Page 117

Somehow, he felt Isibel wince.

Is that shame, my lady? You deserve it.

Even as he thought the words, Dom wanted to call them back. Truth though they were.

Isibel’s choice had sent Taristan down a terrible road. Without her, he might have never become a puppet of What Waits, a bluntinstrument for a demon king. Her decision, small as it had seemed, could doom the world.

But you can help stop what you began,he thought. Again he reached for her magic, trying to hold on to her.Put down the branch, take up the sword.

The sending failed, her light disappearing from the trees.

I cannot.Her voice echoed in his skull, growing weaker by the second.Your time is running out, Domacridhan. Come home.

“No,” he whispered aloud, hoping she would still hear him. It could be the last word he ever spoke.

The hill above loomed, the temple close. The smell of Iona faded, replaced by the winter forest and something worse beneath. Like sickness, like corruption.

Dom slid from the horse, his sword in hand, his old cloak still fastened about his shoulders. As the last touch of Isibel’s magic left him, he felt her absence as a sudden void in his mind.

Ridha,he thought instead, his cousin’s name repeating over and over in his head. He had no magic and neither did she, but he reached for her anyway, bending his thoughts to wherever she might be in the wilderness.Isibel could not reach her,he knew, and that was a terrifying prospect. Either she was too far away to find, shielded by some magic he did not understand, or beyond the realm entirely.Dead.The prospect threatened to swallow him whole. But he would not give up on his cousin. He simply could not bear it.

Dom lashed his horse’s reins to a tree at the base of the hilltop, hiding her from whatever might be on the other side. Now he relied on his memories of the temple instead of running fromthem. He tried to see beyond the corpses of his fallen company and remember the landscape that waited.

He dug his boots into the yellowed grass, finding his footing on the muddy hill. It was the same one Andry stood upon all those months ago, guarding their horses. He knew that the hill loomed over the clearing, with the temple on the opposite side. The temple was white stone, old and cracked, built by Vederan hands centuries ago. It had a single bell tower, its deep toll like a hammer. The bell was silent now, but Dom knew better than to trust such things.

Despite the need for stealth, he moved quickly, making no noise at all. He was the blood of Glorian, after all, gifted with great agility and speed as well as his heightened senses. Even terrified, he was still formidable to any foe in his path.

And there would be many.

Dom pressed in among the gray-brown trunks and scratching twigs, his cloak of Iona blending in with the autumn. Even his golden hair camouflaged well, the same shade as the undergrowth of dying grass and fallen leaves. He crouched, lowering to his belly, to crawl forward and peer over the lip of the hill.

Quietly, he prayed there would be no corpses he recognized, decaying in their Lionguard armor or Vederan cloaks.

The smell of death was overwhelming, making his eyes water. He wanted to turn around and run. He wanted to never move again, paralyzed on the spot. Only resolve outweighed his fear. And the promise of vengeance. Cortael died for this Spindle. Only Domacridhan could make sure his ending was not in vain.

The temple was as he remembered, white-walled and white-columned, its bell tower empty and silent. But the steps were crusted over, painted the color of rust. Dom knew it was dried blood. The grass of the clearing was gone, churned up by thousands of marching feet. Any bodies that might have lain there were long gone, trampled into dust. Somehow that was worse than skeletons, knowing the Companions were completely destroyed, left without even their bones.

He tracked the army’s path down the other side of the clearing, following the pilgrim road Taristan had walked so many months ago. Dom remembered the first glimpse of him coming through the trees, moving at an easy pace, the wretched red wizard at his side. They were both far away now, with the bulk of the Ashlander army.

But the Spindle remained, and it was not unguarded.

Dom felt the familiar buzz of the portal, its existence a hum of power beneath the air. It crackled on his skin, raising the hairs on the back of his neck. If the Ashlanders felt it too, he could not say.

The corpses milled about in a strange circle, marching in time with each other, going round and round the temple in an impenetrable wall of iron and bone. They walked ten abreast, slumping along at a slow but steady pace. Only a few fleshy corpses remained. Most were rotted to the bone, jangling in their rusted armor. As he watched, one dropped a limb, its arm separating at the shoulder with a tear of disintegrating tendon. Dom clenched his teeth, biting back another surge of panic. He set to counting as fast as he could.

“More than a thousand.”

Dom could still smell the rot of them, though the temple was ten miles behind him.

He faced the campfire, staring into the flames, letting the dancing light soothe his panicked mind. It was easy to lose himself in the jumping red and yellow. Easier than facing his Companions and Oscovko, all circled around him, awaiting his news. The Prince of Trec knitted his fingers together, hulking in his black furs, one eyebrow arched in thought.

The rest of his war band fanned out among the trees, bedding down for the last night before the onslaught. They were used to sleeping hard and rough, and did so without complaint. Dom could not look at them either. He didn’t need any more ghosts.

Corayne eyed the many soldiers and mercenaries, scanning the woods. She didn’t know what it was to carry such weight.

“And we number?” she asked, looking to Oscovko.

The prince curled his lip. “Three hundred.”