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Sorasa kept her gaze on lin-Lira, who kept his gaze on Corayne, his dark eyes like twin spears. He watched her not as a predator, but as a scholar trying to work out an equation. His eyes never left her, not even flickering to Dom, her massive nursemaid in bloodstained clothes.

After loosing her horse into the paddock, Sorasa rejoined them, taking shelter in Dom’s shadow.

“What a sight we are,” Sorasa muttered for the hundredth time.

Dom loomed, storm-faced, standing over Corayne like an unbent tree.

Corayne sneered up at him as she laid out her bedroll and cloak. “Are you going to do that all day?”

Dom somehow drew himself up another inch or two. “As long as we are surrounded by enemies, you won’t leave my sight.”

“You can see for miles, Elder. Give her room to breathe, at least,” Sorasa said, shooing him off with a sweep of her hands.

Andry nodded along with Dom. “We should set a watch of our own,” he said firmly, sitting down on his cloak. He drew up his long legs, balancing his arms on his knees. “I can go first.”

“Then me,” Sigil boomed, laying her ax down on Corayne’s other side.

Charlie snored in reply, wrapped up in his cloak like a sweet roll.

“I’ll finish, I suppose,” Dom offered, still standing. The others nodded, but Sorasa knew the Elder would not sleep at all. He would keep watch through the long, burning hours.

She wished she could do the same, but she felt the creep of exhaustion in her limbs, working its way to her head. Again she glanced to lin-Lira, still staring their way. This time, Corayne saw him too. Her lips pulled into a frown.

“He does not know why he’s been sent to get you, or what the Heir wants,” Sorasa muttered, bending to speak at Corayne’s ear. “It will be no use to question him now.”

“I’m too tired to try, anyway,” Corayne whispered back. Her eyelids drooped as she spread out her cloak, preparing a bed.

“I doubt that,” Sorasa said. “Your curiosity is endless as the horizon.”

Corayne flushed with pleasure and pulled her cloak up to her chin.

Sorasa wanted to do the same, and sleep away the heat of the day. Instead she eyed the sandy slope above the camp. Six Falcons looked down from the shadow of the sand dune, watching every single one of them. Their eyes burned into her body.

Sigil glared up at the Falcons’ watchmen, refusing to blink. The Temur woman’s frustration was so palpable it seemed to smoke the air.

“Every step we take with them takes us further from ending this,” she said hotly.

Sorasa sighed with weariness. “And how exactly do we end this?”

“The next Spindle,” Sigil said with an obvious shrug.

“And where is that?” Sorasa countered.

Her scowl deepened and she pointed her chin away from the tents. “Ask the witch.”

At the edge of the circle of shade, Valtik drew whorls in the hot sand with her bare toes, singing softly in unintelligible Jydi.

“What is she saying?” Sigil asked, tipping her head to one side.

Sorasa waved a hand. “I never want to know.”

“He called the HeirLasreen’s Chosen.” Sigil hissed the name of the goddess, not from disrespect, but fear.

“Born royal, and made the voice of a goddess,” Sorasa replied, matter-of-fact. The assassin set to making up her own place, some yards away but still within the cool boundaries of the shade.

Of course, Corayne perked up on her makeshift bed. She fought her own exhaustion, still very much awake and listening. “What doesthatmean?”

“Lasreen is the goddess of many things,” Sorasa sighed, rolling out her own cloak with practiced precision. “To Ibal, she is most sacred of the godly pantheon. Both sun and moon. The giver of Life.”