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I would do, say, and be anything if I could draw out such sounds from Lyra again and again.

In a moment of boldness, I pinched her chin between my fingers, drawing her face to mine, and slowly gestured: Trust me.

“I already did that once,” she whispered.

Well, shit. What more could I say?

I led us to the edge, but when I turned to usher her onto the rope first, my insides plummeted.

Fillip, the Dark Watcher the queen had commanded to lead the caravan away from Jorvandal, raced toward us, a knife aimed at Lyra’s back.

There was no time to think, only to fall into instinct.

Cold, fierce as the frosts on the fjords, enveloped my body. Darkness clouded my vision. Tension snapped—the sort that felt like teeth gnawing through my skin—and broke free of my chest, my throat, my soul.

In the murky shadows that billowed around my shoulders the air filled with Lyra’s screams.

4

Lyra

Something hooked around the rope tied to my waist and pulled me backward with such force, I tumbled to the ground.

I screamed when a man fell over the top of me, a Dark Watcher, his eyes wild like a blaze in the woods.

A knife was pressed to my throat as the hiss of his words loosed spittle against my cheek. “I will not have you in our borders. How the queen can stomach you near us, I do not understand. You are the cause of it all, the blood, the pain, the suffering. Dine in Salur, Melder!”

Short, jagged breaths lifted my chest; I fought the urge to scream again. Thoughts spun as the sharp sting of steel cut into my flesh.

Until the blade was ripped away.

Shadows, thick as a stormy midnight, encompassed my body. Familiar cold enrobed my shoulders, and glossy ribbons of darkness curled around my limbs. Through it all a pair of vicious copper-red eyes glared back at me.

Skul Drek.

Roark.

My hunter. My protector. My lover.

My liar.

In my time in the mirror realm, where I would go to meld the bones of the fallen, I’d grown accustomed to the sight of the phantom assassin. But to know, all this time, those otherworldly eyes belonged to the man who’d stolen my heart had changed it all.

Skul Drek slaughtered folk. He was wicked.

And he saved me.

More than once. The same as he was doing now.

Perhaps it would be wise to recoil, but instead I leaned in. The darkness cocooned me in a swirl of shadows, a taste of salt and smoke on my tongue. Protected. Shielded.

“Lyra!” Emi’s voice was distant.

Through the mists, I could make out Gunter stepping off the rope, back on our side of the ravine, then handing Emi off. She sprinted forward.

Without hesitation, she reached through the billows of shadows that made up the darker soul and had her slender arms wrapped around my shoulders.

“Gods, I saw Fillip…I tried to call out, but he moved so swiftly…” Emi didn’t finish, merely tightened her hold.