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No Choice but Death

Corayne

The voice echoed as if down a long passage, distant and fading, difficult to make out. But it shuddered within her, a sound as much as a feeling. She felt it in her spine, her ribs, every bone. Her own heartbeat pounded in time with the terrible voice. It spoke no words she knew, but still, Corayne understood its anger.

Hisanger.

Dimly, Corayne wondered if this was death, or simply another dream.

The roar of What Waits called to her through the darkness, clinging even as warm hands pulled her back to the light.

Corayne sat up, blinking, gasping for breath, the world rushing back around her. She found herself sitting in water up to her chest. It rippled, a dirty mirror reflecting the oasis town.

The Nezri oasis had been beautiful once, filled with greenpalms and cool shade. The sand dunes were a golden band around the horizon. The kingdom of Ibal stretched in every direction, with the red cliffs of the Marjeja to the south, the waves of the Aljer and the Long Sea to the north. Nezri was a pilgrim town, built around sacred waters and a temple to Lasreen, its buildings white and green-tiled, its streets wide enough for the desert caravans.

Now those wide streets were choked with corpses, coiled serpent bodies, and broken soldiers. Corayne fought back a wave of revulsion but continued to look, her eyes passing through the debris. She searched for the Spindle, a golden thread spitting a torrent of water and monsters.

But nothing stood in its place. Not even an echo.

No memory of what existed a moment before. Only the broken columns and shattered causeway remained in testament to the kraken. And, Corayne realized, the bloody ruin of a tentacle, cut neatly from the monster as it was forced back into its own realm. It lay among the puddles like a fallen old tree.

She swallowed hard and nearly gagged. The water tasted of rot and death and the Spindle, gone but for a fading echo like a ringing in her ears. She tasted blood too. The blood of Gallish soldiers, the blood of sea serpents from another realm. And, of course, her own. So much blood Corayne felt she might drown in it.

But I am a pirate’s daughter,she thought, heart pounding. Her mother, the bronzed and beautiful Meliz an-Amarat, grinned in her mind’s eye.

We do not drown.

“Corayne—” a voice said, shockingly gentle.

She looked up to find Andry standing over her. The blood was on him too, smeared across his tunic and the familiar blue star.

A jolt of panic shot through Corayne as she searched his face, his limbs, looking for some terrible wound. She remembered Andry fighting hard, a knight as much as any of the soldiers he slew. After a moment, she knew the blood was not his own. Sighing, she felt some tightness lift from her shoulders.

“Corayne,” Andry said again, his hand working into hers.

Without thought, she tightened her grip on his fingers, and forced herself to stand on shaking legs. His eyes shone with concern.

“I’m fine,” Corayne bit out, feeling the opposite.

Even as she caught her balance, her mind spun, the last few moments washing over her.The Spindle, the serpents,the kraken.Valtik’s spell, Dom’s rage. My own blood on the edge of the sword.She sucked down another gasp of air, trying to center herself.

Andry kept his hand on her shoulder, ready to catch her should she fall.

Corayne would not.

She straightened her spine. Her gaze flew to the Spindleblade, submerged in half a foot of corrupted water, gleaming with shadow and sunlight. The current moved over the sword until the steel itself seemed to dance. The old language of a realm long lost ran the length of the sword, etched into the metal. Corayne couldn’t read the letters, nor pronounce the words. As always, their meaning lay just beyond her grasp.

Then her hand plunged into the water, closing on the hilt of the Spindleblade. The sword splashed free, cold and dripping. Herheart faltered. There was no blood on the sword, not anymore. But she could still see it. The kraken, the serpents. And the Gallish soldiers, dead by her own hand. Mortal lives ended, cut in half like the Spindle.

She tried not to think of the men she’d killed. Their faces came anyway, haunting in her memory.

“How many?” she said, her voice trailing off. Corayne didn’t expect Andry to understand the broken musings of her mind.

But pain crossed his face, a pain she knew. He looked beyond her, to the bodies in green and gold. He shut his eyes and bowed his head, hiding his face from the desert sun.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “I will not count.”