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Still, in some ways, the fight to restore the bond that had been shadowed from us seemed to only deepen it now.

For a pause, her words silenced the council. Until Virki pounded his own fist on the table. “I will not accept this bond. Neither have shown loyalty to Dravenmoor. I do not trust the motives, and I will go so far as to call this secret soul weave treason.”

Gunter shoved between us. “You condemn them, then you must condemn me.” Yanson shot his son a hardened look, but Gunter was unmoved. “I am the one who wove their souls together. The bond was unmistakable, and I would do it again. If you choose to deny the sanctity of a soul bond, then so be it. Perhaps this is no longer the Dravenmoor in which I was raised.”

“And us.” Auki followed, and next Brynn. “We witnessed. Will you kill us all?”

“Keeping the melder here is a risk,” Sampson interjected. “Should our enemies discover her here, they will come against us. Perhaps it was intentional, and she has convinced our prince she shares in this bond—”

“How does one pretend to have a soul bond, Sampson? Gods.” Yanson’s temper was growing short. “It is felt on both sides and you know it.”

Sampson blustered and stroked his beard out of nerves. “Well, I can’t say exactly. But we do not know much about melding craft.”

“I could not weave them together if there was no bond,” Gunter insisted.

“Sampson speaks poorly about a bond,” said the man with those thick braids and knots in his beard. “But his concerns about Jorvans coming for the melder are valid.”

My blood heated. Patience for blood was spent.

I tilted my head. Unbidden, I rounded the table, stalking the councilman. His soul was mine now. I stopped in the place across from his seat and leaned between two other úlfur members, my palms flat on the table.

The man eyed me with a touch of trepidation. “Something more you wish to add, my prince?”

Buried soul deep was a quiver in his voice. Something I felt run through the shadows inside, not with my own ears. My lips curved into a vicious sort of grin.

Councilman Asmund. I hear you sent the archers to kill my wife.

19

Roark

“You sent the two archers to slaughter the melder, Asmund,” Emi relayed, her voice low.

Asmund’s eyes went wide. “Of course not. I’ve no power over the Dark Watch.”

My grin widened. Slivers of darkness peeled off my skin, like a true shadow emerging from under my flesh.

Asmund cried out when the skeins of black wrapped around his wrist, dug into his bones. I closed my eyes, breathing deeply, letting the beast I kept inside taste the guilt on this bastard’s soul.

I flashed my teeth when more inky night clawed into Asmund’s body, tasting, slicing, hating. The councilman began to sob when the deledan soul engulfed him.

“Roark.” Elisabet clapped a hand on the table.

I held up a hand, silencing the queen to a few murmurs of the council. In the next breath, I pulled back the vicious night, commanding the splintered pieces of my soul to retreat.

When the murky shadows no longer blotted out the light of the room, I spun on the queen. His guilt burns in his soul. Dark Watchers gave up his name as the one who spoke the order, defying you.

Emi translated my words to my mother in a brisk whisper. Little by little, the queen’s eyes deepened with her own anger. She cast a narrow look at Asmund. “Speak the truth, Asmund, and if you have done this thing, you will be offered a warrior’s death so you might greet Salur with honor. Deceive us, and your soul will be marked for the hells. He can sense turmoil in your soul.”

For a long breath, Asmund said nothing, merely kept one fist clenched over the table, scanning the úlfur as though they might come to his aid.

Not even Virki spoke for him.

At long last, Asmund let his shoulders slump. “I believed your word to be misguided, my queen. I believed our borders to be vulnerable should Jorvandal attack. I sent the archers. A melder’s craft is too dangerous to live among us.”

The queen’s jaw pulsed, but with a wave of her hand, two Dark Watchers were summoned and Councilman Asmund was led from the chamber, chin high, subtle prayers to the gods to open the gates of Salur to his soul.

I followed his every step, locked in a desperate need to darken his soul, to cut open every bit of flesh before, at last, sending him to the gods.