Realm Breaker

by Aveyard, Victoria

  But her eyes were open. Those days were gone.

  She felt the wind on her teeth before she realized she was smiling. Despite her fears and the sword hanging over them, her body went loose. This is what freedom feels like.

  “You look like a horse who’s jumped the pen,” Sorasa said, her voice flat.

  The Amhara stood at the rail a few feet away, somehow both watchful and uninterested. Even with her hood thrown back, her face was unreadable, impassive as stone. But the rest of her told an easy tale, from her gloved hands to her clothes laced tight up her throat. Her cloak hid her sword, and her knives were tucked away. Every inch of inked skin was covered, and her black hair was unbound, curling after so long in a braid. Her eyes were lined again, heavy with black powder and a single stripe of gold. She seemed a simple Ibalet woman, unremarkable but for her copper eyes, easy to overlook on a ship of travelers.

  Corayne tried her best to tuck away her excitement, and her nerves as well. To slip behind a mask as easily as Sorasa could. She forced a shrug. “I want to see this,” she replied, indicating the city of Lecorra. “While I can.”

  A bit of Sorasa’s mask slipped and something crossed her face. Not fear, but close to it. A wariness, a cat with fur on end, a charge in the air before a lightning storm. The Amhara had seen the Ashlanders plain as the rest of them, whether she wanted to admit it or not. It had set her on edge.

  Corayne felt it too, beneath every breath. The Ashlanders, What Waits, her uncle hunting. She did not know Taristan’s face, but in her mind their eyes were the same, his and her own. An empty black, hungry and consuming.

  “Have you ever seen anything like . . . them?” Corayne murmured. A woman raised in the Amhara Guild, a killer born, certainly knew more of the world than a pirate’s daughter bound to shore.

  The assassin returned Corayne’s stare, her eyes hard again. “I’ve seen many things that would terrify most,” she replied. “Monsters and men. Mostly men.”

  Corayne remembered her on the hilltop outside Lemarta, how she’d looked in the darkness when the creatures went up in smoke. The danger was gone, had never even existed in the first place. And yet Sorasa was afraid.

  “So that’s a no,” Corayne scoffed.

  “You are a long way from your safe harbor, Corayne an-Amarat.” Sorasa’s breath was cool, her eyes narrowing to slits. Corayne felt seen through and hated it. “With only farther to go.”

  Corayne clenched her teeth and turned away from the city. She glanced at Sorasa’s neck again, remembering the scorpion, black as oil, its hooked stinger raised to strike. Was the tattoo a prize earned or a punishment endured? Corayne fought the urge to ask.

  “You’re a long way from home too, Sorasa.”

  The sun glowed in Sorasa’s hair, illuminating each bend of black. With the sky bright and her hood lowered, Corayne could see old scars on her exposed skin. Small cuts, long healed, from the nick of a blade or a fist. They spoke of many hard years in a place Corayne would never see. Her curiosity flared, not to be sated. It was annoying at best, like facing a puzzle she could not solve.

  The assassin shifted. “Perhaps you should check on Dom. Make sure he hasn’t rotted down below, or been sick again,” she said, gesturing toward the hold. The Elder was not so adept at disguise and so would spend their journey to Ascal in a glorified cabinet below deck.

  Instead Corayne curled her fingers on the railing, gripping the wood. She stood firm, refusing to be chased away.

  “I don’t like the way he looks at me,” she muttered. “He sees my father. He sees death. He sees failure.” Corayne felt her shoulders bow with the weight of a person she had never known.

  Sorasa glared at the sky. If there was one thing Corayne knew, the assassin hated the immortal. “I’d guess a Spindlerotten Elder isn’t used to such things.”

  “I think he sees my uncle too,” Corayne added, shoving out the words, hoping to cast out her guilt with them. Her cheeks flared with heat. “I didn’t know I looked so much like them.”

  The assassin didn’t answer, looking her over. Looking for the face of a fallen prince and a rising monster.

  “I don’t belong anywhere,” Corayne said, her voice failing.

  To her surprise, Sorasa cracked a smile. “There are plenty of people like that,” she said. “And nowhere is still a somewhere.”

  “That’s foolish.”

  “Well, if you don’t belong to a place, perhaps we belong to each other? We who belong nowhere?” Sorasa offered. Her copper eyes glimmered, dancing with the light off the river.

  Despite the ugly feeling in the pit of her stomach, Corayne found herself smiling too. “Perhaps,” she echoed.

  “I never knew my parents,” Sorasa pressed on. “I only know where they came from. Couldn’t tell you their names, who they were, if they are living or dead.” She spoke evenly, without emotion or attachment. It was a statement of fact, nothing more. Not even a secret worth keeping.

  Corayne bobbed her head. She felt the key in the lock. She need only turn it to open a door into Sorasa, the Amhara, their ways. “The Guild is your family?” she asked, drawing closer.

  A corner of Sorasa’s mouth lifted, her smirk turning cruel. She muttered something under her breath, in Ibalet so fast and violent Corayne could not translate it, before switching to clear, daggered Paramount.

  “They are not,” she growled.

  The key shattered.

  Neither spoke again until the ship was moving, the bright waters of the Impera carrying them out of the city. Lecorra gave over to the walls and outskirts, then farmland, then forest and scrabbly hills. A few towns clustered on the riverbank, with clay tile roofs and sleepy streets. Corayne turned her face forward, to watch every new curve of land as it came into view. Sorasa did not move from her side but did not bother to hide her annoyance at such a task.

  On the deck, other travelers knotted in their groups. Most were merchant bands, along with a pair of Siscarian couriers in a duke’s livery, and a performing troupe that was very bad at juggling. They clustered, eager to stay out of the hold, where the row benches stank. Corayne thought of Dom, cooped up in a minuscule cabin, his shoulders brushing either wall as he suffered the odors below.

  The other travelers weren’t of much interest to her, not while the ship raced toward the open sea. But Sorasa watched them intently, weighing each person on board as she would a prize pig. Corayne glanced at the assassin occasionally, trying to glean anything, always coming up short.

  Near dusk, Sorasa straightened, pushing up from the rail, her eyes on another passenger.

  An old crone approached from the opposite side of the deck, her footsteps uneven as the boat moved beneath her. Her hair was wild and gray, braided in places, set with feathers, yellowed bone, and dried lavender. She held out a basket, smiling with gapped teeth, crowing in Jydi. Corayne only understood a few words, and that was enough.

  “Pyrta gaeres. Khyrma. Velja.”

  Pretty girls. Charms. Wishes.

  She was a peddler of empty promises, selling bits of trash she called tricks or spells. A polished river stone, some useless herbs tied with human hair. Nonsense.

  “Jys kiva,” Corayne replied in the woman’s language, her pronunciation poor. But the message was clear enough. No interest.

  The crone only grinned wider as she came closer, undeterred. Her fingers were so knobbled by age and use they looked like broken branches. “No price, no price,” she said, switching to accented Paramount. “A gift from the ice.” The basket rattled in her hands.

  Sorasa moved between the crone and Corayne like an older sister shielding her sibling from a swindler. “No need, Gaeda,” Sorasa said. Grandmother. Her tone was oddly soft, drawing little attention from the rest of the ship. “Back to your bench.”

  The crone did not stop smiling, her face split with wrinkles, her skin pale and spotted. Everything but her eyes seemed bleached of color. They were a luminous blue, like the heart of a lightning bolt. Corayne stared,
feeling a brush of something familiar at the back of her mind. But she could not catch it, the sensation always slipping from her grasp.

  “It’s fine, Sorasa,” she muttered, putting out her hand to the old woman.

  The Jydi dipped her head and grabbed a twist of blue-gray twigs from her basket. They were tied with twine and catgut, trailing with beads that could be bone or pearl. “Gods bless you, Spindles keep you,” she prayed, extending the gift.

  Sorasa took it before Corayne could, holding the twigs between her gloved thumb and forefinger. She sniffed at it, drawing in a shallow breath. Then she touched her tongue to the wood. After a moment, she nodded. “Gods bless,” she said, waving the crone away.

  This time the old Jydi did not argue, and shuffled off, her basket tucked close. She moved down the deck, bestowing similar bits of nothing to the other travelers.

  “It isn’t poisoned,” Sorasa said, tossing the twigs at Corayne’s chest.

  She caught them shakily and looked at the twist of garbage in disbelief. “I doubt a decrepit old woman is trying to poison me.”

  “Old women have more cause to kill than most.”

  Corayne turned the twigs over in her hands, quirking a smile. “Is guard duty part of your contract?”

  The assassin returned to the railing, leaning back on her elbows. She tipped her face to the setting sun, enjoying the glow. “I was tasked to find you and get you to Ascal alive.”

  Alive. Again, Corayne felt a chill that had nothing to do with temperature. I am marked somehow. There is something in my blood that blesses and dooms me.

  “And the payment?” she asked, if only to have something to say. “I certainly hope you set a very high price for an Elder prince.”

  “I certainly did.”

  How much? Corayne wanted to ask. Instead she gritted her teeth and closed her fist around the Jydi charm. The beads dangled. They were not pearl, she realized, looking at them up close, but human finger bone, each one carved into a skull.

  Some days later, Dom gasped free of the tiny cabin. To Corayne’s surprise, he looked pristine despite nearly a week cloistered in with sweating oarsmen, stale air, bad water, and little food. He sucked down a breath of fresh air and raised his hood, joining Corayne at the rail.

  Meanwhile, Corayne felt dirty and slightly sick, her stomach still roiling from the waves of the open sea, though they were in the calm waters of Mirror Bay by now. Clearly her mother had not passed on her sea legs or strong stomach. But Corayne forgot her pains quickly.

  Twilight fell softly, the sky fading from pink to purple over the water. The lights of Ascal loomed on the horizon, a constellation coming to life.

  The great capital of Galland straddled the river delta, sprawled across the many islands at the mouth of the Great Lion. Bridges and gates strung across the waterways like necklaces set with torch jewels, their lights rippling where fresh water met salt. Corayne tried not to gape.

  “It’s huge,” she gasped. “It’s bigger than I thought a city could be.”

  Dom nodded at her side. “Indeed.” He glared out from beneath his hood, his face pulled once more into his now-distinct scowl. Ascal was no wonder to him, but an obstacle to be surmounted. Something to be feared. And that made Corayne afraid too.

  “This was a Cor city too, once,” she added, feeling the truth of it in her skin. There were ruins beneath Ascal, the bones of an empire a thousand years dead. “How do I know that?”

  She expected the Elder to have an answer, but words failed him, his face drawn.

  Sorasa gave them both an odd look, then gestured to the shore. “It was destroyed and rebuilt a dozen times, in a dozen places. What was once Lascalla is now Ascal, capital of Galland, the great successor to Old Cor.” She spat in the water. “Or so they like to think.”

  Temple domes and cathedral spires clawed against the waning sunset, ripping bloody streaks through the sky. The storied walls of Ascal, yellow in sunlight, gold at dawn and dusk, held in the bloated city like a belt. Smoke rose from the slums, a thousand plumes from a thousand hearths. Corayne squinted, searching the roofs and streets for what could be the palace, but found nothing. It must be buried deep in the city, guarded and walled again. Her stomach dropped at the thought of navigating their way to the palace, let alone getting inside.

  Boats and ships of every flag skittered over the water, ants in a row, making for the teeming port of Ascal. The bridges and water gates forced all but the smallest vessels to use the same avenue. Their own ship fell in line, and the jaws of the city opened to them.

  The assassin wrinkled her nose. “Brace yourself for the smell.”

  They sailed past a great fortress for the city garrison, big as a lord’s castle, with stout towers and guarded ramparts. The green banners of Galland flew from its walls, the golden lion proud and massive. Corayne stared openly at the stone towers on either side of the delta channel. Both spat out gigantic chains that sank into the water, looping under the sea traffic and over the riverbed. She knew the chains could be raised, effectively cutting off the port and city within if need be. She could not help but think of Taristan’s army, the soldiers of Asunder, crawling over the chains like skittering white spiders.

  “Those are the Lion’s Teeth,” Sorasa murmured, pointing at the towers guarding the river. Corayne leaned close, eager to hear more. “All must pass through except the navy of Galland, bound for Fleethaven.” She waggled her fingers at another island in the river mouth, then at a canal. “That goes to Tiber Island, for merchants and traders.”

  Tiber. The god of gold. Corayne knew him intimately. Her mother’s crew sent prayers to him before every voyage.

  “And what about us?” she asked, watching the city grow.

  Sorasa pursed her lips. “Wayfarer’s Port. It’s first place anyone journeying by water arrives in Ascal,” she said. “Always crowded with weary travelers, pilgrims, runaways, and anyone else seeking their fortune in the capital. In short, a mess.”

  The smell hit hard, falling in a stinking curtain. Manure, spoiled meat, bad water, rotten fruit, sweat, butcher blood, sewage of all kinds. Oversweet perfume, spilled wine, beer gone stale. Smoke, salt, the rare brush of a fresh breeze like a gasp of air to a man drowning. And, beneath it all, the incessant cling of damp, so deep Corayne wondered if the entire city had gone to rot. She pressed her sleeve to her nose, breathing in the familiar scent of home still holding to her cloak. Oranges, cypress, the Long Sea, her mother’s precious rose oil. For a second, her eyes stung with sharp, unshed tears.

  “Where is the palace?” she asked, blinking away the sting. “I assume we can’t just walk up to the gates and ask to speak with a squire.”

  The crew began their work in the sails, while the oarsmen below slowed their pace. The drumbeat keeping their time boomed like a heart.

  “No, I doubt we can,” Dom said, taking an experimental breath. His face pulled in revulsion. “I’ve never smelled anything so foul,” he mumbled. Corayne had to agree.

  “You’re an Elder prince,” Sorasa scoffed. She tied off her hair in a neat braid, careful to let it hang so her neck was still covered. “If anyone can knock on a palace gate, it’s you.”

  Dom shook his head. “I did not suffer a week below deck to be spotted now. Taristan knows Andry Trelland escaped with the sword, and a squire of Galland is easy to track home. They could be watching the palace and the Queen.” He spat the words out like a poison. On the rail, his fingers curled.

  He wants to wring Taristan’s neck, Corayne knew.

  She shoved her own hands into her pockets and bit her lip. “He could have the sword already,” she said softly. Her fingers brushed the Jydi charm, useless and dusty, the beads smooth and cool. It slowed her thrumming pulse. “And all this is for nothing.”

  Dom frowned. “We can’t think like that, Corayne.”

  Banking on hope without sense is a certain path to failure. “Well, I do.”

  “The alternative is to accept the realm is doomed,”
he replied, forceful. “I will not.”

  Torches flared in his eyes, reflected from the docks jutting out on either side of the river. Their own berth was near, cleared and waiting on the north bank of the waterway.

  Again Corayne saw white faces, skin worn to bone, blood, and black armor. The silhouette of a man with her own eyes. Even now she could not believe it. I stand on a ship that is not my mother’s, in a kingdom not my own, chasing a quest the man who abandoned me could not fulfill. The last week caught up with her in a blur. It did not seem real. It did not make sense. Not like the stars or her charts and lists. This did not balance. Her nerves prickled.

  Adjusting his green cloak, Dom fixed Sorasa with a challenging glare. His sword, bow, and quiver were hidden, giving him a hulking shape. “So, assassin of the Amhara, legend of the shadows, quick with tongue and blade, what do you suggest we do now?”

  “I suggest you bribe a guard at the kitchen gate like everyone else,” Sorasa said.

  Dom grumbled in annoyance. “Less conspicuous?”

  The Amhara did not answer, eyes on the dock. Her thoughts were elsewhere—in a tavern, a gambling hall, a brothel, with friends in Ascal. Though Corayne doubted Sorasa Sarn tolerated friendship. Or she’s looking forward to getting rid of us. Her job is nearly done. We need only set foot on the dock and she’ll be gone. She didn’t agree to anything else.

  With a sigh, Corayne nudged Dom in the side. It was like being a ship’s agent again, haggling a price between two opposing sides. If both sides despised each other, and one didn’t quite grasp the concept of currency to begin with. An exhausting proposition.

  “You’re going to have to give her more money,” Corayne explained, “if you want her to get us into the Queen’s palace.”

  “I’ve paid quite enough,” the Elder snapped. Corayne elbowed him again, shoving against the granite wall of his abdomen. He didn’t seem to notice. “We’ll find our own way.”

  “Fine,” Corayne huffed. Then she put her hand to the Amhara, palm out in a gesture of goodwill. “I suppose this is goodbye, Sorasa Sarn.”