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Dom’s eyelids fluttered and he shifted, putting the scars on his face into harsh relief.

“The breaking of the realm,” he said. “The ending of the world.”

On the ground, Corayne drew a sharp breath. Sorasa almost did the same, her heartbeat pounding again.The road to this day is thirty-six years long,she thought, feeling anger and fear twist together.

“I do not know your monarch, Elder. And I never wish to meet her,” she bit out, near to hissing.

To her surprise, Dom only dropped his gaze. His shame was clear to see.

Some yards away, Valtik’s haunting lullaby rose, swirling likesmoke, carrying up into the heavens. Usually, her rantings were an annoyance at best. Now they shuddered through Sorasa, and the Elder too.

“I don’t think your monarch was the only one to see this,” Sorasa breathed, her thoughts going back to the mountains, to a palace made for summer.

Something trembled down her spine. A terror she had not felt since childhood, when the acolytes had left her alone in the sands, with nothing but bound hands and bare feet.

But even then, she’d known which direction to run.

Now there is nowhere to go, and yet I keep walking forward.

Into what, I do not know. And neither does anyone else.

4

Whatever God Will Listen

Andry

Somehow, Andry felt relief among the Falcons. The cord wound around his heart seemed to release a little, day by day, even as they rode farther into the desert.

“The road suits you,” Corayne said as they made camp on the third morning. Dawn broke behind her, edging her silhouette in red. Her eyes were gentle, her face open. Andry felt her gaze like a touch.

He dipped his head, hiding the flush of warmth across his face. “I’m used to it,” he answered, chewing his words. “If I close my eyes, I can pretend.”

She blinked, puzzled for once. “Pretend what?”

“That none of this ever happened,” he said in a low voice. He swallowed around a sudden lump in his throat. “That I’m home in Ascal, in the barracks. That I’m a squire again, with none of this behind me.”

The smell and sound of horse filled his senses, the jingle of tack, the heavy breath of a nearby rider. Without the desert and the endless horizon, the Falcon warriors in their black robes, or Corayne at his side, her silhouette familiar even beneath her hood—without his eyes open, it could just be home. Training with the other squires, moving through their riding lessons in the palace training yard, or racing the green farmlands outside the Ascal walls. Back then his only worries were his mother’s worsening cough and Lemon’s taunts. Nothing compared to the burdens he carried now, the fears he held for his mother, for himself, for Corayne—for the realm.He tried not to feel the sword at his belt. He tried to ignore the heat on his skin, born of a fiercer sun.

He tried not to remember.

And for a long, blissful moment, he did not.

But the faces returned, rising behind his eyes. Gallish soldiers all, their green tunics stained scarlet, their lives ended by his own hand. Again and again, his sword sank into their flesh, until the steel went red and he tasted their blood in his mouth.

He stared at his hands, knotted on the reins. The leather wound through his brown fingers. If he squinted, he could still see the blood. Their blood.

When he looked back to Corayne, her face pulled with regret.

“You did it for the Ward,” she said forcefully, throwing down her pack. “To save yourself. To save me. To save yourmother.”

But he remembered the soldiers at the end of his blade. It was too much to bear. He wished he could drop the burden of their bodies, let them slip from his shoulders like a heavy pack. Insteadthey hung on, fingers cold and clawed, weighing every inch forward.

The sun rose red against the horizon, painting the desert in flaming shades of copper. Its warmth held his face, almost pleasant after riding all night. His sand mare idled next to him, waiting to be turned out. She was bred to endure.

Not like me,he thought.

“Andry.”