Queen Ingir’s eyes had grown hateful and hard. When Baldur dragged me deeper into her room, toward one of the far tables, she looked more like a feral cat ready to lash out at the slightest movement.

Crates were stacked beside him. One lid was cracked, and inside were soul bones. Marked and prepared to be melded, bones by the hundreds were in piles inside each box.

Baldur took me around a tall beam coated in tangled ivy. A scream cut from my chest. My knees weakened.

I could not take my eyes off his mutilated face. King Damir was sprawled on the stone floor, unmoving, clad in his finest clothes. Fingers were melded as one, his skull was flattened so his chin was soldered to his breastbone. Open wounds bled through gashes in his gambeson, like he’d been pricked and scratched dozens of times.

My blood grew cold enough my body shivered.

The king was dead.

47

Lyra

My face was wet with tears, but I felt cold, numb. I did not try to stop the tears; I couldn’t even feel them fall.

Across the table, Baldur had taken one of the chairs, Queen Ingir at his side, a few seidr runes, dried black leaves, and a small paring knife in front of her.

“I’m sure you’re confused.” Baldur reeked of smugness. “Allow me to explain. It is no secret that the queen had a strong distaste for the king, but I, gods, I dreamed of the day I might finally watch the light leave his eyes. All those years on my knees, my body not my own, all for a prize he did not deserve.”

Baldur’s voice was sharp and rolled off his tongue like every word was rotten.

I lifted my chin, fists curled tightly in my lap. “What prize?”

“Don’t play the fool. The Wanderer. You’re searching for the bones.”

I didn’t deny it. What would be the point?

Baldur drummed his fingers on the table. “All that trouble in staging my own death, only to be drawn back by a simple woman who does not understand the true power of her craft.”

I swiped my tongue over my lips, tasting salt and blood. “Who are you?”

He opened a hand, gesturing at King Damir’s body. “I thought by the state of him, it would be quite obvious? No? All right, you know me as Baldur the Fox, but the name I was given was Fadey.”

Panic rose in my chest. “Fadey.”

Baldur—Fadey—opened his arms wide, chuckling. “Mesmerizing, isn’t it?”

“But how…the prince, he has known Baldur’s face since childhood.”

“Oh yes. Baldur was practically raised here.”

“But Prince Thane would know if you were not him.”