With the other crafters, I was shoved onto my knees. Kael’s shoulder knocked against mine. When I met his gaze, his eyes were black with fear. He shook his head in a gentle warning to keep quiet, keep my head down.

“The gifted of this rotted little town.” Baldur chuckled and slowly clapped his hands, mocking the lot of us.

“We only have three crafters,” Lady Jakobson said from her place beside her husband.

“Or so you thought.”

A feverish heat rippled up my neck when the captain’s scuffed leather boots paused in front of me. Baldur said nothing, merely stood there for five, ten, a dozen heartbeats. I refused to look, refused to show my eyes lest terror reveal the truth beneath the dye.

“I offered you the traitor and melder if it is true,” Jarl Jakobson shouted. “In return you were to leave our other crafters in peace.”

I almost thought the jarl sounded uneasy, perhaps worried for his son placed at my side.

Baldur ignored the jarl and reached inside a pocket on his jerkin, removing a handful of shavings like crimson bark. He glanced briefly at Sentry Ashwood, then turned toward Vella.

“The king corrupts and destroys with his melder,” Vella gritted out, now held between two Stav Guard. “It would be better for the craft to fall into extinction than be given to Stonegate.”

“Yet you saw no trouble handing the craft to our enemies.” Baldur’s lip curled.

“At least the Draven folk understand where such a curse belongs.” She whirled her head with enough force her pale braids whipped her chin, and narrowed her gaze on me. “In the darkest pits of the frosted hell to rot.”

My lips parted. The woman knew and despised my very existence. Her indifference and coldness had not been from my station, it was all from the curse in my blood.

Tears and pleas for mercy rose from the people scattered throughout the hall. Run, elskan! Run! A faint memory of different pleas scraped against my thoughts. Like I’d been in a moment such as this before.

My pulse quickened with the urge to flee, to battle my way from these walls until I was free or dead.

Dark, scuffed boots shifted into my sights. Roark, silent and fierce, drew closer. His very presence radiated like a threat, one absorbed until it infected every heartbeat, every sharp draw of air.

Roark stood near me, but never looked away from Vella. The Sentry simply rested a hand on the hilt of a short blade with a crescent pommel. A symbol of inner court ranks. The sort of symbol that meant this man was present in the most important circles in Stonegate.

My skin felt too hot, too tight. Every pulse of my heart seemed to pump molten ore in my veins.

“What a waste,” Baldur murmured. In the next breath, the captain shoved the red flakes into Vella’s mouth.