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“But we’re alive, and the Spindle is closed,” Corayne answered. Her lips pulled into a tight smile. “We can do this. We cankeepdoing this.”

Slowly Dom nodded, but his face remained grim. “There will be more portals to close. More enemies and monsters to fight.”

There was fear in the immortal. It flashed behind his eyes,drawn up from some memory. Corayne wondered if it was her own father Dom thought of, his body broken before the temple. Or something else, something deep in the centuries, from the time beyond mortal reckoning.

“Taristan will not be defeated so easily,” Dom murmured.

“Neither will What Waits.” Just mentioning the hellish god put a chill in Corayne’s skin, even against the desert heat. “But we’ll fight them. We have to. There isnoother choice.”

The immortal nodded forcefully. “No choice for us, or for the realm.”

It was past noon, the sun high, by the time Sigil and Sorasa rejoined them. The bounty hunter cleaned her ax as they walked, the assassin her dagger.

The oasis was empty of all enemies.

The Companions were the last ones living.

Charlie followed the women, half-bent, massaging his lower back.Too many bodies to bless,Corayne knew, glancing away. She refused to think of them. Instead she glared into the hard sheen of the desert, at the miles of sand. Then she looked north. The Aljer was close, a gleaming ribbon where the great gulf opened into the Long Sea. It was lightning in her blood.

What next?she wondered, feeling equal parts thrill and fear.

She eyed their number, sizing them up. Dom had washed as best he could, and slicked back his wet hair from his face. He’d exchanged his ruined shirt for what he could find in the abandoned homes and shops. He looked like a patchwork of different places, with an Ibalet tunic and embroidered vest over his old breeches. His boots and cloak of Iona remained, scrubbed with sand. Thoughthe cloak was half ruined, the antlers were still there, embroidered at its edges. A little piece of home he refused to give up.

Corayne wished for her own tattered blue cloak, long since lost. It used to smell of oranges and olive groves, and something deeper, a memory she could no longer name.

“The danger has passed, Corayne,” Dom said, watching the village like a dog hunting for a scent. Or listening for trouble. He found neither.

Indeed, the waters of Meer, the realm beyond the Spindle, had drained back into the sand or burned away beneath the fierce sun of Ibal. Only puddles remained in the shade, too shallow for serpents to hide in. The lucky ones were already gone, following the short-lived river downhill to the sea. The rest cooked in the streets, their slick skin cracked and drying.

As for the soldiers, Sorasa and Sigil had already put any enemies to their final rest.

Corayne pursed her lips at Dom. Her chest still felt tight. Her heart still ached.

“Not for long,” she answered, feeling the truth of it in her belly. “This is far from over.”

Her words echoed over the outskirts, a heavy curtain to hang over them all.

“I wonder what happened to the villagers,” Andry mused, grasping for something to say.

“Would you like my honest opinion?” Sorasa answered, striding into the palm trees.

“No,” he was all too quick to reply.

Though he was a young man, Charlie groaned like an old croneas he rejoined them. His red, burned face peered out of his hood.

“Well,” he said, glancing between the carnage and the ferocious sun above, “I would prefer not to stay here any longer.”

Sorasa leaned back against a palm tree with a smirk. Her teeth flashed white against bronze skin. She pointed back to the oasis with her dagger.

“But we just finished cleaning up,” she replied.

Next to her, Sigil folded her great arms, her ax stowed away on her back. She nodded in agreement, pushing a lock of raven hair out of her eyes. A burst of sunlight filtered through the trees, dappling her copper skin, making her black eyes gleam.

“We should rest a while,” Sigil said. “There’s no danger in ghosts.”

Charlie quirked a grin. “The iron bones of the Countless can’t break, but can they get tired?”

“Never,” the bounty hunter snapped back, flexing.