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Fadey’s promise. He told me in those dreams he would see to it that I had no choice but to bring Nivek’s shard to him.

Roark’s eyes were hard. He gave a slow shake of his head. One hand at his side was moving with words. Do not move.

Over and over, the same command.

Tears burned. I tightened my hold on the bow in my hand. “There are no lines. I told you already.”

Coils of darkness knotted around my wrists, my throat, my waist. The hands of Skul Drek tugged me back, choosing me instead of himself, kneeling beneath the blade.

I resisted, heart breaking, and aimed an arrow at the man I’d always called brother.

For a moment, Kael looked befuddled. “You would kill me? After you abandoned me to Stonegate?”

One tear dropped to my cheek. I drew the bowstring taut. “I never wanted to leave you. But I will not let you take him. The Kael I know would never do this.”

Could I release the arrow? This was not Kael’s doing. This was Fadey, and he knew to use my brother against me was the only leverage he had. But…the melder was a fool and did not understand how deep the soul bond, the love, I had with Roark Ashwood had burrowed into me.

He was in my blood, my mind, my heart.

He was my whole soul.

And Kael, the beautiful, joyful man I knew, would never want to live like this.

“Lyra.” Brynn stepped beside me, one hand rubbing her chest. “I’ll stand with whatever you choose, but for your sake, aim for the leg. The side. Try to give him a chance.”

At Brynn’s voice, something shifted in Kael’s focus. For a moment, he looked at the woman as though trying to place her. A flicker of the gentle summer blue of his eyes was there beneath the berserksgangur curse.

It was the distraction we needed.

With Kael’s attention on Brynn, Roark spun out of his tepid grip. In the next moment, Skul Drek enrobed my husband. Shadows, thick and cold, wrapped around my brother’s bulky throat, choking him. His flesh turned a sickly shade of puce. He swatted at the unyielding grip of Skul Drek’s darkness.

Roark’s fists were clenched. He looked nowhere but at Kael.

When my brother slumped forward, eyes rolling back in his head, Roark slammed the handle of his ax against Kael’s skull.

He fell forward, facedown in the soil, unmoving.

Shadows faded, the heated copper-red of Skul Drek’s eyes slipped into Roark’s gold. I didn’t move, watching as Roark checked the pulse in Kael’s neck. My husband lifted his glare to me. He nodded sharply, then gestured for the others to bind Kael before he woke again.

Stav Guard bodies littered the path. One guard wandered aimless, soulless. Yrsa was the one to slit his throat, giving him peace in Salur rather than a life of emptiness.

Thane sat on a boulder and studied Kael. “He’s been melded. Fadey really is there.”

“Did you not believe them?” Gunter pressed.

“I did, but…” Thane shook his head. “Part of me hoped…I don’t want to have to kill my mother. She has done this, and she will face her end, just like Fadey.”

My heart cracked for Thane. He spoke true. Ingir would meet a dark fate if we stopped Fadey.

Roark wore a look of violence when he came to me.

I held his face and inspected the wound on his throat, a little frenzied to calm my fear and assure myself he was alive. He was unharmed.

“They weren’t dreams,” I whispered against his lips. “Fadey can find me, even with Ingir’s blood craft healed. It is like he speaks to me in the mirror the way we do.”

Roark’s eyes narrowed. His mouth tightened in rage. He said nothing and gave me a fast, hard kiss. A vow that the melder would pay. The possessive nature of Roark Ashwood would take his infiltration of my mind as one of the more grievous sins the dark melder had committed.

A low growl from Òlmr sent a new rush of panic down my spine.