Chapter 5

"And you'll join them if you keep forcing your core." His voice stayed low, but the soldiers near us heard every word. "You're not a weapon."

"Funny. Your contract says I am."

His jaw tightened.

Behind us, Kaiser laughed once. It came out rough. Poison had turned the veins at his throat dark, but he still managed to look amused while leaning against a spear.

"Careful, brother," he said. "She'll start reading the fine print out loud."

"Shut up, Kaiser." Varan's eyes never left mine. "You can barely stand."

"Still standing better than you did an hour ago."

A horn blasted below the keep.

The whole wall shook. Black shapes moved through the snow beyond the ditch—too tall to be horses, too crooked to be men. Bone beasts. Dozens of them. Their ribs jutted through gray hide, and iron harnesses dragged siege towers behind them.

At the center of the line flew the red-and-white banner of House Morton.

My family's banner.

A soldier beside me swallowed. "They brought marrow hounds."

"Those aren't hounds," I said.

The largest beast lifted its skull and screamed. The sound scraped through my teeth.

"No," I whispered. "They rebuilt them."

Varan stepped in front of me. His shoulder blocked the view, broad and armored, his breath brushing my cheek when he spoke.

"Stay behind me."

"Move."

"Sula."

"You don't get to lock me in a room while your enemies use my family craft against your walls."

His gaze dropped to my mouth for half a second. Then it snapped back to my eyes.

"You think I care about the walls more than I care about you?"

The question hit harder than the horn.

I shoved my palm against his chest plate. Metal knocked against my fingers. Under it, his heartbeat kicked too fast.

"I think you care about owning what you paid for."

His hand closed around my waist.

Not hard enough to hurt. Hard enough to remind me that he could lift me off the wall with one arm.

"You signed the blood contract," he said. "You took my name. My protection. My bed if you choose it. Don't pretend you can take the benefits and refuse the orders."

Heat crawled up my neck.

"I took your name so your enemies would stop cutting me open for mine. I didn't agree to watch you die for my pride."

For one sharp second, his grip loosened.

Kaiser pushed away from the spear. "That was almost sweet. Disgusting, but sweet."

"Kaiser, get inside," Varan snapped.

"I'd love to. Unfortunately, the enemy brought a gift."

He pointed toward the siege line.

A rider had stopped behind the first bone beast. A slim figure in a white fur cloak held a small black case above her head. Even from the wall, I knew that case.

My lungs locked.

The marrow shard.

The piece Morton surgeons had stolen from my core before they dumped me in the ice trench. The part they needed to control the beasts. The part that had once sat beneath my ribs, warm and alive.

A voice carried across the snow through a speaking horn.

"Sula Morton! Come down and kneel, or the Gault twins lose their keep before sunset!"

The soldiers turned toward me.

Every face waited for my answer.

Varan's hand slid from my waist to the back of my neck. His thumb rested beneath my ear, right over the pulse racing there.

"Don't answer them," he said.

"They're using my shard."

"They're using your anger."

"Same thing."

The rider raised the black case. A thin pulse of white light ran through it.

My bones answered.

Pain cracked from my ribs to my spine. I folded against Varan before I could stop myself.

His arm locked around me.

"Sula. Look at me."

I dug my nails into his armor. "Move your hand."

"No."

"Varan—"

"Breathe. Not through your core. Through your mouth. Come on. Look at me."

His face filled my vision. Frost clung to his lashes. A cut split his lower lip, and blood warmed the air between us.

I hated that I noticed.

I hated more that his touch steadied the shaking in my legs.

"You have three heartbeats before I throw you over my shoulder," he said.

"Try it and I'll break your nose."

"One."

"You're an arrogant bastard."

"Two."

I shoved his chest again, but this time he caught both my wrists and pinned them between us. His body pressed close, armor scraping my coat. Heat poured from him through the layers.

"Three."

"Get your hands off my wife!"

The shout came from the snowfield.

Aileen Morton stepped onto the roof of the nearest siege tower. White cloak. Gold hair. My sister's face wearing my family's jewels.

She lifted one hand, and the bone beast beside her lowered its head.

"She belongs to the Mortons," Aileen called. "That contract is theft. Return her, and I may leave the northern pups alive."

Kaiser smiled without humor. "She still talks like Father lets her make decisions."

Aileen's eyes found him. "And you still hide behind your brother. How sweet."

Varan released one of my wrists but kept the other trapped against his chest.

"Say the word," he murmured. "I'll put an arrow through her throat."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because she wants me angry."

"You already are."

"I want her to think she's winning."

His mouth came close to my ear. "And what do you plan to do after she gets comfortable?"

I looked past him at the largest bone beast.

Its spine had been assembled backward. The joints were too tight at the neck and too loose beneath the shoulders. The Mortons had forced marrow into dead bone until the creature could move, but they had built it to obey commands from the shard.

Not from Aileen.

From me.

"Give me your knife," I said.

Varan went still. "No."

"You didn't even ask what I need it for."

"I know what that look means."

"Then you know I'm going."

"Sula, your core is cracked."

"And yours is collapsing. Kaiser is poisoned. Your keep is surrounded. Do you want me to make a list, or can I borrow the knife?"

Kaiser coughed into his fist. Black spit marked his glove.

Varan's eyes flicked toward him.

That was enough.

I drove my knee into Varan's thigh, twisted free, and grabbed the knife from his belt. He cursed behind me, but the wall captain was already shouting.

"Open the lower gate!"

"Are you insane?" the captain yelled.

"Open it halfway," I called. "If you want to keep breathing, do exactly what I say."

Varan caught up with me at the stairwell. "You don't command my men."

"Then stop letting me save them."

He seized the back of my coat before I could descend. I spun, the knife flashing between us.

The blade touched the hollow beneath his jaw.

His breath warmed my knuckles.

Neither of us moved.

"You really want to threaten me with my own knife?" he asked.

"I really want you to stop grabbing me every time I make a decision."

His eyes dropped to the blade, then rose again. "Put it down."

"Make me."

The stairwell narrowed around us. His chest brushed mine when he leaned closer. The scent of iron, smoke, and that strange heat beneath his skin filled my head.

"If I make you," he said, voice rough, "you'll complain that I enjoyed it."

My pulse jumped.

"You'd have to catch me first."

He took the knife from my hand so fast I barely saw him move. Then he tucked it against my belt and shoved open the lower door.

"Stay where I can see you."

"That wasn't permission."

"It was a threat."

We ran into the yard.

The half-open gate showed the enemy line clearly now. Mortons were pushing the siege engines through the snow. Archers fired from the towers while the bone beasts slammed into the outer barricades.

A guard raised his bow. "Commander!"

"Hold your fire," I shouted. "Aim for the riders, not the beasts."

Varan grabbed the guard's bow and shoved it down. "You heard her."

The words spread along the wall.

For once, no one argued.

I stepped into the snow and dropped to one knee beside a pile of broken ribs taken from the keep's old war crypt. The bones were cold enough to burn through my gloves.

Varan crouched beside me. "Tell me what you're doing."

"Making a door."

"That isn't a door."

"It will be when I'm done."

I dragged out the largest rib and cut across the marrow line. Pain snapped up my arm. My core cracked again, a thin line of fire beneath my sternum.

Varan's fingers closed around my shoulder. "Stop."

"Don't touch me."

"You're bleeding."

Blood slid from my nose onto the snow.

"Then look away."

He wiped it with his thumb instead.

The gesture was careful. Too careful for a man who kept claiming I was only a contract.

"You don't get to spend yourself down to bone," he said.

"You don't get to die before I collect my revenge."

His thumb paused beneath my nose.

Kaiser shouted from the wall, "Make up your minds! The ugly one is almost through!"

The largest bone beast smashed into the barricade. Wood exploded. Soldiers scattered.

I pushed the rib into the snow and reached for its spine.

"I need the creature close."

Varan stood. "Absolutely not."

"You said you wanted to see me."

"Not under its claws."

"Then keep it from stepping on me."

He stared at me for half a breath. Then he drew his sword.

"If this kills you, I'll drag your ghost back just to yell at it."

"You'd miss me too much."

His mouth tightened. "Don't test that."

The gate opened another foot.

The bone beast lunged through.

Varan met it head-on.

Steel struck bone. The impact drove him back across the yard, boots carving two black lines through the snow. The beast swung its skull, and Varan ducked beneath the snapping jaws.

I ran.

"Sula!" he roared.

I slid under the beast's rib cage as its claws tore through the snow behind me. The smell of old marrow filled my mouth. I drove my hand into the loose joint beneath its shoulder.

The shard called from the siege tower.

My core answered.

A white thread shot through my palm and into the beast's spine.

Aileen screamed, "Break her connection!"

Too late.

I felt every crooked joint. Every stolen piece. Every command forced into dead bone.

The beast bucked. Its ribs closed around me.

Varan slammed into its side and wedged his sword between two plates.

"What the hell are you waiting for?" he yelled.

"For it to listen!"

"It hates you!"

"It doesn't know me yet!"

I grabbed the broken spine and twisted it in the direction the Mortons had built wrong.

The beast shrieked.

My knees hit the snow. Pain ripped through my chest. The crack in my core widened, and something warm spilled beneath my ribs.

Varan's hand found the back of my neck.

"Sula, let go!"

"Not yet."

"Your mark is burning."

"I know."

"You're going to tear it open."

"Then hold me together."

His fingers tightened.

The marriage mark flared between us, hot enough to scorch through cloth. Varan grunted, but he didn't pull away.

"I have you," he said. "Now do it."

I drove the stolen rib through the beast's twisted spine.

The creature went rigid.

Then it turned.

Not toward me.

Toward the Morton line.

Aileen's face changed. "No."

The bone beast charged.

It hit the first siege engine hard enough to fold iron. The second beast tried to block it, but the larger creature ripped through its harness and sent it crashing into the archers.

"Fire!" Varan shouted.

Gault soldiers poured arrows into the enemy line.

Morton riders broke formation.

Aileen stumbled backward on the tower roof as the beast tore the siege engine apart beneath her.

I lifted both hands.

The creature stopped inches from the retreating riders.

For one second, the whole field froze.

Then I curled my fingers.

The beast slammed its skull into the snow.

Morton soldiers ran.

"They're retreating!" someone yelled from the wall.

Kaiser laughed, then folded over with a violent cough.

Varan caught me before my knees hit the ground. His armor pressed into my ribs. His mouth brushed my temple when he spoke.

"You won."

"Don't sound so surprised."

"I'm surprised you're still standing."

"I'm not."

His arm tightened around me.

Across the field, Aileen raised the black case.

"You think this changes anything?" she screamed. "Your marrow still belongs to us!"

She threw the case.

It flew over the snow, spinning once.

The black metal split open in midair.

The marrow shard shot free.

I saw it too late.

Varan shoved me down, but the shard struck the ground beside my face with a sharp crack. Snow burst across my cheek. The white fragment pulsed once, twice, then burned through the air toward the marriage mark at my throat—

"Sula, don't let it touch—"