The taste of smoke and brine burned like bile on my tongue. I felt the urge to lash out, to succumb to smoky shadows until I fell into nothing but the sharpest edges of my soul, hate and rage and avarice.

Wind whipped across the lawns. I shoved through mounting crowds strolling the outer courtyards, ignoring their gasps and declarations; some men had boorish manners.

Emi and the prince caught up, Thane still securing his short blade to his belt.

Instead of taking the paths through the gardens, I carved through one of the archways and down another set of steps, which would spit us out near the back of the queen’s corner of the fortress.

I’d only stepped off the final stair when the bellow of ram’s horns broke through the still morning. Boots stomped over mossy cobbles, and Stav captains shouted down from the watchtowers, bellowing commands.

“Go.” Thane shoved me between my shoulders. “You’re right, you’re always right. Go.”

We sprinted around the corner. The gentle slope looked down on the queen’s private garden planted beside the wall of glass doors. Open lawns spread out to the knolls and final walls.

There, scrambling toward the edges of Stonegate, was Lyra.

From all sides, Stav Guard hunted her. Queen Ingir screamed on her knees, wailing over something I could not hear. Most sound was muffled anyway. The roar of craft filled my ears. For so long it was untamed, not mine to command. No longer. The power in my blood was mine to summon—to terrify, to kill.

“Roark?” Thane’s voice was distant though he stood next to me. “What’s on your scar? Is it bleeding?”

“Thane.” Emi’s voice trembled. “Step back.”

The division of two pieces had never been mine to control until recent weeks. Until Lyra.

Little by little, the chains keeping the power out of my control had returned. My soul was tethered to hers and I would slaughter anyone who tried to break it.

Lyra stumbled. A Stav Guard grabbed hold of her ankle before she could run again.

Darkness, so cold it burned, ripped through every pore. Fear bled from her soul. I was consumed by it and it snapped the final strand tethering my will to keep control.

I freed the lash of darkness with a rough, chilling cry of her name.

49

Lyra

I ran straight ahead. I would know the truth, but to anyone else, it appeared as though I’d wrongly attacked a Stav captain and slaughtered the Jorvan king.

The wall was my last resort. It took me too far from Roark, from Kael. It took me to open trade routes and ravagers in the wood.

I kept running.

Horns sounded again. The vibration of them rattled my marrow. I tightened the hold on my skirt and quickened my pace, only to snag my toe in a divot of earth.