“Ly.” Hilda nudged my arm and turned her opened book under my nose. “I’m going to find Edvin, see if he heard from home, too, but I think I found something on the ceremony. You might want to read up on it.”

I tugged the pages closer. Drawings of rune-marked bones were fitted into the corners.

“See you at supper?” Hilda paused near the door.

“I hope.”

When the door closed behind Hilda, I was all at once aware the room was filled with only me and Roark’s silky presence, which kept clawing under my skin.

I propped my chin on one fist, scanning the guidance for the ceremony of rank melding.

…A ceremonial meld, meant to enforce the strength of a warrior. Taken from the lore of Berserkirs in the gods’ armies, rank melds are a gift from those fallen in battle to those still living.

I used one finger to track each word, afraid to misunderstand. As Damir explained, bone was taken and marked in runes through the manipulation of a bone crafter to create a soul bone.

Soul bones were harvested from jarls, kings, queens, and warriors, believed to be the strongest and most potent for a meld of bone armor or healing mortal wounds.

“The wounds heal quickly, but how?” I could not find any reason such bones would strengthen the body, other than adding thickness to limbs or chests. A true, manipulated armor beneath the skin.

A hand clapped against the wall. Roark waited for me to look, then said, The fallen soul.

“The king said something similar, but I don’t understand how?”

With a sigh, he approached the table and wrote on a piece of parchment.

Once a melder bridges the dead to the living, remnants of the soul absorb into a new body and add strength, even against dire wounds.

“But if it is so powerful, I don’t understand why healers, common folk, and the Stav are not given such powerful bones constantly.”

Short supply.

“Of bone?”

For a moment, Roark seemed to consider returning to his corner, but he tugged Hilda’s abandoned chair free from the table and sat in it backward, his arms propped over the high back, legs straddled on the seat.

He briskly scribbled another thought on the parchment.

There are only so many soul bones that come to us naturally.

“Naturally? What is that supposed to mean?”

Roark’s face was unreadable as he wrote. What is the opposite of natural death?

I frowned. “You know, you could simply answer my questions.”

The Sentry smirked, flashing the white of his teeth, almost like he was amused, not agitated.

I could.

“Ass.” I rolled my eyes. One hopeful thing about being Damir’s new melder, my importance rivaled that of the Sentry. I could call him what I pleased without fear of repercussions. “An unnatural death, do you mean murder?”