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She tried not to think of the others, or their fates. Sorasa, on the other side of the town. Charlie, probably hiding on a rooftop.Andry.The noble squire who betrayed his country, his duty, all he ever worked for. Who left his mother to save the realm, and broke his own heart to do it.

Andry.

He appeared at the far end of the lane, still on horseback. His sword dripped red, his face a ruin of rage and sorrow. Corayne knew that look. She felt it in herself, in her hands, in her blade as it cut through a man’s life.

“Corayne!” Andry shouted, his mare fighting through the water, her neck high and nostrils flaring. He stood in the stirrups, extending a hand as he rode.

“It’s the geyser!” she heard Sigil shout, the bounty hunter’s big hands going to Corayne’s hips. With a groan she all but tossed her into the air and Andry’s waiting arms.

He took her weight in stride, shoving her into the saddle in front of him, his arms around her. “We need the sword,” Corayne gasped, knotting her hands in the mare’s mane.

“I know,” he answered, kicking the horse to higher ground. She picked up speed, circling the oasis town while the echo of hissing snakes and clattering steel rose to rival the geyser’s roar.

Nezri was a simple ring, her streets fanning out, wide enough for camel caravans—and now wide enough for the roiling monsters of Meer. Corayne searched as they rode, her heart in her teeth. Her stomach flipped when she saw the river, a deluge of water flooding down the hill from the oasis, carrying with it a school of sea serpents and whatever else might burst through the Spindle. It wound over the sand in a speedy current, rushing towards the Aljer. An easy path through the gulf and into the Long Sea.

Andry spotted the flash of gold before Corayne could, pulling the horse down an abandoned lane and back into deeper water. The mare tried to fight but he kicked her on, cursing colorfully under his breath.

“If we survive this, remind me to scold you for that unseemly language,” Corayne said wearily.

His chest moved against her back, rising and falling with stilted laughter. The warmth of him took her by surprise. “I certainly will.”

They found Dom in a circle of soldiers, the Spindleblade in one hand, his own sword in the other, both blurs of flashing steel. Corpses fell like scythed wheat, the green of Galland stained scarlet as the soldiers died. Serpents feasted, kept at bay by the steady supply of flesh.

“Take this,” Andry forced out, gesturing to the sword sheathed to his saddle. “Swing. Smooth arc. Let the horse help your movement.”

Corayne wanted to vomit at the thought of killing another man, but clenched her jaw, pulling Andry’s sword loose. She held it in a double-fisted grip, leaning as they rode, the steel edge already crimson.

It curved in an arc like the crescent moon, and a head followed, still crammed into an iron helmet. She refused to look as Andry wheeled them around for another strike. The Elder hardly noticed, making mincemeat of the troops standing against him. This time, Corayne missed, but the mare didn’t, barreling down on a pair of soldiers, their bodies disappearing into the gray water foaming with blood. Behind them, Dom roared the battle cry of Iona, his language foreign to every ear. It was enough to send the surviving men scuttling away, bleeding and white-faced, terrified by the immortal mountain of rage.

His chest rose and fell, his dark green cloak torn to tatters, the embroidered stags a ruin of thread. There was blood in his golden hair, blood in his beard, blood to his elbows. Corayne almost expected his eyes to be bloody too, but they were still that steady, hard emerald. Unchanged. His breath came ragged, his chest rising and falling heavily.

Numb, Corayne sheathed Andry’s sword and slid down from the saddle, her boots splashing.

Dom stared at her, dazed, nearly overcome by the bodies piled around him. Then he shuddered, came back to himself, and held out the Spindleblade. “Your sword,” he said in a shaky voice.

This time, no serpent came between them.

There was only the bellow of the kraken, wet and endless, so deep Corayne felt it in her ribs, in the hollows of her chest. She wanted to fall to her knees.

Instead her hand closed on the sword, the jewels of her father’s blade winking red and purple, the language of her lost realm blazing down its length. She could not read the runes, but she did not need to. They meant little in this moment. There was only the Spindle, her blood, and the blade in her hand.

They waded forward, a trio, Andry and Dom chopping at serpents as she walked her road. Sigil howled in laughter somewhere, her triumph echoing as a pair of soldiers fled her ax. Another fell from a roof, a bronze dagger in his neck, a tiger-eyed shadow watching him die.

The water slowed everything, each step harder than the one before. Corayne’s body ached; her mind bellowed. She wanted to lie down and let the water take her. She wanted to charge, screaming like Dom, like Sigil, to rattle the air with the storm in her chest. She settled for another step.Another. Another.

Until they stood at Nezri’s ruined core, the great column of water churning into the air. The water around her knees was black and red, the geyser spewing, the kraken still forcing its way out of the Spindle as in some unholy birth. Corayne squinted and saw a thread of gold shining between the sprays of water, the kraken’s tentacles curling out from the razor-thin doorway to another realm. Its bulbous and slimy body heaved, pressing through, a single eye the size of a shield rolling in its socket. The edges were red and yellow, corrupted, poisoned. The beast smelled worse than old catch under the hot sun, stinking of rot and spoiled fish. It was gigantic, bigger than a galley and still growing, still pushing. It screamed again, blowing a foul wind over the oasis.

The Spindleblade was heavy in her hands, the point dragging through the water. She could barely lift it, let alone cut her way through a forest of tentacles to the glimmer of gold rippling through the kraken. Her heart faltered. Corayne felt her body flag, her limbs threatening to give out. Exhaustion fell in a heavy curtain. She gritted her teeth, fighting to stay upright, to stay moving.

On the other side of the oasis, among the palms, a figure crossed the water, letting it ripple around her waist. No soldier or snake followed. She was alone.

Gray water, gray hair, gray clothing. Hands like the gnarled roots of a white tree. Eyes like the clearest sky.

Valtik.

The old witch faced the kraken without hesitation, her face upturned to meet its glare. Her braids were undone, woven with bones and palm. Her ratty old dress floated behind her, somehow too long. The sun reflected on the water, dappling her with an odd glow of light. Her hands spread wide, fingers splayed like the points of a star.

She chanted, the Jydi language filling the oasis, the hum of it sharp and visceral. It shuddered through the beast, curling its tentacles inward.