“With attacks on the rise and Dravens always seeming to know when my melder works,” the king said once we were behind a black velvet curtain in a chamber filled with ferns and potted plants, “I will have our ranks advanced in private.”

Four Stav Guards stood in front of a platform with thin twisted trees in stone pots. Fine black tunics, crimson threads around the wolf head on their chests. Beside each guard was another officer, holding a silver raven pin and a slender knife.

Damir opened one arm, summoning a skittish-looking servant with a wooden tray in hand. When the linen cloth was pulled back, four pale shards of bone were displayed in a straight line. Some looked like they might’ve been taken from a thigh, or shoulder, and one appeared to be a piece of a finger.

A wizened bone crafter woman entered the chamber from a side door. Her hair was the color of frost and the crimson robes drowned her knobby body. Under the watchful eye of the king, the crafter etched runes into the shards—protection, wisdom, strength, joy. Where her fingers traced across the surface of the bone, a thread of gold followed.

I looked about, but no one seemed stunned by the light, no one made a whisper of awe at the beauty. No one could see it, the remnant of a soul still living within the bones left behind.

Gentle applause from the small crowd followed when the servant showed the finished shards, marked in their manipulation as soul bones.

“Lyra.” King Damir gestured for me to step forward. “Once the officers have been cut in their chosen locations, meld the bones so they might reach their new ranks and power.”

There was a somber kind of hush that fell over the chamber. Anticipation, maybe a bit of trepidation, lived in each suffocating gaze. They’d witnessed Fadey do this, no doubt, and it was obvious many had missed the spectacle.

Some of the Stav awaiting their bone looked practically ravenous.

I looked over my shoulder. The only eyes I found reeled me in like a line in the sea. Roark’s features were steady and unmoved. He did not look away.

Strange as it was, I took a bit of strength from the scrutiny of the Sentry. He was a shadow I did not always want, he was the cause of my being here in many ways, but Roark was also becoming the constant on which I could rely.

A firm bit of ground that was dependable and sure.

My fingers trembled when the first bone was placed in my palms. The Stav who’d receive the shard was tall and lean; his hair, the color of red sand, hung long down his back.