Through Tomas’s unwarranted mercy, I knew to unravel melded bone ached and burned on my own body. Dozens of stinging jabs prickled along my skin until the bone shifted under the Berserkir’s skin.

Narrow threads that had been fastened in place over the soul bones were still there, stitched by another melder’s craft. Like a hem on a skirt, I tugged on the threads, unstitching each one.

Skul Drek grunted when the Berserkir’s bright form shifted. He was fighting back.

“I can make him vulnerable.”

The assassin snapped his teeth again. “You wish for pain.”

“I know it is painful, but he is lost to the violence of corrupt bones. They are so armored we cannot even take his head. Tell me another way to kill him, or do you plan to battle him until the gods intervene?”

Skul Drek looked behind him into the nothingness. “Make haste.”

I returned my palms to the gilded stitches across a soul bone shielding the Berserkir’s neck. One by one, I unlaced the old melding. The bone snapped free and the warrior’s form jerked. Skul Drek tightened his shadows, holding the man in place.

I cried out, doubling over when the agony of unbreaking craft burned in my stomach.

“Melder.” Skul Drek shifted, almost like he was torn on how to act—keep the Berserkir in his grasp? Or step beside me?

I held up a hand, bile on my tongue. “I’m fine. A little more.”

The warrior thrashed. I didn’t hear him scream, not in the mirror.

Chips and pieces of rune-marked bone flickered and fell away until the gold bone faded to the glowing ashes and drifted away on the icy wind.

Teeth clenched, I found a final piece that would open enough of a gap to sink a blade inside to his heart. Pain in my own body felt like falling into a bed of hot coals.

I cried out and stumbled.

A cold hand reached out, catching me under the arm. Skul Drek did not release me until the final thread snapped.

I bent over and heaved, retching from the pain.

“Go.” Skul Drek spoke in more of a growl than a voice. “Do not be seen here.”

“Pull back the ravagers,” I said weakly. “They follow you. Pull them back.”

He hesitated. “As you say.”

His blazing eyes looked between us. The rope was as thick as the one that once held him bound to the distant shadows. There was nothing at his back, no chain fading into the mists. Now it seemed to have altered course and bound the assassin to me. I didn’t understand it, but there was little time to fret over it.

Skul Drek took a step closer. “You brighten the night, and I will fight to keep it.”

A gust of cold chased away the inky shadows of the mirror. I fell onto my side on the damp cobblestones.