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Bone craft manipulated bone into blades that were nigh unbreakable. It crafted healing tonics from bone powders, and poisons from boiled marrow. Blood craft used blood for spell casts and rune work. Soul craft took power from the dead, and was the common gift of Dravenmoor, the kingdom across the ravines.
A child whose magical craft brought three kingdoms against a small village in the knolls.
A melder’s craft was only found perhaps once a generation, and rarely in a woman’s blood. It was a collision of all three crafts—dangerous, coveted, and owned by Jorvan kings through treaties made long ago.
“Be careful, my friend. This woman will not be Fadey. I’d hate for her to bespell that dark heart of yours.” I scoffed. I’d slit her throat if she tried. I have no love for melders, and that will never change.
I was once told we never truly knew another soul until we saw the darkness they kept inside.
On instinct, I brushed a hand over the tattoo beneath my ear where Gammal had helped alter the rune marks of what once was a sigil of a House named Bien.
But silver in the eyes was proof the Wanderer King’s curse burned in the blood with the power of all. Power coveted enough it stirred wars.
To claim something as his—a strike, a kill, a horn of ale—Ashwood tapped whatever he wanted three times.
Then you will likely die. I shrugged one shoulder and leaned onto my elbows on the rail. “The threat is meaningless, Sentry Ashwood. I’m certain, no matter what I do, it won’t be long until I die anyway.”
The Sentry placed his palm against my cheek. I stiffened, eyes closed. But all he did was tap my face three times.
Pulse racing, I touched where Ashwood held his hand. Three taps—his gesture for claiming something as his. It meant mine. A word meaning a dozen things—his to command, his to use, his to protect.
He shifted my face side to side, as though inspecting for wounds, his fingers almost gentle against my cheek as he asked, Did it hurt you?
“I miss the wildness of it, the trust my clan has for the land and the gods. But there was no longer a life for me there.”
To harm the living, craft mirrors the pain. To split the soul, craft sacrifices the blood. To curse the body, craft devours the mind. To bind dead and living, craft corrupts the heart.
“I’m talking about how you’ve utterly discomposed the tightly stitched Roark Ashwood. If you keep at it, I think you might be absolutely perfect.”
“I think you will be perfect for a bit of entertainment in this dull fortress. In all our acquaintance, I’ve never seen my dear friend so undeniably frustrated. It’s completely made my morning, Lyra. I thank you for that.”
“You’ve done something to dig under his skin, and I must know what it was, for he is the most infallible, unruffled ass I’ve ever met.”
Learn this now, Melder—not everything is as it seems. Those who seem trustworthy might be enemies. Those who seem enemies, well, they might be the fiercest allies.”
“Crimson in the rune of a warrior signifies the blood of those lost in the Divisive Wars. Bronze in the rune of loyalty stands for the treaties of craft between Jorvandal and Myrda. Gold in the rune of protection, a vow from these walls to always protect those who remain loyal and steadfast against our enemies.”
“The Sentry?” “Yes. He is my captor. Or guardian, if you ask him. I prefer captor. I am told I must attend the prince’s revel with him at my side. His sour disposition frightens away all the suitable…well, suitors.”
“Poor girl. Whatever did you do to be taken?” “I fear I had the gall to exist.”
But brushing a word against Lyra’s skin caused a bit of pleasure to burn in my veins when her breath caught. As though I unsettled her as fiercely as this gods-awful woman was peeling back my ribs, peering inside to see my every secret.
“How do they talk so fast?” Kael’s irritated grumble came from my back. “Lyra hardly pauses to read the hand speak.” “Sometimes souls just understand each other, Darkwin,” Emi returned.
“I am he,” his rasp of a voice frosted against my cheek. “And we are we.”
“Ah, but this is what we are made to do, Melder. Battle until we destroy each other.” His fingers twisted around the thread of craft drawing me into him. “But this is cruel, and this time it will hurt to kill a melder.”
color we needed. The color that meant an end to war. But it was more. The first look at her stole my breath, the same that happened when stupid Gunter rammed his fist in my belly last week in the sparring circle. This time it didn’t hurt. This was warmer, like waking after the dawn to the full sun.
Roark tilted his head, then replied with his fingers against my cheek. A secret delight of mine. A duty I enjoy.
“Then why do it for me?” I lifted one hand, making certain she would see. Thane and Emi have not infected my soul like you.
“She’s mine.” An embarrassing sting of tears burned behind my eyes. “I felt it. They can’t take her.”
“They’ll never let you keep her, but we can keep her breathing. That’s what it means to claim another soul, you understand? Sometimes you must give them up if it’s what’s best.” But I wanted to keep the silver-eyed girl.
Truths have been altered, but I don’t think this is the first time I have met Lyra. Emi shot to her feet. “I knew it. The gods pointed you to her. Of course it would change your motivation, how could it not? If you’ve met before, then this has happened before, the draw to her. That’s why he helped get her free of the bloodshed.” What are you talking about? “Don’t play the fool. I know you’ve felt something. I saw it in Skalfirth. Gods, I felt it.” What? “The connection. A sjeleven bond.”
“I know the symbolism of the swallowed finger, Roark. That is a damn Draven punishment to those who harm a woman already claimed by another. Take heart no one else cares to study their rituals or you would be blamed entirely.”
“You never truly know a heart until you see the darkness inside. I might like to see yours.”
“I am he, we are we.” Skul Drek placed an open palm over my heart. I shuddered beneath the frost of his touch. “But you brighten the dark.” I swallowed, dropping my gaze to the hazy skeins of darkness billowing off his long fingers against my breast. “My soul…calls to you?” “Yes.”
He lived once after touching you. He opened the gates, believing the Dark Watch would come for you. I could not ignore the insult a second time. Do I frighten you?
I shook my head and squeezed his palm three times. He drew in a sharp breath and covered my heart, gently patting my skin, once, twice, three times. He was mine. And I was his.
I always imagined love meant being willing to die for someone. I supposed it was true. But what no one told young, girlish hearts was sometimes they fell for a man who killed for them instead.
By the gods. Roark, my safety, my calm…he was Skul Drek. Or he was part of the assassin in the shadows.
“You have kept this from everyone, from me. I told him I was being tormented by Skul Drek and all this time it was him.” “Tormented.” Emi scoffed and looked to the sky. “You would know if you were tormented by Roark’s soul.”
“I don’t know much about entwined souls, but I believe you are his sjeleven. I’ve thought it since you admitted you can feel his words.”
“We’re not here to battle, after all. We only have cause for celebration. My second son, our prince, has finally returned home.”
