Josiri gave a fruitless tug at Viktor’s wrists, and then abandoned the attempt. He raised his sword high. “Essamere! Essamere to Lord Akadra!”

Knights and hearthguard alike took up the cry. The space beneath the branches filled with running feet. Not all of them belonged to friends. In the middle distance, the scarlet and blue of Ebigail Kiradin’s knights started forward.

“What is that fool doing?”

Her attention snapped from the battle by her mother’s exasperated shout, Apara stared back at the pyre. Horden, moving with the ponderous care of the heavyset, clambered onto the raised platform beneath Sevaka’s feet. A log slid away beneath his boot.

“I’ve no patience left for the man,” muttered Lady Kiradin. “Deal with him. He can burn with them for all I care. Don’t disappoint me.”

Apara ran for the pyre.

Fresh despair crowded Rosa’s heart as the mingled Prydonis and Sartorov line came forward. The green of Essamere was a shrunken blob among the trees. Surrounded, outnumbered. Doomed.

“You needn’t watch,” said the Raven. “Say the word, and we’ll be gone.”

“Why . . . do you care?”

A bitter note crept into the gravelly voice. “Because I’m a friend. Sooner or later, I’m everyone’s friend. So why not sooner, if only for the change of pace?”

“You think . . . I’d believe that?”

He scowled. “Fine. You were supposed to be mine. You’ve worshipped me so completely, and with no expectation of reward. You know how rare that is?”

Rosa shot Sevaka a sidelong glance. The other woman paid them no heed. Likely she couldn’t even see the Raven. Rosa still wasn’t convinced he was anything more than delusion.

“I’ve never . . . served you,” she croaked.

“But you have, and so readily.” He stared up at her. Black eyes twinkled beneath the mask. “The Reaper of the Ravonn. Service is service, no matter how it hides its face. Would you like to see your offerings? They are legion.”

Rosa swallowed a grimace. “No.”

“Modest too. I like you all the more. Let me set you free. Embrace me. You’ll not regret it.”

Embrace the Raven. A euphemism for bearing life’s burdens no longer. But his voice warned of a deeper meaning. One that set her shivering.

“You . . . You did this to me.”

“Not I.” Wounded innocence softened the words. “For years I’ve courted you. Watched you as your life slowed. And then my little sister stole away your soul. She thought she was helping. She has so much to learn.”

No. That couldn’t be. “My soul . . . belongs to Lumestra.”