Realm Breaker

by Aveyard, Victoria

  She’s interrogating me, Dom realized, looking Corayne over.

  The curious gleam had not left her eyes. There was hunger too, a thirst for answers she could not get elsewhere, and a strong will to find them. Dom was reminded of scholars back in the enclave, combing their archives for some scroll or tome, for word of Spindles, for any whisper of Glorian Lost. But I am not a shelf of books eager to be picked through.

  She ran her hands through the grass like a child. It was a good act.

  This wound will never heal if you keep cutting it open, he warned himself. But somehow Dom wanted to. He wanted to remember Cortael and give Corayne something to remember too.

  Do not, he thought. Shut the door on those decades, and let them turn to dust as the centuries pass. Such is the Vedera way, our only defense against years of memory.

  “You’re Spindleblood. Corblood,” he said flatly, if only to give her something. “Your ancestors were travelers of another realm, mortal as the men of the Ward, but set apart. Some say the Cors were born of the Spindles themselves, not another realm. But your kind fell with Old Cor, your bloodlines dwindling through the centuries.” Her eyes shone in the starlight, egging him on. “It makes you restless; it makes you ambitious; it gives you a want so deep you can hardly name it.”

  Her black gaze seemed to deepen. He could smell the eagerness on her.

  “I said the same to your father, decades ago.” The wound opened again, a tear through his heart. Dom winced against it, carrying on. “When he raged in his way, frustrated, a mortal boy among living statues, who could not make his flesh into stone no matter how hard he tried.” His breath caught. “I am sorry you had to grow up with no one who knew your blood, what it demanded. What it makes you,” he said quietly.

  This time, she did not scold him for the apology. Instead her face turned hard, and her eyes were shuttered windows. Whatever she looked for, she could not find.

  “And what of my father, raised by immortals, who could not even fathom what it is to live in mortal flesh?” she said. “If you pity me, you must pity him too.”

  The sting burrowed deep, a needle of white-hot pain. Dom flinched and looked away. He heard Corayne stand, her feet rustling the grass like a rough wind.

  “Elders don’t sleep, don’t eat, don’t age,” she bit out, standing. “But you bleed. Can you love? Did you teach my father to? Because he did not love me.”

  “There is not a creature in any realm who cannot love,” Dom answered hotly. His ancient temper flared and guttered. It filled him; it hollowed him out. Anger was still foreign and corrosive in his body. Without knowing it, he crossed the grassy hill, until he stood over Corayne, tall as a mountain.

  She held her ground.

  “And I certainly loved your father,” he said. “Like a brother, like a son. I was there for his first steps, his first tooth, his first words, screaming as they were. The first drop of blood to fall.” Inside he roared, seeing it all over again. “And the last.”

  Corayne’s mouth pressed to nothing; her questions finally failed her. Over her shoulder, Sarn’s open eyes were two burning candles.

  “Go back to sleep, my lady,” he whispered, turning his broad back on Corayne.

  She was happy to oblige, settling down with a very mortal huff. She stilled quickly, eyes firmly shut, but Dom could hear her heart beating rapidly, her breath uneven. Across the clearing, Sarn’s heart thumped a steady, slow beat. Her eyes did not close.

  He was tempted to sneer at her, but an odd smell stopped him cold.

  Smoke.

  He stilled, head raised to the air. There was smoke, somewhere close, its scent curling around him in a phantom wind. He could not see it, but he could smell and taste the acrid burn. It was not woodsmoke, nor a brush fire. Nothing common.

  But it was not unfamiliar.

  This was the charring of flesh, hands cracked to bone, skin flaking to ash.

  Terror lashed down his spine.

  Sarn was already on her feet, her hood torn away, her body coiling with tension. She glared at him, reading the fear as it crossed his face.

  “Corayne, get up. Sarn, the horses,” he barked, already at Corayne’s side. He took her by the shoulders, pulling her upright before she could open her eyes.

  The Amhara made for the animals without argument, but froze at the tree line. The sword at her side sang free of its sheath. Her grip adjusted and she raised the blade high overhead, the steel like a bird of prey poised to strike from the sky.

  Dom could hear the horses, undisturbed in their sleep, as if nothing were amiss. The smell of burned flesh only deepened, until Corayne clapped a hand over her nose, her eyes watering.

  “What is it?” she said, her voice shaking. Dom did not answer, but moved in front of her, one hand still on her arm.

  Sarn took measured steps backward, careful to keep her footing with her sword still raised. Her focus locked ahead, on the shadows wavering beneath knotted cypress. Dom did not need to stand in her place to know what she saw.

  It was only a question of how many.

  Corayne bit back a gasp of fear as he pulled his own sword free, its keen edges cutting the air. He wished for armor, but leather would have to do, for as long as it could.

  How did he find us? How could he know? Dom cursed, searching the trees for the scarlet-robed wizard and Taristan himself. In Dom’s mind, he was still painted in Cortael’s blood, laughing as it bubbled over his lips, with the Spindleblade in hand, more taunting than any smile.

  The corpses, the corrupted creatures of the Ashlands and Asunder, wove up the hill in their lumbering steps. White faces leached of color, burned to the bone, their lips torn and cracking, their armor black and greasy with oil, like chicken fresh from the skillet. At the sight of their weapons—rusty knives and broken swords, notched axes and splintered shields—Dom nearly fell to his knees. By the grace of Baleir alone did he remain standing, though every piece of him wished to crumble. Corayne’s arm felt cold in his hand. They could run, but without the horses they might be driven into an ambush at the foot of the hill.

  The first came through the trees with a lipless smile, leering at Sarn and her sword. It plodded on twisted limbs, undeterred in its path. The Amhara moved in time, keeping her distance as she retreated across the clearing, her eyes wide and unblinking. Twin spots of color rose in her cheeks, the only evidence of her own fear. Still her heart beat slowly, as if she were only sleeping.

  Six more followed, with other shapes wavering through the trees. They smelled like a pile of burned bodies, like a rotten inferno.

  “Elder,” she hissed through gritted teeth. “Can they be killed?”

  Despite all, Dom felt the tug of a grim smile.

  “Yes, they can.”

  Sarn stopped moving, her feet set.

  “Good.”

  All lethal grace, she moved in a killing arc, her sword cutting the air in two as she drew a slanting path.

  Dom narrowed his focus to the corpses and Corayne, keeping both at the edge of his perception. With the girl behind him and the creatures ahead, he took lunging steps, his sword twisted in both hands, flashing with the weight of starlight. He drove through the first creature, hefting his blade like a woodsman’s ax. It cut the corpse in half, severing the body at the waist with the ease of steel through water.

  Were they always so frail? he thought, turning on his heel to chop down another.

  Despite her training as an assassin, Sarn stumbled next to him, nearly losing her balance as her sword passed through an Ashlander. She bit out a cry of bewilderment, stopping to watch the corpse soldier.

  Dom did the same, and hardly believed his eyes.

  Instead of cutting the Ashlander from shoulder to hip, cleaving through flesh, her sword moved as if through mist. The edges of the creature curled from the blade in wisps of white, black, and a shock of ghostly blue. The rest faded like the smoke of a snuffed candle, trailing into nothing.

  Sarn did not react, her focus snap
ping to the next Ashlander, and the next, still coming through the trees. They were faster now, lunging, spurred to action by her strike. She never lost her balance again.

  Dom balked, looking back at the two he had already dispatched. But instead of bodies, there was only smoke curling on the ground, disappearing into the grass.

  Corayne gaped, slack-jawed, at the sight.

  One roared a tortured scream, the voice inhuman, and Dom reacted with blurring speed, raising his sword to parry a cursed blow. Instead his blade passed through the ruined iron of corpse armor, and another Ashlander gave over to nothing.

  The others did the same, fleeing before every strike. Their own weapons turned to dust against steel, until there was nothing in the clearing but the trio and the drifting smell of flame.

  In the trees, the horses continued to doze.

  Dom spun in a circle, searching for more. Searching for the trick. He expected Taristan to fall on them, expected the wizard to rain lightning. He thought he heard the bell again, tolling for the temple and the fallen. But there was nothing but the breeze in the cypress. His breath came hard and heavy, not from exertion, but from pure bewilderment.

  Corayne fell bodily to the ground, her face bone white.

  Before Dom could reach her, Sarn blocked his path. The scorpion on her neck looked poised to strike.

  “What the fuck was that?” she growled.

  The world wheeled around him.

  Dom opened his mouth to answer, and vomited rabbit liver in reply.

  10

  JYDI CHARMS

  Corayne

  She blinked, the air warm again, her blood running hot, the grass smooth between her fingers. The fear was paralyzing, and she searched against the darkness, hunting for another walking corpse.

  This is your fate.

  The strange voice rang her skull like a bell. Corayne winced as the words cracked and splintered, flowed and coiled. It was human but not, something more, something less. And so cold, leaving her skin prickling.

  It does not wait, the voice continued, fading without echo, barely leaving behind a memory.

  The white-faced demons were gone too. The smell of smoke and burned flesh disappeared with their forms.

  A dream. They’re getting worse, she thought, her lips parting. She gulped down a bracing breath of air. I was asleep, and I dreamed of those creatures, red and terrible, broken and hungry.

  But there was Dom, doubled over, spitting into the grass. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, his face nearly as white as the creatures. Sorasa grimaced at him, disgusted, her sword in hand, her body still tensed to fight. She glanced at Corayne and her gaze was hard.

  Not a dream.

  “Calm yourself,” the assassin said sharply. “Breathe slowly through your nose, then out through your mouth. You too,” she added, rapping Dom with the flat of her sword. He glared and spat again.

  Corayne did as she was told, sucking in air.

  Not a dream.

  The leaping sensation in her gut began to ebb, leaving behind cold truth.

  Not a dream.

  “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, unmistakab
le 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.

  The Tempestborn would 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.

  The Impera flowed below, the water flashing silver to reflect a sky white with heat.

  Around her, the crew of the galley bustled, preparing to set sail for Ascal, shouting in a tangle of languages Corayne knew well enough. They were decent, not so skilled as her mother’s crew, but fine enough for a passenger ship. If she shut her eyes, she could pretend this was the Tempestborn, that her mother was at the helm, the port of Lemarta looking down on them. Corayne would go back to shore soon, to wave the others off on their journey while she remained anchored, doomed to wait.