Page 5

The mantle of the Elder’s stillness fell away with the ease of a discarded cloak.“Monster,”Dom raged, his own sword suddenly raised.

Taristan grinned again, taunting.

He’s enjoying this,Andry realized with disgust.

Dom snarled. “You cannot force a Spindle. The consequences—”

“Save your breath,” Cortael said. “His fate is chosen.”

Taristan halted in his tracks.

“Myfate is chosen?” he hissed, his voice turning soft and dangerous, a blade beneath silk. Rage gathered in him as the storm gathered above.

On the hill, Andry felt his heartbeat quicken and his breath come fast.

“Theytookyou andtrainedyou andtoldyou that you were something special, an emperor returned, Corblood and Spindleborn,” Taristan seethed. “The last of an ancient bloodline, meant for greatness. Old Cor was yours to claim and conquer, yours to rule. What a glorious destiny for the firstborn son of the parents we never knew.”

With a snarl, he raised both hands to his helmet and ripped it away, revealing his face.

Andry let out a gasp, mouth ajar.

The two brothers stared, mirror images of each other.

Twins.

Though Taristan was ragged where Cortael was regal, Andry could barely tell them apart. They had the same fine face, piercing eyes, stern jaw, thin lips, high brow, and strange, distant way of all those of Spindleblood. Separate from the other mortals, alike only to each other.

Cortael recoiled, stricken. “Taristan,” he said, his voice nearly swallowed by the rain.

The sword stealer drew his own Spindleblade, unsheathing it in a long, slow motion. It sang in harmony with the bell, a high breath to a deep bellow.

“Every dream you ever had was given. Every path you ever walked already decided,” Taristan said. Rain lashed the blade. “Yourfate was chosen the day we were born, Cortael. Not mine.”

“So what do you choose now, Brother?”

Taristan raised his chin. “I choose the life I should have lived.”

The infernal bell tolled again, deeper this time.

“You gave me the chance to surrender.” Taristan’s lip curled. “I’m afraid I can’t do the same. Ronin?”

The wizard raised his hands, white as snow, palms outstretched.

The Sirandels moved faster than Andry thought possible, three arrows leaping from the string. They aimed true, for the heart, the throat, the eye. But inches from Ronin’s face, the arrows burned away. More arrows flew, faster than Andry thought possible. Again the arrows flamed beneath the red glare, little more than smoke in the rain.

Cortael raised his sword high, meaning to cut Ronin in half.

Taristan was quicker, parrying the blow with the clang of steel on steel. “What you learned in a palace,” he hissed, their identical faces close, “I learned better in the mud.”

The wizard’s palms came together, and there was the grate of stone, another curl of thunder, and the hiss of liquid on something hot, like oil sizzling in a pan. Terror bled through Andry as he looked to the temple, once empty, but no longer. The doors swung outward, pushed by a dozen white hands streaked in ash and soot. Their skin split and cracked, showing bone beneath, or oozing red wounds. Andry could not see their faces, and for that he was grateful. He could scarcely imagine the horror of them. A hot light pulsed from within the temple, so bright as to be blinding, as the shadows spilled from the doorway and raced across the clearing.

The Companions turned toward the commotion, faces dropping in shock.

“The Ashlands,” Rowanna of Sirandel gasped. Her golden eyes widened with the same fear Andry felt in himself, though he had no idea what she meant. For a moment her focus shifted from the temple to the horses up the hill. It was not difficult to guess her mind.

She wanted to run.

Below, Cortael growled in Taristan’s face, their blades locked together. “TheSpindle?”