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The floor slanted, rising up to meet her, but she fought the urge to faint. It might be the last time she shut her eyes. She was too close to the Spindle.

“Don’t let me sleep, don’t let me— He’s too close,” she murmured, stumbling.

Strong hands lifted her up instead, carrying her out of the temple and into the bracing cold air. It still stank, but she gasped it down, eager to press all remnants of the Ashlands from her lungs.

Corayne shuddered and looked up to find Dom staring downat her, his eyes alive with green fire. She was too tired for relief, too broken for words. He only nodded grimly, pushing onward through the remnants of slaughter.

“Is it over?” she mumbled, slumping in his grasp.

He merely threw her over his shoulder in reply.

Behind them, the hall of the temple went dark, filled with shadows once more. The bell was silent. The Spindle was gone, severed, its golden light extinguished.

“Is Andry alive?”

Again Dom said nothing. Corayne didn’t bother to stop the tears this time, letting them fall, hot and furious against Dom’s shoulder. If he felt them, he gave no sign.

Seconds or days passed. Corayne couldn’t tell.

Finally, Dom laid her down, letting her curl into a ball at his feet. She looked up, eyes bleary, expecting some explanation from her Elder guardian. Instead he slouched away. The edges of her vision blurred, narrowing her sight to the ground in front of her. This time she wanted to faint. To lie down and let darkness take her for a little while. The Spindle was closed, as good as a wall between her and What Waits. She was safe again, if only in this moment.

Instead her eyes sharpened, and the veil around her head lifted.

The gray clouds hung overhead, unchanged. Barely an hour had passed. And Corayne sat on the hill again, looking down at the temple and the battlefield as she had with Charlie.

She wasn’t the only one.

The wounded lay among the trees, in various states of injury. A few moaned but most sat up, nursing cuts and gashes themselves.The Treckish men were good with pain, grinning through it. A few compared wounds. Oscovko strolled through his men, shirtless, his ribs wrapped in a bloody bandage. Corayne gaped, trying to comprehend.

Behind her, she heard a hissing breath. “You did it,” someone said, his voice pained but strong.

Corayne sat up on her knees and turned, slowly at first, then so fast her head spun. When her vision cleared again, she gasped and fell to her hands.

“Andry,” she said, moving toward him on all fours. “Andry.”

He lay still, his head cushioned by his own cloak. Someone had dressed his leg and the cut on his face, cleaning the muck away from his brown skin.

Shaking, Corayne put a tentative hand to his cheek, hoping not to hurt him. He felt hot beneath her fingers, not from fever but from exertion. The battle hung on him as it lingered in the air.

He took her hand before she could pull away, pressing her palm into his cheek.

“Corayne,” he murmured, his eyes falling shut.

His chest rose and fell in steady motion, beneath the still-brilliant blue star. No bed had ever looked so inviting, no blanket so soft and warm.

Her exhaustion finally broke, pulling her under. It was all Corayne could do to lie down beside the wounded squire, her head finding home over his firmly beating heart.

Sleep came to her quickly, but the nightmares never did.

26

Failing to Die

Sorasa

Between the dragon crater and the skeleton army, Sorasa Sarn did not know what to believe in anymore. No god she prayed to had ever been so real. Not even Lasreen herself.

Sorasa stared at her own palms, eyeing the sun and moon inked into her skin. The lines of her hands were not as dirty as they should be after a battle, but then, the Ashlanders did not bleed. When a knife passed through their tendons and splintering bones, it came out clean. She’d never seen anything like it, not in all her years of killing and guild training. The Amhara had never faced an enemy like this.