Page 46

Lyra tilted her head, a small grin in the corner of her mouth. “Truly?”

Gunter crossed his arms over his chest. “Why the tone of surprise?”

“It’s just that with the exception of a few, from what I’ve witnessed, I do not think offending your wife’s heart is of much concern to most.”

“Welcome to Dravenmoor, then,” Brynn interjected. “Sealed bonds are cherished. Our women and our men serve side by side, fight side by side.”

“Infidelity against a sealed sjeleven bond is another reason one could be unwoven,” Auki said. “There are no mistresses, no lovers outside the pair unless agreed upon mutually.”

“Virki used betrayal to dissolve his bond with my mother without repercussion,” Emi said softly. “For how could a bone crafter be Draven?”

Auki blew out his lips in disgust. “Strange how it took so many seasons for your bone craft to bother him.”

True enough. Emi’s bone craft presented during her fourth season, but it was several full seasons later that Virki made the accusation of betrayal against his wife.

“More unfortunate is that as his wife’s daughter, I still fell to his responsibility,” Emi said. “I wish he’d sent me to the wilds with her.”

My uncle treated Emi little better than a thrall. A body on which to take out his rage.

“There was no evidence,” Emi went on, her voice rough. “Only my craft. Me. The child my mother loved was the cause of her agony.”

Brynn placed a hand on Emi’s shoulder and squeezed gently.

Lyra did not speak for a long pause, her fingers wringing in front of her body. “Your father was the cause of her agony. Not you.”

“I have the wrong craft, Lyra.”

“So do I.” Lyra held Emi’s stare. “House Bien would still be alive if not for my craft. I have spent a great deal of my life not recalling the truth, but I always knew those who loved me were destroyed because of the magic in my blood. But I was told once that I am more than the scars in my eyes. You are more than the craft in your veins.”

A bit of heat filled my chest when she gave me a small grin.

I brushed a hand over Lyra’s cheek. There is no true reason for them to disregard this bond, to harm you, or me. Not if they follow our laws.

“Some may see it as a betrayal, bonding your life to an enemy.”

And I care nothing for those worthless opinions.

Her eyes were like frosted glass. “You better mean those words, Roark Ashwood.”

I do not want this for strategy, I told her. I have wanted this from the first moment a girl with silver in her eyes offered a lost boy some water. Never doubt it.

Her chin trembled, but she grinned. “Well, there were those times you wanted to slit my throat.”

I smirked. Only for a little while.

“This is a sound move,” Emi interrupted. “Are we doing this? Recent nights may not have been so affectionate, but I think you’ve accepted there is a bond, right, Lyra?”

“Frosted hell, they have trouble acknowledging it?” Gunter scratched his chin.

“While in Stonegate it took some convincing,” Emi said.

Gunter looked aghast. “How? I smelled it the instant I saw them.”

“What?” Lyra’s head canted to the side. “You could sense it?”

“Not sense. Smell.” Gunter used his chin to point between the two of us. “Yours, if you’d like to know, has a bit of a sweet scent like honey blooms near the ponds. Smooth against the back of the throat, unlike some that burn something fierce.”

I brushed my knuckles down the back of Lyra’s arm. Gunter is a soul weaver, the sort I told you about. Their craft is sensitive to the power of a bond.