Kael added bits of silver florin for the Stav to take with them to Salur. “I did hear a ravager spoke to the Sentry. Mad fool kept shouting about duty, like Ashwood was here to serve them.” He chuckled. “The bastard died with a look of shock when the Sentry cut through his skull.”

To me, Dravenmoor had done nothing to deserve Roark Ashwood’s service after trying to slaughter him in childhood.

“I think I saw Skul Drek, Ly.” Kael’s voice lowered.

“What?”

He nodded. “I think I saw him in the trees. There was this darkness, so thick I couldn’t make out where the soil began and the trees touched the sky. But for a fleeting moment, right when the final ravager fell, I could’ve sworn I saw his eyes. Like the molten hell—red and wretched.” After a breath, Kael laughed and shook his head. “Sounds mad. Perhaps it was a trick of the mind. Hard to know with all the blood and chaos.”

I laughed and followed behind him, but I could not shake the discomfiting feeling there was more to what Kael saw than any of us knew.

There was a shift since the slaughtered guards were found beyond the walls. Desire to break free was now edged in sharp fear.

I despised the helplessness, the dependence on men who held blades that had torn my life apart. Edvin’s skill with the mallet had earned him undeniable respect from the Stav captain who led the smiths of the guard, men and women who pounded anvils and aided bone crafters in forming Stav armor and blades.

The light had not returned to Edvin’s eyes, anger and a dark rage still festered under the surface, but his fury was now homed in on breaking iron and steel and sweating out his pent disdain.

Hilda said he still spoke little, but she anticipated it was how her brother would be until Salur. The emptiness from bidding his wife and young ones farewell was a stain on his soul.

What was most unsettling was Roark Ashwood. Where I had kept the secret of our battle in the old tree house, the prince ardently boasted about my aim to his Sentry.

For a moment, Ashwood looked at me with fleeting concern before briskly chastising the prince until Thane shoved his shoulder and ended the conversation.

After the battle at the gates, I looked at the Sentry differently. Impossible not to when I’d seen the way he killed, the ferocity in his devotion to keeping me, the prince, and all of Stonegate protected.

He was a man made of brutality and secrets, but there was loyalty beneath the surface.

I did not resent his presence as much; some mornings I almost anticipated the sight of my dark shadow.

Twelve days inside the gates, and I stood in the round entryway of the palace, hair braided, boots tied, and a dagger sheathed to each thigh.