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It shuddered again, giving a weak cry, its teeth stained scarlet. Corayne saw the monster plainly, a beast that would only grow and destroy. A young dragon taken from its home, forced into a new world, through no fault of its own.

“Garion,” Charlie said again, his teeth gritted. He mirrored her steps, angling off the path. “Do as she says.”

“It is only a child,” Corayne murmured. “Let it be.”

The Amhara were no strangers to killing children. But Garion was not Amhara anymore, not with Charlie by his side.

He relented as Sorasa never would.

The young dragon did not follow as they hurried away, deeper into the rubble. But its screams echoed, high and piercing. Corayne tried to block it out, to no avail. It sounded too much like a crying baby now, wailing for its mother.

Her senses flared, trying to feel for any whisper of the Spindle. It was nearly impossible against the chaos, and Corayne let her feet go. They vaulted over moss and blackened bone, turning corners with abandon.

“The chapel,” she heard Charlie mutter as she skidded to a halt.

The walls on either side of them curved to a once-vaulted ceiling. Now there was only sky and the single empty window. It stared down the aisle of a small chapel. Stained glass glittered in fragments over the moss, shards of red and blue catching the sun.

In the distance, dragon battle raged, another unearthly shriek shaking the ruins. Corayne barely noticed, her eyes locked on the shivering thread of pure gold.

The Spindle idled before the window, pulsing slightly.

Garion sputtered out a gasp. “Is that it?”

Next to him, Charlie fell to his knees. Not in exhaustion, but reverence. His eyes went wide as he stared. This was the doorway to his god’s realm, to Irridas and the land of holy Tiber. Home of the dragons and the black knight.

“This is the fourth Spindle I’ve seen, and still it manages to surprise me. They look so small,” Corayne breathed, taking a shaking step forward.Her Elder sword fell to the mossy ground and her fingers closed around another hilt. Singing, the Spindleblade loosed from its sheath.

The jewels of the hilt reflected the Spindle’s gleaming light, filling them with an unworldly glow. As if the sword knew its own kind, the steel calling to the Spindle’s depths.

The golden thread winked back at her, barely a sliver. It trembled as she approached and the air crackled like the sky before a thunderstorm.

Corayne willed herself to move faster, but fear slowed her down. She remembered another Spindle all too well. At the temple, she fell through the Spindle to the weathered, wasted realm of the Ashlands. What Waits loomed within, a shadow and a curse, wandering a broken land of His own making. The Ashlands met a brutal fate beneath His rule, its people reduced to walking corpses, the land choked with ash and dust.

The same fate waits for us now, Corayne knew.If we fail.

The Spindleblade felt cold in her grasp, humming with its own magic. She eyed the threadlike Spindle again and searched the gold for some glimpse of the realm beyond.Does He wait for me there too?she wondered, shivering with fear.

On the ground, Charlie whispered a prayer and touched his brow. Then he looked over his shoulder, warm brown eyes locking on her own.

“Put an end to it,” he said. “Before anything else comes out.”

Irridas is not the Ashlands, she told herself, raising the Spindleblade. With a single sharp motion, she ran her bare palm along the edge of the blade, coating it with her own blood.This realm has not been overtaken. He is not there. Yet.

The Spindle seemed to stare back at her, the pulse of its light matching the beat of her own heart. Even as she felt its power, Corayne waited, hesitant.

She braced herself for the touch of What Waits. The burning, heavy clasp of a dark hand around her throat.

It never came.

The Spindleblade carried in a smooth arc, the weight of it perfectly balanced. Blood-dipped steel met Spindle and the golden thread severed, the light of it winking and dying.

Somewhere in the ruins, both dragons roared, mother and child screaming up at the sky.

The closing of a Spindle would not kill its own. This Corayne knew too well. Krakens and serpents still swam the oceans. The Ashlander army still walked. And closing the Spindle in Vergon would not destroy the dragons, in the roost or far across the Ward.

They ran from the chapel half bent, pressed up against the stone walls for cover. Garion led with a scowl, his dark brown eyes flickering in every direction. He reminded Corayne of Sorasa, always looking for an escape, plans stacked upon plans.

“If we can get into the thorns, we have a chance,” he muttered, waving them through an archway. It crumbled a moment later, spitting dust and debris. “Like Charlie said, we leave the dragons to Valnir.”