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“Drained. He has only ever spoken with one soul at a time. But using Nivek’s bone helped.”

“Gods. To see Nivek again.” Emi looked to the sky. “He was always teasing us young ones and playing games. Young as I was when he died, I loved him.”

Warmth bloomed in my chest, but beneath it was a fierce ache. Nivek had not deserved to die.

I squeezed Emi’s palm. “We’re going to find who killed him. They need to pay for taking him from you all.”

“Good.” Emi held one door open, waiting for me to step into the somber morning light. “Gunter explained how souls weave small bonds on their own and by the time we all meet Salur we have multiple threads, like a tapestry of the connections made in life. But I never thought, well, I never thought Roark could speak to those who’d fallen.”

By the look on her face, I had no doubt she thought of her lost mother.

I let my hand fall to her shoulder, uncertain what to say. At times, to say nothing, to merely stand at the side of a broken heart meant more than words.

The courtyard was larger than it seemed, with long, wide walks made of mossy flagstones.

There was a peace here. Trees towered over fragrant shrubs, and vines climbed along stone walls and wooden trellises. It felt like stepping from the harsh world to a land where worries could fade.

When we reached the far edge, my wing of the palace was nothing but dark walls and a distant spire. Emi unlatched an arched gate and led us into the outer wood where trees grew close, rows of sentinels shielding life in the court, and strode down a dirt path.

Dark Watch archers perched in the trees, clad in black and masked from the nose down, but they hardly moved as we strode beneath them. Doubtless more guards stood in the shadows, always observing.

Near a gentle creek was a small clearing separated from the wood by a thin fence. Each post was wrapped in twine with totems—skulls of ravens and hares, and talons—and dried floral vines.

Wooden pails were settled inside the gate, one filled with water and the other with red powder.

Emi dipped her fingers into the water, then the powder, dragging the crimson paste down her features. She signaled me to do the same.

“It is a symbol that we mean no harm to the resting place of the fallen,” she explained, her voice soft. “We merely wish to remember.”

Mounds adorned the space. Small blossoms coated some, and others were marked with heavy stones, but three near the back were raised and had a small opening covered by wooden doors. Three tombs.

Emi knelt in front of the smallest of the three. She clasped her hands in her lap. I settled next to her, studying the burial mounds.

“Some wish to be burned when they meet Salur. We set them on the river or on the battlefield with gifts to take to the gods,” she whispered. “Then we set the boat or the altar aflame.”

I nodded. “We said farewell to folk much the same back home in Skalfirth.”

“Others are buried beside us.” Emi pointed to the mounds. “The hope is their wisdom and guidance will aid our royal house, our nobles, and the captains of the Dark Watch. Elisabet did not need to do so, but she gave my mother a royal burial after her body was found in the wood a season after her exile. My father raged for days to think his whore of a wife was buried here.” She nodded to the largest mound in the center. “Especially after his brother found rest beside her.”

King Vishon.

My jaw tightened. Emi’s mother’s mound had fresh flowers in front of the small door. I doubted a great deal that they were left by her horrid husband.

“I am Virki’s blood,” Emi said, never looking away from her mother’s resting spot. “Gunter even tried to tell him. I was not yet eleven seasons, and I can still recall this stupid, feckless boy who hardly knew how to weave souls shouting at the king’s brother that he was hurting his blood daughter.”

“He could smell your connection.”

“An elder soul weaver said much the same.” Emi let her shoulders slump. “I don’t know why my father started to despise us so fiercely. I don’t know why he did not listen. My mother’s craft was remarkable; she could read the true desires of a soul. It was how she always knew when I wanted a tale read or a sweet. She’d grant my soul’s desire, as she put it. My mother would climb the trees with me; she taught me the wild ways of the Draven folk.”

I laughed softly.

“I loved Virki, admired him. Gods, so much.” Emi used the back of her hand to wipe away a stray tear. “I didn’t understand how someone who once claimed to cherish me could hurt me in such a way.

“When I fled to Roark, I vowed never to love. I’d seen what had become of my cousin for bonds and what became of me.” Emi’s voice grew more frantic, heavier. “Then…then, Yrsa arrived at the keep and I had my first meeting with the foreign princess. It was as though a fist shot through my chest. I was only sixteen when I saw her for the first time, and Roark, in all his grumbly gestures, had to be the one to explain he believed a soul bond was there. She…she robbed my heart straight out from behind all those walls I’d built.”

A sob broke from Emi’s throat, as though the pain she’d kept buried from leaving Yrsa so abruptly broke free.

When she doubled over, I wrapped my arms around her shoulders, holding her close, letting her rage.