I shifted a step nearer when she propped onto one elbow. Breath caught in my chest, and I cursed my feckless reaction when her eyes fell to me first. I’d anticipated frenzy and cries and confusion, but she pinned me in place, as though she were peeling back my skin and glimpsing the darker edges of my soul.

There was a discomfiting peace in those eyes, like returning home after a long frost.

I knew no other melder but Fadey. Being raised for half my life in the Stonegate fortress, I had witnessed firsthand the brutality of melder craft. The lust for more, the corruption.

Still, for a moment, my hatred for melders dulled when her gaze found mine.

The woman was tall, clearly understood how to work, but still delicate in a way. Innocent. Not the sort I expected when we sailed here. Fadey had been a powerfully built man, as had the melders before him.

But she was stronger.

One touch and the bone shifted into place beneath Darkwin’s ribs, melding the power of the soul bone into his broken wounds.

Fadey had worked slowly, with more blood and gore. When she started melding, the woman’s hands worked as though she had used her craft from her earliest memories.

She was the melder who spurred deadly raids. So many lives were lost.

For her.

Because of her.

My jaw worked through the spark of disdain rising again. I shook out my hands, turned from her, and dragged three fingers over my chest, arching them out until I clapped them into my opposite palm. A gesture for the Stav to gather, for them to move to the boats.

Stav Guard chanted and pounded fists over their chests. Baldur stepped beside me. The damn grin on his face lifted the hair on my neck.

He reveled in the pain that he brought into this house.

With a sneer, the captain looked at the woman. “Prepare to sail. Bring the crafters. We take the new melder to our king.”

Baldur wrenched her off the ground, too rough, and an odd resentment tightened my chest.

Something about her dug into my sympathies, and it was aggravating.

Moments after Lyra was on her feet, Darkwin drew in a new, deep breath.

A sob broke from her chest and tears filled her dark eyes, dripping rich blue drops onto her cheeks. I scoffed. Clever woman. When she peered at me again, the dyes had stained her skin and a thin, silver scar dug through the black centers of her eyes. Dyes, that was how she’d kept herself hidden for so damn long.

The honor given to a melder’s household was enough even a mother would deliver her child to the gates of the royal keep upon the first glimpse of silver.

Except the fallen House Bien.

They kept their girl hidden until they paid with blood.