Realm Breaker

by Aveyard, Victoria

  LIES, Corayne thought, feeling each one like a knife.

  “You are a smuggler,” she answered, banging her hand on the table. “You’ve broken the laws of every kingdom from here to Rhashira’s Mouth. And you are a pirate, Captain an-Amarat. You are feared across the Ward for what you do to the ships you hunt and devour.” Corayne pushed forward so that they were nearly nose to nose over the table. Meliz’s mask was gone, her easy grin abandoned. “Don’t bother with shame. I know what you are, Mother, what you have to be. I’ve known for a long time. And I’ve been part of this, whether you believe it or not, all my life.”

  Across the seden, a glass shattered, followed by a roar of laughter. Neither mother nor daughter flinched. A canyon yawned between them, filled only with silence and longing.

  “I need this.” Corayne’s voice broke, bowed by the weight of desperation. “I need to leave. I can’t stay here any longer. It feels like the world is growing over me.” She reached for her mother’s hands, but Meliz pulled her fingers away. “It’s like being buried alive, Mama.”

  The captain stood, her wine in hand. Her stillness was unfamiliar. And foreboding. Calm waters before a storm. Corayne steeled herself, preparing for more lies and excuses.

  The captain did not bother with either.

  “My answer will always be no.”

  Be reasonable, Corayne chided herself, even as she jumped out of her chair, fists clenched. The pirate captain didn’t move, her stare unbroken and unamused.

  Despair bubbled beneath Corayne’s skin. She felt like a crashing wave, rolling over with foam as she broke upon the shore. Be reasonable, she thought again, though the voice was smaller, more distant. She dug her nails into her palms, using the sting to stay anchored.

  “You don’t get to make my decisions for me,” she said with great restraint. “I’m not asking for permission. If you won’t take me on, I’ll find a captain who will. Who sees my value.”

  “You will do no such thing.” Meliz shattered her wineglass across the floor. Her eyes lit from within, threatening to burn the world down. She took her daughter by the collar, and not gently. The crew took little notice.

  “Look around,” she snarled in her ear.

  Corayne kept still, unable to move, shocked by her mother.

  “This is my crew. They’re killers, every single one of them. Look at us, Corayne.”

  Swallowing around the lump in her throat, she did as told.

  The crew of the Tempestborn were a family, of sorts. Alike in their scarred hands, sun-damaged skin, bleached hair, corded muscles. Similar as brother to sister, despite their varying origins. They drank and fought and schemed as one, beneath a single flag, united before the mast and her mother’s command. Corayne saw them as she’d always known them to be: loud, drunk, loyal. But the warning echoed. They’re killers, every single one of them.

  Nothing changed, and yet nothing was the same as before.

  Her vision swam, and she saw them as the world did, as they were on the water. Not family, not friends. She felt like prey in a den of predators. A knife glinted on Ehjer’s hip, as long as his forearm. How many throats has it claimed? The big Jydi bruiser held hands with their navigator, golden Kireem, who was missing an eye. He lost it to gods-knew-what. Everywhere she looked, Corayne saw familiar faces, and yet they were unknown to her, distant and dangerous. Symeon, young and beautiful, his skin like smooth black stone, an ax balanced at his feet. Brigitt, a roaring lion tattooed up her porcelain neck. Gharira, bronze-skinned and bronze-maned, who wore chain mail everywhere, even at sea. And on and on. They dripped with scars and weaponry, hardened to the Ward and the waters. She did not know them, not really.

  How many ships, how many crews, how many left dead in my mother’s wake? She wanted to ask. She wanted to never know. But you knew this—you knew what they were, Corayne told herself. This is what Mother wants, to frighten you away, to keep you onshore, alone in a quiet place at the edge of the world. A doll on a shelf, with only the fear of gathering dust. She bit her lip, forcing herself to remain steady and staring. The room was filled with beasts wearing human skin, their claws made of steel. If Corayne looked hard enough, she might see the blood all over their hands. As well as her own.

  “Killers all,” Meliz said again, her grip unyielding. “So am I. You are not.”

  Corayne drew a shuddering breath, her eyes stinging. She blamed the smoky air.

  “You think you carry no illusions, Corayne, but you are still blinded by many. Be rid of them. See us for what we are, and what you cannot be.” Meliz stared intently, her gaze intensified by the rim of dark color drawn around her eyes. Her voice softened. “You don’t have the spine for it, my dearest love. You stay.”

  Never had Corayne felt so alone, so distant from the only family she knew. You don’t have the spine. You don’t belong. When Meliz let go of her collar, she felt as if she were falling, dragged away by an unseen tide. It was cold and cruel, and so unfair. Her blood flamed.

  “At least my father was good enough to only abandon me once,” Corayne said coolly, her teeth bared. With a will, she stepped away from Meliz. “You’ve done it a thousand times.”

  Only when she reached the cliffs did Corayne allow herself to break. She circled, eyeing the horizon in every direction. Over the water. Behind the hills, gnarled by cypress groves and the old Cor road. She wanted nothing more than the edges of the world she knew, the cage her mother would never let her escape. The Long Sea, normally a friend, became a torment, its waves endless beneath the starlight.

  Even now, she casts me aside. Even when she knows how terrible this feels.

  I thought she of all people would understand.

  But Meliz could not, would not, did not.

  Corayne knew why, in her marrow—she was different, she was not the same, she was separate from the rest. Unworthy, unwanted.

  Adrift.

  And there was a reason. Something she could not change.

  “No spine,” Corayne spat, kicking the dirt road beneath her boots.

  The stars winked overhead, reliable and sure. The constellations were old companions through many solitary nights. Corayne was a smuggler’s daughter, a pirate’s daughter. She knew the stars as well as anyone and named them quickly. It soothed her.

  The Great Dragon looked down on the Siscarian coast, its jaws threatening to devour the brilliant North Star. Back along the cliffs, Lemarta glittered like a constellation of her own, clustered around her harbor, beckoning Corayne to return. Instead she kept walking, until the old white cottage appeared on the hillside.

  Stupid to mention my father. Now, on top of everything else, Mother will want to talk and talk and talk about the man we barely knew, telling me nothing of use, only upsetting both of us.

  Corayne liked to have a plan, an agenda, a list of objectives. She had none now. It set her teeth on edge.

  Lemarta is not terrible, she thought, listing absolutes. My lot is not horrible. My mother loves me—she knew that in her bones. I am lucky. Allward is wide, filled with danger and risk. Famine, war, disease, all kinds of hardship. None of it touches me here.

  This is a good place, she told herself, looking back to the harbor. I should be content.

  And yet I cannot be. Something in me will not take root.

  On the horizon, the Unicorn rose, twinkling with stars. It battled the Dragon every year, each chasing the other through the centuries. Dragons were long dead, but there were tales of unicorns still hidden across the Ward, deep in the guarded enclaves of the legendary Elders, or racing through distant steppes and sand dunes. Corayne did not believe those stories, but it was good to wonder. And if I stay here, how will I ever know for sure?

  Two shadows on the road jolted her out of her misery. With a start, Corayne realized she was not alone on the cliff.

  The travelers were almost upon her, their footsteps impossibly silent, softer than the wind in the grass. Both were hooded and cloaked, black against the night. One was small an
d lean, with a weaving stride. The other, far larger, made no noise at all. Strange, for someone of such great size.

  Corayne set her feet. They were already too close for her to run, even if she wanted to. It would do her no good to turn her back now. She thought of the knife in her boot. It had never been used, but it was a small comfort.

  “Good evening,” she muttered, standing aside so they could pass.

  Instead they halted, standing shoulder to shoulder. Or shoulder to chest, rather. One towered over the other, standing at least six and a half feet high. At this distance, Corayne could tell he was a man, broad and well built. He held himself like a warrior, his posture rigid. The shape of a sword poked out beneath his cloak. His hood kept most of his face obscured, but there was a scar she could see, even in the blue darkness. It dragged at one side of his pale jaw, ragged, wet, and . . . still healing.

  Corayne’s stomach turned. No spine echoed in her head.

  “The port is behind you, friends,” she said. “This way’s the road to Tyriot.”

  “I do not seek anything in Lemarta,” the man answered from beneath his hood.

  Fear clawed inside her. She moved before the man, stepping back, but he stepped forward to meet her, his motions too smooth, too quick. The other figure remained still, like a snake coiled at the roadside, waiting to strike.

  “You keep away!” Corayne snapped, drawing the dagger from her boot. She waved it between the travelers.

  To her dismay, the man lunged forward, and Corayne tightened her grip, willing herself to fight. But she couldn’t move an inch. No spine roared, and she braced herself for a blow.

  Instead the man sank to a knee before her, his sword suddenly in hand, the tip of the gilded blade pointed to the dirt. Corayne eyed the silver hilt and good steel. He bowed his head and pushed back his hood, revealing a golden curtain of blond hair and a beautiful face half ruined with scarred flesh. A strange design edged his cloak, antlers worked in silver thread.

  “I beg your forgiveness and your mercy, Corayne an-Amarat,” he said softly. His eyes glinted green, but he was unable to hold her gaze.

  Corayne blinked, her eyes darting between the travelers. She was torn between fear and bewilderment.

  Finally the smaller person sneered, revealing the lower half of a woman’s face. She crossed her arms over her chest. Each finger was tattooed with a black line stretching from knuckle to nail. The pattern was familiar, but Corayne could not place it.

  “Did you intend to frighten the girl to death, or are you simply incapable of interacting with mortals properly?” the woman drawled, her glare leveled at the man’s back.

  Mortals. Corayne’s head spun.

  He gritted his teeth. “I must beg your forgiveness again. Killing you is not my intent.”

  “Well, that’s good,” Corayne sputtered. Her hand dropped, the dagger useless at her side. “Who are you?”

  Even as she spoke, her mind supplied the answer, remembering corners of a children’s tale or a sailor’s story. Immortal. He’s an Elder. Born of the dead Spindles, ageless and without flaw. Children of a lost realm.

  She had never seen one before. Even her mother had never seen one before.

  The immortal tipped his face up so that the stars illuminated him fully. Something had cut—no, torn—the left side of his face, ripping ragged lines from cheek to neck. Her eyes lingered, and he recoiled beneath her scrutiny.

  He is ashamed, Corayne knew. Somehow it made her less afraid.

  “Who are you?” she asked again.

  The Elder sucked in a heavy breath.

  “My name is Domacridhan of Iona, nephew to the Monarch herself, blood of Glorian Lost. I am the last of your father’s Companions, and I seek your aid.”

  Corayne’s mouth dropped open, shock pulsing through her. “What?”

  “I have a story to tell you, my lady,” he murmured. “If you would hear me tell it.”

  4

  IMMORTAL COWARD

  Domacridhan

  The horse was dying beneath him, foam blowing from her mouth. Her shoulder was scarlet, caked in blood. My blood, he knew. The wounds had barely closed despite the long days. He tried not to think about his face, clawed and cut open by those things, those abominations. An army of something, from a realm he could barely fathom. He still felt their fingers, broken nails and exposed bone beneath rusty armor. They were far behind him now, hundreds of miles away. But Domacridhan looked back, emerald eyes wide.

  How he’d escaped, finding one of the Companions’ horses, he could not say. It was a blur of noise and color and smell, a ruin of memory. So the days passed as he raced on, one kingdom bleeding into another, hills into farm and forest and hills again, until the ground turned familiar. He cut through the mountains of the Monadhrion and the Monadhrian, the Star and the Sun, to the hidden glen. It stretched, filled with mist and yew trees, divided by the winding silver ribbon of the River Avanar. He knew this land as its son and prince.

  Calidon.

  Iona.

  Home.

  Not long, he told himself, willing the horse to last. Not long.

  He could hear the horse’s heartbeat, thunderous and failing. He kicked her again.

  It is her heart or your own.

  Mist peeled back to reveal the Vederan city of Iona on a stony ridge, perched where the Avanar met Lochlara, the Lake of the Dawn. Rain and snow stained the castle city gray and brown, but it remained magnificent through the ages. It was home to thousands of immortals, hundreds of them Glorianborn, older than Iona herself. Tíarma, the palace, stood proudly at the knife-edge of the ridge, with only cliffs below.

  The mossy walls of the city were well defended. Stoic bowmen stood the length of the ramparts, near indistinguishable in their forest greens. They knew him on sight, their vision perfect even at a distance.

  A prince of Iona returned, bloody and alone.

  The mare carried him up the ridge and through the gates, galloping as far as the Monarch’s palace. Dom leapt from her back when she fell to the ground. Her breath came heavy and slow, and then not at all. He flinched as her heart beat its last.

  The guards flanked their prince without a word. Most were golden-haired and green-eyed, their faces stark white in the mist, their leather armor embossed with the crest of Iona. The great stag was everywhere—in wall carvings, in statues, on the tunics and armor of his fellow Ionians. It loomed over all things, proud and distant, eyes all-seeing.

  My failure laid bare before it, he thought.

  Ashamed, Dom entered the palace of Tíarma, passing beneath the yawning oak doors. Someone pressed a cloth into his hand, and he took it, wiping at the dried blood on his face. His wounds bit and stung, some splitting open again. He ignored the pain in the immortal way.

  But he could not ignore the feel of his own torn flesh.

  I must look like a monster.

  After five hundred years living within Tíarma, Dom knew it well. He strode rapidly past halls and archways branching off to different wings of the palace and fortress. The feasting hall, the rose garden at the center of the palace, the battlements, and living quarters. They all blurred in his mind’s eye.

  Only once had he wept upon these stones. The day he became an orphan and ward to the Monarch.

  He did his best not to weep a second time.

  Cortael, my friend, I have failed you. I have failed Allward, failed Iona. And failed Glorian too. Failed all things I hold dear.

  He reached the throne room too soon. The doors were twice his height, carved from ash and oak, intricately made by immortal hands. The sigils of the many enclaves intertwined through the wood, fluid as water. There was Ghishan’s stoic tiger; the black panther of Barasa; a wheeling hawk for Tarima; Hizir’s lithe stallion with Sirandel’s clever fox underfoot; a Syrene ram crowned in spiral horns; Kovalinn’s great bear on its hind legs, the sand wolf of Salahae, and Tirakrion’s shark bearing rows of daggered teeth. Twin stags reared over them all, chests thrust forward, thei
r antlers impossibly large. Dom had left these doors weeks ago, Cortael at his side, his stern face pulled in resolve, his heart still beating.

  I wish I could go back. I wish I could warn them. His teeth ground, bone on bone. I wish I believed as mortals do and felt their spirits here with me.

  But the immortal Vedera did not believe in ghosts, and Dom was no exception. When the guards pushed open the doors, he entered the great hall alone, with nothing and no one but his grief.

  It was a long walk to the throne, over green marble polished to a mirror shine. Columns rose on either side of the floor, framing alcoves and statues to the gods of Glorian. But their deities were far away, beyond the reach of any immortal left on the Ward. Any prayers whispered in this realm went unanswered, as they had for a thousand years.

  And still Dom prayed.

  His aunt and her council waited at the far end of the hall, seated on a raised platform. The two men, Cieran and Toracal, served as the Monarch’s voice and the Monarch’s fist. Scholar and warrior. While Cieran’s hair was long and ashen silver, Toracal kept his own short, braided at the temples in twists of bronze and gray. They wore robes of dark green and silver over fine silk clothing. Not even Toracal bothered with armor.

  The last councillor was Dom’s own blood: his cousin, Princess Ridha, who was to be the Monarch’s successor. She was her mother’s opposite, dark-haired and dark-eyed, with broad shoulders and strong bones. Like always, she kept a sword at her side.

  The Monarch herself sat quietly, clad in a loose gray gown, the edges embroidered with jeweled flowers. Despite the chill of the throne room, she didn’t bother with furs or a mantle. Most monarchs of the enclaves favored crowns, and her own was simple, little more than quartz pins set in her blond hair. Her eyes were luminous, near to pearl, and so far away. She had seen the light of strange stars and remembered Glorian Lost.

  The living branch of an ash tree lay across her knees, its green leaves washed silver by the white light of morning. Such was tradition.