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To the left, the ruby helmet seemed to stare at her, the empty eyes of its faceplate fixed. She tried not to imagine her father in it, or any other part of the room. It was no use. She felt his ghost everywhere.

Isibel grazed a finger across the Spindleblade, her movements sure and careful. Her cool expression hardened, her lips twisting into a scowl.

“The mortal kingdoms war and squabble like children over toys. Mortals of the Ward break everything they hold.” Her voice turned venomous. “They spill blood for no good reason. And they hunger without end.”

Corayne knew the evils of the Ward better than most, particularly the sins of its greatest queen. She remembered Ascal, a grand city with horror at its center, like the jeweled eye of a rotting skull. Even in Lemarta, sailors fought over lost bets and assumed insults. Criminals paid off city watch. The crew of theTempestbornwere worst of all, pirates who preyed upon any ship of the Long Sea. And there was her mother, a fearsome captain who earned her reputation with gold and blood. Charlie, a criminal fugitive. Sigil, a murderous bounty hunter. Sorasa, a blooded assassin.

Wardborn mortals, all of them.

So was Andry, Corayne thought suddenly. A talented swordsman, noble-hearted, kinder than anyone Corayne had ever met.He was Wardborn, and better than all the rest of us put together.

Isibel took her silence for agreement and forged on. She crossed to the jeweled helmet, raising it level with her own face.

“When the throne of Old Cor fell, the Spindles soon followed,” shesaid, letting the rubies catch the light. “So many doors closed. So many lights snuffed out. Including our own.”

Glorian Lost.Corayne had heard enough of the Elder realm to last a lifetime. First from Dom, then Valnir. It was too much from Isibel.

She scoffed openly, disgusted.

“So you took my father in to rebuild the throne, and find a way home to Glorian,” she spat. “In exchange, you cast another out. You left an orphan child alone in the world.”

The helmet dropped with a clang of metal, the ancient artifact discarded like garbage.

“And I was right,” Isibel replied coolly. “Look at what Taristan became. Can you imagine who he would be ifweraised him?”

Sadly, Corayne shook her head. “No, I can’t.”

For all her self-control, a curl of anger twitched across Isibel’s face.

“No man is born to evil,” Corayne continued, as much as it pained her. “They are molded to it.”

Isibel drew in a sharp breath. “You believe that? After all Taristan has done to this realm, toyou?”

Again she looked to the Spindleblade and pictured its lost twin alongside.As Cortael and Taristan should have been.But instead of two children in the cold halls of Iona, alone together, there was only one. The other left to die, or worse.

Corayne bit her own lip, letting the sting rip her back.

“I must believe it,” she said bitterly. “Just as I believe my blood, my Cor ancestry, all this—does not make me a queen.”

True confusion crossed Isibel’s face. “Then what are you?”

Corayne’s answer came easily.

“A pirate’s daughter.”

Laughter rang from the immortal, echoing off the stone walls.Corayne winced against it and went for the Spindleblade, grabbing the hilt.

With motions too quick to see, Isibel laid a hand over her own, holding it down.

“Brave, intelligent, noble, curious,” she said, blinking at Corayne as if she too were another relic in her collection. “You are Corblood in your bones. The Spindles are in your heart, as they are in this sword.”

Then her gaze dropped to the sword itself, worrying over the steel and jewels. Her brow curved.

“This is not the blade I gave Cortael,” she said.

“That blade is broken,” Corayne muttered, sheathing the sword with a harsh click.

The empty slab lay between them still, the candlelight pooling over the velvet. Corayne forcibly turned herself away, going back to the shelves to look anywhere but the Elder monarch.