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Now those haunts from the past wished to serve me, stand by me. They wished to protect the only bright piece of my soul.

“You need us,” Brynn repeated, her voice soft.

I let out a sigh and gestured briskly. Fine. Someone fetch Gunter. We will also need him.

—

“Mid bedding.” Gunter leaned against the wall, his arms folded over his bare chest, his trousers half undone and slipping down his hip bones.

“Don’t remind us,” Emi hissed. “I never wish to see your ass again.”

“Because it is so glorious?” With his hair free from the braid down his skull, the auburn strands fell around his shoulders when he glared at me. “You couldn’t have waited a damn bell toll?”

You did not need to come. I would’ve used another. I gestured over my shoulder when we returned to my chamber door.

Gunter snorted when Emi repeated my words. “Don’t tell me you’d actually consider signaling Weaver Flegi. He is terrible with his soul weaves and does not care for the melder. An important thing of note. So I will come with you. Well, I would’ve been coming in much more delightful ways if you’d waited that bell toll.”

Brynn rolled her eyes. “I have no doubt Sigrid will still be in your bed when you return. She is moments away from inking your damn name on her breast.”

“Envious, Brynnie?”

“Gods, no.”

Gunter tightened the laces of his trousers. “I’m not missing this. Can’t wait to see the look on Virki’s face come dawn.”

Where Gunter reveled in my uncle’s unease, Virki was the man I trusted the least. If he could betray a sealed bond and his own daughter, it did not take much to imagine what he would do to the melder whose craft he blamed for every wretched twist of fate.

I took care to knock the pattern Lyra and I had predetermined, then stepped into an empty room. The others filtered in behind me, waiting near the doorway while I stepped to the adjacent sitting room.

Inside, the fire in the inglenook had died a bit, the stool I’d kicked during the fiery frustration remained toppled, and there was no Lyra.

Panic grew taut in my chest. I scanned the space, desperate to find her.

Shadows shifted in the corner near an old woven tapestry of the double-headed raven of Dravenmoor.

Lyra peered out, a tinge of red to her cheeks. “Not the most brilliant of hiding places.”

In my absence she’d tied her hair off her neck and added a pair of trousers she must’ve found. Mine, but smaller than I could wear now. Still, they buried Lyra’s figure.

I could not recall a more perfect sight.

I went to her side and slipped my fingers through hers, lifting her knuckles to my lips. Ready?

With a nod, Lyra followed me into the adjacent room. She cracked one knuckle and took in the crowd meandering about my bedchamber. “Why are they all here?”

We need them to witness.

Emi beamed and hurried over to us. She took hold of Lyra’s free hand. “I hear my cousin is horridly unromantic.”

Lyra offered me a knowing smirk. “I wouldn’t say that.”

“I do agree this is the surest way to draw you into the clan as part of the Dravens, not an enemy,” Emi said.

“Yes, so I’ve heard. But are we certain it can’t be challenged because everyone on the council despises my craft and believes those gods-awful prophecies?”

A new somberness filled Emi’s expression. “To unweave a soul bond is only allowed in certain circumstances.”

“Treason.” Auki held up one finger. “And abuse of the heart, mind, or body. Especially against one’s partner.”