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Lyra

Pressed against my ribs was a dagger stained with blood that had long since dried black.

Water lapped at the thick logs of the makeshift boat. The rails were uneven and the floorboards were roughly cut with cracks, leaving my feet soaked in the rimy water of the Black Fjords.

It felt like ages since I’d been tossed into the vessel and forced to cross the neck of the cove, toward the enemy border of Dravenmoor. In truth, we’d only sailed through the whole of one night. The upper forest of Jorvandal had been long ago blotted out with a velvet shroud of night, and now, in the pearly mists of dawn, nothing but unknowns lay ahead.

I hugged my knees against my chest but lifted my chin, staring at the warrior aiming the blade into my ribs. Four lanterns hung from separate posts on either side of the boat, and the amber light cast angry shadows over his features. From beneath the pelt of a brindle fox covering his head, he kept watch over me through the narrow slits of blue eyes, sharp and cold as a first frost.

“What are you staring at, Melder?”

It was the first word any of the surrounding warriors had spoken to me, and I could not find the strength nor desire to reply. Instead of looking away, I merely studied him. As though marking every scar, every line of his face, might help make sense of all this.

From beneath his pelt, more than one lock of golden hair fell over his shoulder. Nearly the same shade as Kael’s.

My heart burned, a knife to the center.

Kael. My brother, my truest friend, remained trapped behind the impenetrable walls of the Stonegate royal keep in Jorvandal. Fadey, the once-dead melder, was alive. Along with the cruel Queen Ingir, Fadey had stolen Kael from me.

Panic, despair, and rage were cruel foes, the sort that drew their blades swift and deep. I felt them all lodged deep in the sinews of my heart, and I could not stop the sharp, jagged breaths from sliding over my lips.

I wanted to scream and bite. I yearned to turn the blade on the Dark Watcher eyeing me like I might lunge at any moment. I ached to curl inside myself, somewhere dark and distant, and never emerge lest a new reality take shape.

“If you’re going to be sick, spew it over the side,” the warrior grumbled.

Focus. Piece by piece, my resolve to not bend in front of the Dark Watch splintered beneath the weight of reality. I peeled my stare from the watcher and looked to the palish sky, recalling the moments that brought me here, shivering and seething among the Dark Watch army.

Damir, the Jorvan king, was dead, and blame for his murder was placed at my feet.

And now they had Kael.

I abandoned Kael.

No. I was forced to leave.

“Make ready to dock.” Somewhere across the raft another warrior called out the command.

Darkly clad bodies rose, stretching arms overhead, cracking necks side to side, and readying more blades in sheaths and scabbards.

When I stood, my blood felt too cold in my veins, my feet had long gone numb, and I nearly crumbled when my knees bent. My long, dark braid had loosened from the winds, and no matter how I braced against the bite of it, the cold dug into the marrow of my bones.

A gentle hand curled around my wrist. Glassy, vibrant blue eyes locked with mine. Emi Nightlark, a woman I’d considered a friend—before everything fell apart—stepped beside me.

“They’re going to try to keep you separated,” she whispered. “Stay by me.”

I didn’t have a moment to puzzle out what she meant before both of us were shoved forward toward the rail of the boat.

“Get moving,” the Dark Watcher snarled, his lip curled like a snapping wolf’s. His contempt flicked between me and Emi, like the sight of us turned his insides.

Emi curled an arm around my waist and whirled on the man. “You’d be wise to stay your hands from the melder. You are being watched very closely.”

As if the warrior could sense the sharpness of distant disdain, he looked over his shoulder.

On the far side of the boat, a man stalled while packing a leather satchel with rope and what seemed to be a bone-hilt knife. The commotion drew the molten gold of his eyes to the silver scars in mine—fire and starlight.

Him. He’d taken me from the Stonegate fortress, insisting my life was of more value than Kael’s. He’d taken me.