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“But it can’t.” My face softened. “I’ve seen too much, Thane. Your enemies are not who you think. If you would trust that bit of doubt I see in your eyes, perhaps I could tell you all that has happened. All that will happen if you do not let me go.”

Thane parted his mouth to reply, but it was choked off by a shout from one of the Stav Guard beyond the tent.

An arrow hissed overhead and thudded against one of the outer posts. Thane dropped the tether and drew the blade off his belt.

I grinned.

“Lyra.” He whirled on me. “Please, by the gods, stay here. I’ll see what’s going on.”

“No need.”

“What?”

Passion, fury, violence—all of it sped this way and that across the threads in my heart.

“I already know what is happening,” I said, my voice low. “I think you do too. My husband has arrived.”

33

Roark

The length of a whole night. That was how much time had passed since I’d last seen Lyra. There was no longer a point in fighting the darkness. Emi and the others kept a wide berth around my horse, avoiding the frigid shadows, as though I might strike should they misstep.

Only Kyrre ran alongside as though nothing was amiss.

At the word of the queen, no one protested our departure, and the farther we rode, the more I was convinced that Elisabet had had a hand in all this. Whether it meant I would soon destroy my own mother, I did not yet know.

We kept a swift pace to the northern edges of the kingdom, aiming toward the Night Ledges. Knolls and forests made up the border of upper Myrda and Dravenmoor. If a Stav camp wanted to keep a steadier pace and avoid the Black Fjords and the Red Ravines, they would remain on foot.

It was a clearer way to allied territory, without the difficult passages of wilder Draven lands where Jorvans could not outpace my clan.

It was reasonable, and Jorvans were logical. Never truly straying from their comfortable paths. The route made sense.

But more than that, there was a cruel inferno roaring through my veins, nearly compelling me forward, an unseen chain dragging me toward a destination I could not see.

Lyra. The small plucks of our bond began when the sun faded behind the trees. They grew stronger, more frantic. Beautiful, resourceful woman. She was guiding us straight to her. Straight to them.

“Roark, smoke ahead.” Auki drew his horse to a halt.

We followed. I kicked my leg over my horse, drew my hood low on my brow, and crept for the trees. Hickory smoke burned through the woods. A touch of oil and herbs tangled within.

Faint, but there. All the seasons I’d served as their damn Sentry, I’d insisted the guard eat raw, no flames and no smoke when in the wood this near to Dravenmoor.

Their arrogance would get them killed tonight.

“Òlmr, scout ahead.” Brynn tipped her chin toward the edge of the tree line.

The gray wolf tucked her snout, crouched on her haunches, and drifted through the night like a haunt in the darkness. Kyrre stood at my side, hackles raised, teeth bared.

“A camp.” Brynn slid off her own gelding and strapped a bow over her shoulder. “She found one not far beyond the trees.”

I tilted my head side to side, rolled my shoulders, and took out the bearded ax from a loop on my belt.

Before I ever found a place in Stonegate, I’d been taught to step lightly in the wood, to use the trees to shield the slightest glimpse we approached. Now, with my split soul, I became nothing more than a shadow in the endless night.

Gunter was lithe, and he favored sneaking across raised roots near the bases of tree trunks. His long limbs made it easier to reach for branches and swing over the soil to a new set of roots. Kept his boots from snapping twigs and dead leaves.

Brynn and Auki were hunters. Their steps were as mist across the forest floor. Low, soft, calculated.