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“I’m seventeen, hardly a child,” Corayne muttered under her breath, frowning at the stairs.

Her legs were still sore from their days in the saddle. Just the prospect of the climb already had her thighs burning. And burn they did, after only a few minutes’ time. Her breath echoed, growing heavier by the second. Though she had run the cliffs of Lemarta since she was a child, mounting the steps of the port town without blinking an eye, this felt infinitely more difficult.

She tried counting the steps, to pass the time and to keep her nerves level.Every step brings us closer to the palace above, to a sword that might not be there, to a queen who might not listen.Marching into the black unknown was like carrying a log across her shoulders. It weighted down every step, even the easy ones.

“You said your squire is a lady’s son,” Sorasa said, her voice echoing down “He’ll be in the east wing, where the courtiers keep their apartments.”

Corayne tried to check her labored breathing. She gulped down wet air. “Is that far?”

“Not particularly.”

That isn’t an answer.

“You’ll go first. You can pass for a kitchen maid,” Sorasa added, looking over her shoulder. Without breaking stride, she ran her eyes over Corayne’s clothing. “Ask for his rooms. Simple.”

Corayne looked down at her boots, her leggings, and a tunic dried stiff with salt spray. “I don’t look much like a maid.”

Sorasa rolled her eyes so strongly Corayne nearly felt it. “You’re within the walls already,” she sighed. “Just keep your chin up, seem bored, speak plainly. And you’re a girl. Harmless. No one will bother looking at you twice.”

Suddenly Corayne wished the steps were endless. “I don’t know if I can do that.”

“It’s all right—” Dom began, but Sorasa cut him off with a click of her tongue.

The assassin quickened her pace, as if in punishment for Corayne’s fear. “You’re the ship’s agent for one of the most notorious pirates of the Long Sea, and her daughter besides. I’m sure you’ve got steel in that spine somewhere.”

Heat bloomed in Corayne’s cheeks, flaming against the cold, damp air of the stairwell.No spine,she heard her mother whisper in her ear. The memory shivered her and emboldened her in equal measure.I’ll show you spine.

The stairs ended in a wide, flat room, dim but not dark, the ceiling supported by dozens of fat columns. An undercroft of some sort, very different in style from the ancient tunnels below. Sorasa led them through, picking out a path no one else could see, until they reached another set of stairs. Luckily, it was much shorter, and led to a single ancient door.

Now Sorasa was quiet, and put her ear against it.

With the slightest huff, Dom placed his hands on the Amhara’s shoulders. She tensed like a predator, a fist balled, one hand drawing her knife, even as he shifted her out of the way. Her eyes went wide, livid, her nostrils flaring as she sucked in a hissing, angry breath.

Dom shot her a look of annoyance before laying his face against the door, his ear pressed up. Corayne nearly laughed aloud. Of course an Elder would hear better than any mortal, even an Amhara. It was simple logic.

That didn’t calm Sorasa at all. “I’ve killed men for less,” she growled.

“You’re welcome to try,” Dom said with disinterest, his focus elsewhere. He listened for a long second while the assassin seethed. “The room and passage beyond are empty. A guard is making his rounds above us, but moving away,” he said, drawing back to look down on them. “Perhaps let me do the spying from now on.”

Sorasa dropped her torch. It spit embers across the stone. “About time you made yourself useful,” she hissed, reaching for the door.

“About time you both shut your mouths,” Corayne muttered.

The assassin paused, her teeth bared in a threatening smile. Her copper eyes darted, reflecting the weak light of the torch smoldering at their feet. “Well, I won’t burden you with my presence much longer.”

Corayne wasn’t surprised. An assassin had no place in their quest; her road ended here. But still she felt the pang of loss. “You’re gone after we find Trelland.”

“In the wind,” Sorasa said with a nod. Then she leered at Dom. “Until someone finishes his great task, and upholds his end of our bargain.”

The shadows moved over his face, sharpening his features. He seemed old for a moment, as though the long years of immortality were finally catching up to him. “It will be upheld.”

“Unless you die,” Sorasa said airily, pulling hard on the door.

“Gods willing, if it means never seeing you again,” Dom muttered as it opened.

Corayne blinked fiercely in the sudden light, her body tensing. She braced herself for shouting, a guard or a maid, someone to raise the alarm. But Dom had heard truly. There was no one on the other side, just a half-empty storeroom. The air was dry and stale. This room was forgotten, barely used. From this side, the door was unremarkable, old wood threatening to splinter. It had no handle or doorknob Corayne could see.

No one will be coming back this way.