The Lady’s Tower was otherwise empty, its occupants asleep or elsewhere, perhaps feasting, perhaps getting into all kinds of court mischief. There was something happening in the morning, if the maids were to be believed.
Corayne had no idea what King Makrus looked like, but Sorasa led the way. Eventually they found a painting of a man more troll than king, with mottled skin and a hulking figure. Paintings are supposed to make people look better than they were, Corayne thought, glancing over the dusty portrait. She could not imagine how ugly he must have been in life.
He loomed next to the door to the Trelland apartments, and they closed the last few yards at speed, hurtling forward as if something might stop them at the last moment.
Corayne felt odd, detached from her body, as if she could watch herself from afar. None of this seemed real, even against the dusty smell of the passage, the soft carpet beneath her boots, the stone wall cold against her fingertips. She took a deep breath and blinked, half expecting to wake up in her bed in Lemarta, with Kastio preparing breakfast in the next room. It’s just another dream. My father, my uncle, the Spindle torn, the Elder and the assassin. All of it will disappear, fading in the morning light.
But the world remained, unmoving, insisting to be seen and felt. Impossible to ignore.
Corayne stared at the door.
Dom stared at the door.
They stared at each other, both hesitant, both frozen. Black eyes met green, iron on emerald. Centuries separated the two of them, but they were alike for a moment, standing on the edge, terrified of the unknown below.
What if the sword is gone?
What if the sword is here?
“Should we knock?” Corayne forced out, her mouth suddenly dry.
“Yes,” Dom said hoarsely. “Sarn—” he added, looking over his shoulder.
But there was no one behind him. No woman in unremarkable clothing, her cloak pulled up tight, a single tattoo bared in the torchlight.
Sorasa Sarn of the Amhara was gone, leaving no trace, as if she’d never existed at all.
Her absence set a fire in Dom, burning away his fear. He rapped his fist on the door. “Ecthaid willing,” he hissed, naming a god Corayne did not know, “the tunnels will collapse on her murderous head.”
Her stomach twisted as the lock turned. When the door pulled open, she found herself face-to-face with a young man. Her stomach dropped again.
He was tall and muscular, but still coltish, growing into himself. His skin was smooth and perfect as polished amber, glowing warmly. There was only the shadow of a beard, the first attempts of a boy. His black hair was cropped short, for function. Of course he was the squire Andry Trelland, who had survived the slaughter at the temple where so many had died. Corayne didn’t know why, but she had pictured him as a man, a warrior like the others. But he can’t be much older than me, no more than seventeen. At first she found his face kind, with a gentleness to it. But, like Dom, he had something raw beneath his pleasant expression, a wound still torn open that might never heal.
“Yes?” he said plainly, his voice deeper than she expected. Trelland kept the door close to his shoulder, obstructing her view of anything behind him except for flickering firelight. He stared down at her, expectant. She was the only one he could see, his focus absolute and entire.
“You’re Andry Trelland,” Corayne said softly, all pretense forgotten.
Andry’s mouth twitched in amusement. “I am. And you’re new to the palace,” he added, looking her over with sympathy. He eyed her dirty hands. “Kitchens?”
“Not exactly.”
“Squire Trelland.” Dom’s voice was thunder as he stepped around Corayne, putting her between them. He looked right over her head.
Anything soft or friendly about Andry’s face disappeared, a slate wiped clean. His dark eyes widened and he leaned heavily against the door, like his knees might give out.
“My lord Domacridhan,” Andry breathed. He ran his eyes over Dom’s scarred face, tracing the ripped flesh. “You live.”
Dom put a hand to the door, pushing it wide. His brow furrowed.
“For now.”
My name is Corayne an-Amarat. My mother is Meliz an-Amarat, captain of the Tempestborn, lady scourge of the Long Sea. My father was Cortael of Old Cor. And this is his sword.
The Spindleblade lay sheathed across Andry’s knees. Corayne couldn’t take her eyes off it as Dom and the squire spoke, trading tales of their journeys after the temple. The dark leather sheath was boiled and oiled twice over, if her eye was true. Good, sturdy, old. But not old the way the sword was old, the steel of it cold even from a distance, humming with a force she could barely feel and hardly name. Andry had not drawn the blade yet. She did not know what it looked like. If there was still blood on it, from her own uncle, who should have died and had not. From her father, his life running red over his hands. The hilt was clean, at least, the cross guard set with winking stones. In the firelight, they flickered between scarlet and purple, like sunset or dawn. The grip was wrapped in black leather, worn to a different hand. There was no gemstone in the pommel, but an etching like a star, or a many-armed sun. The symbol of Old Cor, a light since lost. Forged in another realm, imbued with power she could not understand.
“It’s yours,” Andry said slowly, and she realized he was staring. He and the Elder had finished, both well up to speed. Without hesitation, the squire lifted the sword and held it out to her. Dom’s eyes followed the blade.
Corayne drew back in her chair before the fire, her eyes wide. She was already sweating in the close, warm air of the Trelland apartments. Her breath caught in her throat.
Valeri Trelland leaned forward in her own chair. “It sounds like you’ll need it, my dear,” she said, her voice placid and slow.
As the maids had said, Valeri was clearly battling a sickness, her body frail, her dark skin drained of warmth. But she sat up straight, her green eyes clear. She was unafraid.
“All right,” Corayne bit out, extending her hands.
The sword, finely made and well kept, was lighter than she’d thought it would be. I’ve never held a sword before, she thought idly. A true sword, not a pirate’s long knife or ax. A hero’s sword. Her eyes narrowed. A dead hero’s sword.
Despite the hot air of the room, the sword was cool to the touch, as if drawn from a river or ocean, pulled from the night sky between the stars. Her curiosity rose inside her again, hungry jaws wide. Slowly, she slid the blade from the sheath an inch, then another. The etched steel gleamed in the firelight, the design punctuated with markings like writing. For a moment, Corayne thought she might be able to decipher it. A bit of Ibalet, some Kasan, a Siscarian loop—but no. The words of Old Cor were lost as the empire, lost as her father. She sheathed the Spindleblade again with a hiss of metal and a sharp pang of sadness.
Her hands closed around the grip. She filled the shadow of a man dead.
“So the Companions of the Realm live on,” Andry said, looking from her back to Dom. He set his jaw, and some of the softness of his face melted away. “The quest is not failed, simply unfinished.”
By now, Corayne had lost count of how many times Dom’s lips had pulled into his scowl. This was certainly the worst one yet.
“That is one perspective,” he managed, sounding flustered. “Two of us remain.”
“Three,” Corayne said, startling even herself. She blinked fiercely. Be brave, be strong, she told herself, though she felt miles away from either. She raised her chin, trying to remember her mother’s voice, the one she used on the deck of a ship. In control, in command. “There are three now.”
Dom watched her intently, a sorrow languishing in his eyes. Corayne didn’t know whether to embrace him or slap him out of it. “Very well,” he said, his voice low.
As if this wasn’t what he wanted, what he asked for, what he sought me out to accomplish. Corayne gritted her teeth. I’m here because you brought me, she thought. You can at least pretend this isn’t a death sentence.
“And more will join us soon,” Andry said eagerly, all but leaping from his seat. He began sweeping around the parlor room, his energy vibrant and jarring against the circumstances. “I warned the Queen but she’s done nothing. Now, with you, my lord, and you, my lady”—he nodded at them both, still pacing—“she won’t have a choice. Queen Erida is fiercely protective of her kingdom. Certainly she won’t let it fall into ruin beneath Taristan’s feet.”
He paused before a shield on the wall. It was old, notched at the edges, the face painted gray with a blue star cut in two by a long slash. The squire stared up at it, as a priest might look upon his icons and altars. With a sinking feeling, Corayne realized she saw no signs of his father in these rooms. She looked at the ruined shield again, and at the boy before it.
We have something in common.
“I’ll help you of course,” Andry said, tearing himself away from the shield. “I’ll bring Mother to Nkonabo, out of harm’s way, but I’ll return. I swear it.”
Again, Dom looked pained, and Corayne felt some of it too. The daughter of Old Cor and the immortal didn’t have much choice in the matter, but the squire? It is a long way to Kasa, and a long way back.
“You don’t have to do that, Andry,” Dom said.
“It’s my duty,” Andry said fiercely. “My lord is fallen. I will avenge him.”
“You should stay with your mother.” Corayne selfishly regretted the words even as she said them. “Protect her.”
Andry went to his mother’s chair, standing like a guardian at her side. “And I will. But I’m a Companion. I have a duty to fulfill.”
“Very well, my son,” Valeri said, her eyes sharp. She put a hand on her son’s arm, soothing him a little. “We’ll leave this very night. I can be ready and waiting at the city docks by the time you finish with the Queen. All the arrangements are made; we need only send word.”
“I’ll call for your maid and porter,” Andry murmured in reply, kissing her closed fingers. “I’ll meet you on the ship before midnight.”
“The sooner we’re gone to Nkonabo, the sooner you can return,” his mother said with a small but pleasant smile.
It seemed to satisfy Andry, but Corayne saw the tightness at the corners of her mouth. The wariness going up behind her spring-colored eyes. No mother would send her child into danger willingly, even if it was their dearest wish. Suddenly it was not Valeri Trelland she saw by the fire, but Meliz an-Amarat, her hair tangled by a salt wind, lips moving without sound.
Take me with you, Corayne wanted to ask again.
I will not echoed.
“You should go to the Queen tonight, right now,” Valeri pushed on. She stood from her chair, hesitant on weak knees. “Before everyone gets too swept up in the festivities.”
“Festivities?” Dom quirked his head to one side. His scars caught the hearthlight.
Pacing again, Andry searched through cupboards in the parlor. He drew out matching baggage, a pair of satchels packed and latched tight. Both filled for a long journey, Corayne saw.
“The Queen is nineteen years old, and has been fielding betrothals ever since she came to the throne four years ago,” Andry said with an annoyed sigh. “Fending them off, mostly. But I guess her council has finally worn her down. She’s due to announce her husband at court this evening and marry him in ceremony tomorrow morning.”
Roses for the ceremony, cut by hand all night long, Corayne remembered the maids in the garden. It would be bare by morning, when Queen Erida married a man she’d been forced to accept. Corayne felt a sting of pity for the young queen. As much pity as a common girl could have for a monarch of the realm.
“Certainly this takes precedence,” she said. “And maybe it’s an opportunity for a reluctant bride. An excuse to delay a wedding she has no desire to go through with.”
Andry grinned at her, his smile like a star. It lit him up. “That could work.”
Corayne couldn’t help but smile too, riding a rare, unfamiliar blaze of hope.
“The Queen will listen,” she said, leaning on the Spindleblade. She used it to push herself to her feet, only to find it was more than half her height in length. “As your queen did not, Dom.”
His great limbs unfolded, and Dom stood with grace. He was like a moving statue, slow and deliberate, a harsh contrast to Andry’s rabid energy. “Mortals are hot-blooded, quick to anger, quick to fight,” he said. “It has been your flaw these centuries past. Perhaps it will be your salvation too.”
Corayne chewed the inside of her cheek. Elders anger too, if you are any measure, she thought hotly. She wanted nothing more than to scold him. You are a pot on a slow boil, angry since the moment I met you, trying to grieve with no idea how, seeking revenge without direction. You are a predator with nothing to hunt.
Instead she glared at the sword, its jewels gleaming.
“I have no idea how I’m going to carry this.”
14
THE GREEN KNIGHT
Ridha
Three days she cursed Sirandel, snarling obscenities with every galloping step of her mother’s horse. In Paramount, in Low Vederan, the bastard tongue born of centuries on the Ward, and in Pure Vederan, the voice of Glorian, the voice of a realm she had never known. Ridha, princess of Iona, heir to the Monarch, only child of Isibel Beldane and Cadrigan of the Dawn, rode with a fury. The sand mare kept on, bred to endure, but even she began to tire. Ridha did not.
Cowards all, the foxes and the stags, she thought, despairing of her home and the enclave now miles behind her. She cursed the Sirandels’ palace of trees and rivers, their forest meadow halls and root vaults. Their city of immortal splendor, hidden deep in the Castlewood, grown as much as it was built. As the daughter of Iona, the Monarch’s heir, they feasted and celebrated, her presence cause for great interest. But it did not last. Her tidings were dark, her requests unthinkable. Ride to war, after centuries of peace? Fight the man who could bring them home, even if it meant losing the Ward to What Waits and the jaws of Asunder? Spill Sirandel blood where Iona would not, for a cause so deadly?
Your mother is wise, the Monarch of Sirandel had said, his long face grim. His hair was more gray than red, silvered by time. We will follow her judgment. Glorian calls.
Ridha wanted to spit in his face. Instead she nodded, drank the spirits offered, ate the food given, and stole away in the night.
Even the wolves knew to avoid her, slinking away from the deer path as she urged the mare through the forest. She no longer felt the armor slung across her body, gleaming green, worked with antlers and the stag she now lamented. Is it raining? she thought after a long moment, breathing in the damp air of the Castlewood. Indeed, water streamed down her face, working through her dark hair with cold, wet fingers. How long have I been soaked to the skin?
It was not the Vederan way to feel such things, but a chill stole into her all the same. And not because of the rain.
Again she cursed in rage. At herself, mostly.
I sent Domacridhan into the world alone, seeking assassins and Cor heirs, seeking a blade, seeking revenge if not death. She saw her cousin in her head, burning as hot as an iron in the forge. All anger, all grief. He was no philosopher or diplomat, or even clear-headed. And now, with the fall of the realm on the horizon? She tightened her grip on the mare’s reins, her knuckles white beneath her gauntlets. Have I sent him to his doom?
Worse even was the more selfish question:
Have I already failed?
As the trees blurred past, green-leaved and black-trunked in the downpour, a white figure rose. It was fixed but following, unmoving but always keeping pace. The image stung, near blinding, and Ridha shut her eyes, letting the mare choose her path. The figure remained. It was no stranger. Ridha would have known her mother’s face anywhere, even in a sending, where all was mist, unreal and real, rippled and distant.
“Come home,” Isibel said. “The Sirandels have refused. So will the rest.” Most of her was as ashes, the edges of her p
ale skin and silver-gold hair flaking. The sending was not strong, but Ridha was her own blood. It would not take much will to connect them. “Come home.”
The princess galloped on. I will not. She set her teeth and her resolve. Sirandel is only one enclave, and they are not the only immortal warriors upon the Ward. I need only choose, and choose well. If I do not . . .
Another smiling refusal could be the difference between life and death, for all she loved and knew. Though he had no skill in magic, she saw Domacridhan again, his face torn and bleeding, his eyes filled with the horrors he had witnessed in the foothills.
The Spindle temple was some days northwest, not far by her measure. Cortael’s brother could still be there, flanked by his wizard and his army, vomiting out of the torn Spindle. How many would there be now? Domacridhan suspected that more than a hundred came through in the first minutes, enough to overwhelm them. There could be thousands by now. Many thousands.
The cold in her deepened, until she felt made of ice instead of bones.
The edge of the Castlewood came sooner than she’d expected. But then, it had been decades since she passed this way, and mortals were apt to tear down what they could not tame. The forest dropped away around her, leaving only a barren belt of stumps and root holes. She could hear mills a half league off, churning on the banks of the Great Lion, cutting lumber to be sent downriver to Badentern and eventually the trade port of Ascal. Gallish oak and steelpine were famed across the Ward, fetching high prices in all seasons. Used in everything from water barrels to ship masts to shields. Steelpine was fire-resistant—Spindletouched, some said. Once, this forest had been as riddled with Spindles as with holes in a burrow. They’d left only hollows and clearings, hot springs that varied between water and gnawing acid, flowers that could heal or poison. Mortals with strange eyes and a tremor of magic, running thin in the later centuries. Such was the way of the Spindles, leaving blessings and curses in their wake, memories of the doorways that were and would never be again.
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