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Andry flinched, stung with accusation. “I think you’re going after Taristan alone.”

Curling his lip, Dom whirled around again. “I can move faster than the war band,” he growled over his shoulder.

“Speed won’t save you, Domacridhan,” Andry whispered, limping to his side. Already he saw Dom fading into the horizon, a doomed immortal on a doomed horse, riding for a burning Spindle and the monsters within.

Dom fit the bridle over his horse’s head and the bit into its mouth.

“It did once before,” he ground out, giving the mare a pat on the nose. “I won’t let him slip through my fingers again. I cannot abide the pain of it.”

“We’re two days from Gidastern. Two days only,” Andry said, hearing his own desperation. “You heard what those girls said: the city is on fire. It’s probably ashes by now, with a Spindle at its heart, spewing gods only know what. The terrors of Infyrna—”

His argument glanced off Dom like a sword off a shield.

Andry huffed in frustration. “We don’t even know if he’s still there.”

He grabbed for his reins. But Dom snatched them away, Elderquick, towering over Andry’s lanky form. His nostrils flared, his green eyes going wide.

“I know enough of him,” Dom snapped. His immortal beauty gave over to immortal rage, a fire burning for centuries. “Taristan is taunting us, trying to draw Corayne out. I won’t give him the satisfaction of killing her too.” His fists clenched, knuckles turning white. “He’s waiting for her, and he’ll have to cross me first.”

Andry had seen far worse than a battered, heartsick immortal. He held his ground even as Dom loomed up to his full height, somewhere between mountain and storm.

“Us.He’ll have to crossus,” he said neatly. Again he reached for the reins.

Like a petulant child, Dom snatched them away.

“Don’t go,” the squire said, wincing as his leg stung beneath him. “Either way, you can’t do this alone.”

“You should listen to the squire.”

As Sorasa Sarn stepped out from behind a horse, Andry let out a sigh of relief. She prowled toward them with her arms crossed, her copper eyes filled with a rage to match Dom’s own. She sneered up at the immortal, her short hair loose about her face.

Dom sneered back. “I suppose you can handle things for two days, can’t you?”

“Certainly,” she answered. “Can you?”

His breath hissed through his teeth. “Sorasa, I am an immortal, the blood of Glorian Lost—”

Without hesitation, the assassin grabbed the hilt of Dom’s greatsword and drew it, spinning quickly on her heel. To Andry’s surprise, Dom didn’t react with his Elder speed. Instead heslumped against the flank of his horse and put a hand to his forehead, the picture of exasperation. Sorasa didn’t break stride, disappearing into the horses with a blade nearly the size of her own body.

“Can’t go anywhere without a sword,” Andry muttered, shrugging. He glanced at Dom sidelong, watching as his perfect nature seemed to fade, the fire in his chest burning down to embers.

He seemed, for a moment, not so immortal at all.

Dom sighed again, some tension easing from his brow. “Two days to Gidastern.”

“Two days,” Andry echoed, clapping him on the shoulder.

With a grunt, Dom straightened and began untacking his horse. “You’d think I’d be used to this by now.”

“Sorasa?”

“Death,” Dom clipped. “Though I suppose they are interchangeable.”

Andry tried to smile, if only for Dom’s sake.

“There’s no getting used to it,” he said quietly. His words hung in dawn light, silent but for the horses around them. “Not even for us mortals.”

Dom tried to smile too. “That’s oddly comforting.”