy breaths.

“Will you still murder me, Fadey? Knowing I am your blood?” I knew the answer, but the bitter words slipped over my tongue all the same.

Still, for a breath, he hesitated. “This is my fate, Lyra. This…was always my fate!” His voice bellowed through the darkness. “I can’t—won’t—stop what I was destined to do. You must understand.”

“I understand blood does not make a bond.” I yanked on the tendril between us. Agony flooded over me, pain like the strike of a stone to my skull.

I was not the only one.

Fadey doubled over, cursing me. “You cannot break free of me. Give it up, girl.”

“You’ve ruined so many lives. You deserve to fall as fiercely as they deserve to be avenged.”

Fadey righted again. “You found what was hidden from me, didn’t you? Tell me, did the prince save his own blood? Did he find the bone and bury it away?”

“What little you know,” I taunted, flinging words Fadey had once used against me back at him.

“So you will not see reason.” Fadey let out a long sigh. “Then you leave me no other decision. Remember, you chose this, Lyra. It did not have to be so painful for him.”

I did not know what he meant, until my heart sank.

“Melder.” Skul Drek seemed to bleed from the shadows. Furious, dangerous. He encircled me with the desperation of being lost in a storm only to find the blaze of a hearth.

Then, he noticed we were not alone.

Skul Drek did not speak; he did not stand in front of me. To him, there was no need. Someone had taken his melder from him; someone had frightened me; someone had tried to harm me. To my phantom, there was no mercy for such an act.