Page 51

“That’s what came from the Spindle,” Corayne said aloud. With a will, she pushed herself to her feet, her legs quivering beneath her. “That’s what you fought at the temple. With my father.”

Dom straightened. “It is as I said before.” His face turned more grim, if that was even possible. “They are of the Ashlands, a burned realm, cracked with Asunder, consumed by the hell of What Waits. They serve Him, and they serve your uncle, Taristan.”

Sorasa stepped around him, inspecting her blade in the dim light. The steel was clean. Her lips twisted.

“I assume they did not turn to wisps of smoke at your temple,” she said, casting a dirty glance over the Elder. “Or else I have sorely overestimated you.”

“They certainly did not,” he growled, pointing a finger at his scarred face.

Corayne tried not to think of such wounds being made, carved through his marble flesh with hungry ease. She felt them on her own skin. Knives and nails, tearing her apart. Her mouth filled with a sour taste and she was nearly sick herself.

“Those were a vision, or shades, maybe. A projection of what comes from the Spindle,” Dom muttered without much confidence. “The work of Taristan’s wizard, perhaps, or What Waits himself. They must know you live.” His free hand closed into a fist. “They must be searching for you.”

Corayne swallowed around her terror. And the strange new truth.All the Elder spoke of—the Spindle, my murderous uncle, the corpse army—they do exist. And they’re hunting me.

“We should keep moving,” she said through clenched teeth. She started picking up her meager things, if only for a distraction. “Harmless or not, if those things can find us once, they can find us again. And it’s only a matter of time until the real thing catches up.”

“At least someone here has some sense,” Sorasa muttered, stalking off to the horses.

The Elder opened his mouth to argue, but Corayne did not give him the chance. It was difficult enough trying to save the realm without the two of them at each other’s throats.

“I dreamed of them,” she said quickly, her cloak over one arm. “Even before you found me in Lemarta.”

Dom sneered at Sorasa’s shadow in the trees, but turned away, his face clearing. Some color returned to his cheeks. “The Ashlanders?”

Instead of a chill, Corayne felt a streak of cloying warmth, like a summer day gone to rot. It settled around her throat. She swallowed against the odd sensation.

“White faces, burned skin,” she whispered, trying to remember the dreams that had plagued her for weeks. It felt odd speaking of them aloud. “And something more. I couldn’t see, but I could feel... it. A presence watching me,” she said. “A red shadow, hunting, waiting.”

“What Waits,” Dom murmured. “You dream of Him.”

She felt the heat again. “I thought this was a dream too.”

“Your uncle’s army is not a dream, or even a nightmare.” Dom returned his sword to its sheath. “They are very real. And they will devour the Ward if given the opportunity.”

In the shadows of the trees, Sorasa slowed in her work untying the horses. She glanced back into the clearing. Corayne was reminded of a wolf in the forest, invisible but for its gleaming eyes.

“This is a Spindlerotten contract,” the assassin hissed, pulling the first horse loose. Though Dom bristled again, Corayne knew better than to react, for she knew her mother.

Meliz an-Amarat was just the same, complaining about difficult journeys or complicated jobs to undertake. She loved them all the more for it. The danger, the risk. The opportunity to prove herself a thousand times over. Corayne guessed Sorasa saw a chance here. After all, saving the entire realm had to count for something, even among assassins. Not to mention whatever payment an Elder prince could afford.

The first horse nosed across the clearing at a sleepy pace, drawn to Dom’s hand by either Elder grace or simple memory. Sorasa led the other two, her hood drawn up again. Only the hard set of her mouth could be seen, her jaw clenched against whatever else she wanted to say. Corayne took the reins of her mare, trying to ignore the sensation of both hot and cold, What Waits and what whispered, pulling at her insides. Who they could possibly be, she did not know.

I suppose I might die before I find out.

Corayne exhaled an easy breath. She felt better on the deck of a ship. She understood planks and sails better than horses. And the galley, still in port, offered up a fine view.

She leaned against the wooden rail, taking in the ancient city of Lecorra. It was a smudge of sun-dipped color, made hazy by summer heat. It sprang from the northern bank of the Impera River, fanning out like half a sunburst, with farms and fields stretching beyond the walls. The Siscarian royal villa and the temples sat on the single hill, surrounded by a green island of poplar and cypress. The ancient ruins of Cor were easy to spot in the city, their walls and columns bleached white, unmistakable against the gold, pink, butter yellow, and brick-red tiles of newer construction. The statues and temples still towered, pale and broken against the sky. It was as if the rest of the city were moss growing in the skeleton of a giant. Corayne drank it down, savoring even the shadow of Old Cor. Her body hummed in reply, calling out to something long since gone.

I can feel my ancestors here, distant as they are,she marveled, finally able to name the sensation.I can feel the shadows of what once was.

The port held dozens of galleys, cogs, balingers, fishing boats, and war ships. Sails flew in a rainbow of color, flags flapping for every kingdom of the Long Sea and beyond. Corayne spotted a Jydi longboat flying a peace flag anchored next to a triple-decked Rhashiran war galley, not to mention a dozen ships of the Ibalet navy. They controlled the Strait of the Ward, racing back and forth across the narrowest point of the Long Sea, collecting tolls from all who wished to pass. She named the many flags and ships as she named the stars. It was a comfort, to list and understand, when there was so much she could no longer quantify.

The ships make sense when nothing else does.

TheTempestbornwould be halfway through the Long Sea by now, but still Corayne looked for her mother.Does she know I’m gone? Will Kastio get word to her that I’ve run off? Will she turn back to find me?The thought filled her with dread. But another fear bubbled up inside, corrosive as rust on a blade:What if she doesn’t?

Her knuckles turned white on the rail. She could not say which would be worse.