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“Your prince believes you’d like for that to happen.” For the first time, Emi spoke to her father directly. Her voice was steady, her shoulders back, but at her sides her fists were sealed tightly.

Virki jabbed a finger toward his daughter. “You will not speak to me unless I allow it.”

“Then you’ll speak to me.”

Dammit. Lyra stepped forward. I took hold of her wrist, keeping her close, but did not try to stop her.

My uncle’s teeth flashed. “Come closer, Melder. We have much to talk about, I’m sure.”

Lyra kept a distance from the table but lifted her chin. “You cannot try to end our bond a second time. Much as you tried before, it was restored, and we have made it unbreakable.”

“Look at this.” Virki chuckled, drawing a few other men to laugh alongside him. “The melder thinks she knows Draven ways.”

Lyra’s grip tightened on my hand. “I may not be familiar with all of your customs, but I felt my bond from the first moment I saw him.” She tilted her head to look at me for a breath. “I am loyal to him, and I am no enemy to you.”

Virki went to speak but was silenced when the queen held up her hand.

My mother was not a large woman, but she had always kept a power in her presence, one that was felt, respected. She used it now.

The úlfur went quiet, while Virki’s countenance grew a little more murderous.

“I desire to hear from the melder,” said the queen.

Despite the queen’s word, disquiet rippled over my shoulder. From all angles there were members of the council. Men who’d seen battle, who knew how to kill well enough. Draven warriors who fought in the raids, had been born to despise the corruption of melding craft.

If they made a move for Lyra, I could not stop them on my own. Perhaps the others could get a few swings in. Òlmr would take out a throat or two before a blade cut her open.

They wanted a creature to kill for them. I would remind them of what they made me.

Strange now, summoning the darker soul. Where once I could hardly sense the shift whenever the assassin was needed to attack, now it was as though another layer of my insides unstitched and brought a frosty wind through my pores until darkness stood all around me.

“Finally.” Gunter’s mouth parted in stun for a bit when the full form of my severed soul took shape. A mere beat of my heart passed before his lips split into a grin. “Didn’t get a good look at the Ravines. This close, it’s mesmerizing.”

Òlmr whimpered and tucked her tail. Brynn’s face blanched, and Auki kept eyeing me nervously.

Their reactions did not matter to me. The sight of the unsettled úlfur—even Virki, who took a step back from the edge of the table—brought a warped sort of giddiness.

I grinned, almost sensing the same dark snarl come from the mirrored expression of my soul in the shadows.

One of my hands went to the small of Lyra’s back. Tell them anything. So long as you let them know they are asses.

She snickered softly but looked to the council. “I do not know what you wish for me to say. I have no desire to be a threat to anyone. I lived simply as a servant for most of my life. You despise me for my craft, but I despise soul bones as fiercely as you.”

Another pause, another heated heartbeat. Then Yanson rose. He eyed Gunter for a moment, almost warning his son to remain silent before he spoke. “Lyria—”

“It’s Lyra, Yanson,” Brynn corrected.

“Apologies. Lyra, will you tell us about your time in Stonegate? We know you melded soul bones.”

“I did.” She swallowed. “I knew nothing of my craft before I was taken to the royal keep, other than being taught to conceal it. Only one person in Skalfirth, my old village, knew what I was.”

Buried guilt gnawed at my chest when she explained Darkwin was threatened, all to force her craft to take hold.

The queen looked at me, a little stunned when Emi agreed with the tale, explaining our role in the torture of Lyra’s brother. The shadows around me rippled in a wave of anger from her scrutiny. She thought me too cruel, did she?

The queen made me.

“When I understood what King Damir desired with his Berserkirs, we began to plot against him. It was against the king, not his heir. Prince Thane the Bold did not know how deeply his father’s corruption had grown.”