There was a pulse of power, the same ripple that struck against my chest whenever she used her craft, like it called to a deeper piece of me. I felt the pulse to my soul, a slow roll from my head to my heart.

Tomas cried out, loud at first, but it soon muffled, like he was screaming into a thick quilt.

His teeth clamped. He mumbled and shouted through a taut jaw.

My mouth quirked. She was melding his mouth shut, the same threat I’d leveled at the disrespectful Stav Guard weeks earlier. I wanted her to crush his skull, but when I looked at her eyes, the silver scars widened, glazing over the brown of her eyes until they were milky white.

I hurried to her side, taking hold of her wrist, and pulling her away before she could not undo her actions. I trapped her face in my palms, stroking the bridges of her cheeks with my thumbs. Slowly, Lyra blinked into focus.

“Roark.” Her voice was low, almost frightening.

I did not know what drew me to do it—the fear in her eyes—but I pressed a quick kiss to her brow, then faced Tomas.

The wretch had crumpled to the stairs, moaning and holding his melded face. He could hardly even separate his teeth.

I gripped his hair, holding him steady, and used my other hand to speak to Lyra. He needs to know what happens when he touches you.

With the same knife she used, I pressed the edge against one of Tomas’s little fingers. The sick sound of steel cutting through flesh and bone was buried beneath his roars of pain. I palmed the severed fingertip and sneered at the sobbing man.

Without pause, I slammed my palm over his mutilated mouth, shoving the bloodied tip onto his tongue.

Lyra covered her mouth with her palm, eyes wide, when I looked back at her. In a swift gesture, I said, Finish what you began.

After I stepped aside, it took Lyra a few heartbeats to return to Tomas. The man kept choking and spitting, desperate to remove the bit of his own finger from his mouth. A stunningly vicious heat blazed in the silver of Lyra’s eyes. She pressed her fingertips to the front of his mouth, ignoring Tomas’s screams, until his teeth cracked and shifted, melded shut.

I brushed my knuckles down her arm, drawing her from the haze of the melder’s trance. I will end him. You need only ask.

Shouts from guards echoed in the corridor, answering Tomas’s first cries.

Lyra’s breath came rough and heavy. She shook her head. “No. Gods, what did I do? No, leave him. You can’t be here. Myrda only sees you as a Draven. They’ll place all blame on you. He…he told me Hundur wants to find a reason to turn Damir against you.”