Realm Breaker

by Aveyard, Victoria

  “Of course, go ahead,” Sorasa snapped, waving her hand at the dunes. “We’ll catch up.”

  Again, Valtik plopped onto the ground. She traced her nails in the sand, drawing Jydi spirals and knots. “Sand and rain, salt and grain, much to lose, much to gain,” she chanted.

  “Valtik, please,” Corayne sighed, her nerves fraying.

  The first star gleamed directly above, straight out over the desert. Corayne tried to name it and found she could not. I don’t know the stars here. I don’t know the way forward. I don’t even know the way back.

  If she squinted, the dunes could be the Long Sea, their rolling backs like waves. She tried to picture the cliffs of Siscaria, Lemarta in the distance, the cottage behind. Her mother’s ship on the horizon, returning. How fare the winds? Corayne thought, her lips moving without sound. The breeze that played in her hair was nothing like what she remembered, too hot and dry. Still, she could pretend. Fine, for they bring me home.

  Andry kept his distance, pacing, wearing tracks closer and closer to the collapsed ruin of the tower. She was glad for the space, oddly comforted by the gap between them. Through long weeks on the road, Corayne had never been truly alone. She wasn’t now either, but felt better than being loomed over night and day.

  Oddly, the Spindleblade seemed lighter. Or at least she took less notice of the giant sword on her back. It wasn’t any more comfortable, and she sweated where the leather pressed against her clothes. But somehow it felt less. More like a limb than a piece of metal. She reached back over her shoulder, fingers grazing the hilt. It was still worn to her father’s hand, the grooves fitted to a dead man. They will never fit me, she thought, pulling back.

  The sun disappeared completely, the disc of gold slipping beneath the western horizon to leave smudges of red and purple. Though the day had been hotter than any Corayne could recall, the night was almost immediately cold, the sand quickly losing its warmth. Blue and then black came, like a blanket drawn from one end of the sky to the other, pinpricked with more stars. As they winked into existence, Corayne breathed a sigh of relief. There is the Dragon. There is the Unicorn.

  The Ward was still her own. Any navigator could find the way now. And so will I.

  Mirrors on the sand.

  “Sorasa!” she shouted, tearing back over the sandy ground. Her companions whirled to the sound of her voice.

  Dom caught her first. “What is it?” he said, eyes wide with worry.

  She looked to Sorasa. “The Eye was a mirror, wasn’t it?” Corayne demanded, heaving a breath. “An enchanted mirror? Special? Spindletouched?”

  “It was.” Sorasa clasped her arm through her sleeve, instinctively touching the tattoo. “Glowing without flame, bright as a second sun.”

  “Where did it come from? Here?” Corayne demanded, grabbing at the assassin.

  Sorasa furrowed her brow. “No, not Almasad,” she muttered, racking her memory. “Priests of Lasreen found it, in the desert. At an oasis.”

  “An oasis. Does it have a name?” She felt Valtik staring, silent, her eyes blue and cold. “Where, Sorasa?”

  The arrow thwipped between them before Sorasa could answer, and Corayne was thrown bodily to the ground, half buried in the sand, half crushed by Dom’s weight. He didn’t let her up, using one hand to keep her down, the other to draw his sword. Corayne glanced up through her wild hair to see his eyes trained on the city. Another arrow whizzed past his head, missing by inches, fluttering the long hair tucked behind his ear. This time it came from the tower, the opposite direction of the first.

  Ice bled through Corayne’s gut.

  Ambush.

  She squirmed under Dom’s grasp, trying to get up, but his hand was a deadweight on her spine. Sand choked her mouth, tasting of heat. She craned her head, looking for Andry, only to spot Sigil emerging from the ruins of the tower, a contingent of soldiers with her. Corayne gnashed her teeth, so angry she couldn’t even scream.

  In a second, she counted forty troops approaching from the tower. Twenty of Ibal, with their bronze swords and pale rose silk over steel. Twenty of Galland, their green cloaks unmistakable, their pale, pig-eyed, sweating faces grim beneath their helms. Sigil stood between them, her weapons abandoned on her hips. She raised two fingers to her lips and whistled, a keen, sharp sound that made Corayne’s ears hurt.

  Another forty soldiers appeared from the outskirts of Almasad, all of them Ibalet, arrows nocked to every bow.

  A stream of Ibalet curses spilled from Sorasa’s lips like blood from an open wound. Soldiers surrounded her, their blades drawn, as Sigil approached.

  Sorasa spat heartily, her aim true.

  “Don’t take it personally, Sarn,” Sigil drawled, wiping a hand over her face. “You know what I am, and I know what you are. Tell me you wouldn’t have done the same?”

  Sorasa’s voice was a serpent’s hiss. “To the highest bidder.”

  29

  THE BEAR OF KOVALINN

  Ridha

  The princess of Iona missed the sand mare, but the frigid north would have been a cruel punishment for so loyal a horse. She’d been bred for speed in the Ibalet sands, not trekking through frozen fjords. Ridha set her loose before crossing the Watchful Sea, sailing on the rare Jydi ship bound for trade and not raiding. In frostbitten Ghald, she purchased a stockier, long-haired pony, as well as a musty fur cloak that would serve her better in the wilds of the Jyd.

  Though she was Vedera, immune to most discomforts of the mortal world, Ridha did not enjoy being so cold. The Jyd was positively freezing, even though it was only early autumn.

  As she sailed the Glorysea, she saw Jydi longboats under the white sail of peace. Ships of trade and travel. Raiders sailed beneath gray sails, iron cold as the winter sky. But Ridha spotted none. It was as the thieves in the tavern had said: no Jydi were raiding. Not rare, she thought as the she rode the rocky coast. Impossible.

  Kovalinn sat in the Vyrand, the great, wolf-shaped mountain range that formed the spine of Jyd. Ridha remembered the enclave of her northern cousins from a diplomatic journey in her youth, some centuries before, when she’d accompanied her mother. Domacridhan had been left at home, too young to go with them. He’d been little more than a child then, still growing, and he’d wept on her shoulder before she left.

  She sorely wished he could have been with her now, a shield as much as a crutch.

  The Jydi mortals were not ignorant of the Vedera like their southern neighbors, and they were far less intrigued by woman carrying weapons. When Ridha passed through villages on her way north, few children of the Jyd balked at her presence. Most were fair, blond or ginger-haired, but the Jyd welcomed all who took up the ax, the shovel, or the sail. Black skin, bronze skin, porcelain, every shade from white to ebony was present in the frigid north, from Ghald to Yrla to Hjorn, in every village and on every farm.

  It was the same in Kovalinn.

  When she reached the river mouth in the Kova fjord, a Veder was already waiting, stoic as an old oak. She was reedy and tall, wrapped in furs, with skin like glowing topaz, her black-and-silver hair braided into locks tied with fine chain. Ridha did not know her, but raised a hand in greeting, her palm white as the early snow clinging to her eyelashes.

  How they knew of her coming, Ridha could easily guess. Mother must have made another sending, this time to the monarch of the snows. She tried not to think of Isibel of Iona, a wisp of magic with silver hair stirring in a phantom wind. Come home. Come home.

  Is it an echo or a memory? Ridha could not say.

  “I am Ridha of Iona.”

  She searched the woman’s face. If Mother has already contacted Kovalinn, this might be for nothing.

  The other Veder dipped her brow. “I am Kesar of Salahae, right hand to the Monarch of Kovalinn. He bids you welcome in his lands and is eager to speak with you.”

  “As I am eager to speak with him,” Ridha answered.

  In the distance, a cold wind blew, stirring up the steady fall of snowflake
s. The way up the fjord cleared for an instant, showing a jaw of granite and snowy ground, a waterfall plunging its way to the river and the sea. At its peak, at the crest of a zagging pathway cut into the rock, was Kovalinn. Even from a distance she saw the bears carved into its gate, their fur chipped from black pine.

  Beneath her cloak and steel, Ridha shivered. The wind blew again, and the enclave disappeared into the snows.

  The great bear was the sigil of Kovalinn, set into her gates, woven into tapestries, carved from towering pines to loom down the length of the great hall. It was also a living guardian. One slept soundly by the seat of the Monarch, its massive paws curled over its face, the ridge of its back like a mountain. It snored softly, nuzzling its snout against the feet of the boy who ruled this enclave of the Vedera. The redheaded child bent down from his chair, scratching the animal behind the ears. Its head was nearly the size of his body.

  Dyrian of Kovalinn, his eyes pearl gray, smiled at his pet fondly. He was only a century old, the youngest Veder to rule upon the Ward. His white face was spattered with freckles; his clothing was plain: a brown cloak trimmed in black sable, the bear on his tunic picked out in amber, jet, and swirling jasper. There was a twisted circle of gold around his throat to match one on his wrist, but he wore no crown. In his lap there was a living pine bough, its needles a lush hunter green.

  Ridha knelt, her fur cloak over one shoulder, the steel of her armor still cold from the ride up the fjord. She watched him keenly, weighing his youth.

  The boy was not alone: advisors fanned around him, either seated or standing. Kesar stood at his right hand, unbothered by the sleeping bear. On his left was clearly his mother, her hair as red as his own, gathered into two long braids beneath a circlet of hammered iron. She was broad, similar in build to Ridha, a cloud of white fox fur around her shoulders, a chain-mail gown pouring over her crossed legs. Her eyes were flint, unblinking.

  The princess of Iona weighed the Monarch against his diplomats. Who commands the enclave? Who speaks for Kovalinn? Who do I have to convince?

  “He’s larger than usual,” Dyrian said, straightening in his chair. It was too big for him; his fur boots dangled over the flagstones of the raised dais. He looked younger than his decades, his face still clinging to fat. There was a sword at his side and a dagger in his boot, suited to his small size.

  “Putting on fat for the winter sleep,” he added, smiling a toothy grin, showing a gap between his teeth.

  The smile did not reach his eyes.

  Ridha raised her chin. Her focus narrowed to the Monarch, and not the others, who lived thousands of years between them.

  “And what of you, my lord?” she said. “Do you intend to sleep as well?”

  Behind him, his mother’s mouth twitched but did not open. As Ridha had guessed, no one spoke for Dyrian but Dyrian.

  The boy rested his hands on the arms of his chair, the wood carved in the likeness of his pet.

  “I was told Ionians dance around the point,” he said, amused. His gray-white eyes belonged to a wolf, not a child. “Not you, Princess.”

  “Not me,” she answered.

  Her skin crawled with a shiver. The great hall of Kovalinn was a long room beneath a thatched roof, the walls made of cut lumber. Today it served as the Monarch’s throne room, emptied of onlookers but for his council. Two open pits ran the length of the chamber behind her, shimmering with hot coals and lit flames, but the great doors were swung wide, letting in the echoes of winter. Snow danced along the flagstones, swirling around her boots.

  Ridha tried to ignore the cold. “What did my mother tell you in her sending?”

  He tapped a finger against his lips, thinking. “Enough,” he finally answered. “A Spindle torn, the rest in danger. Blood and blade in the wrong hands, serving What Waits and his devouring hunger.”

  Her insides twisted. It was a song she knew well, but she winced every time it was sung.

  Dyrian leaned forward, bracing his hands on his knees. His wolf eyes flashed. “A calamity already beyond our control.”

  Ridha stood gracefully, her jaw set. “I disagree.”

  The boy grinned again, looking sidelong at his mother. Her eyes sparked to his, conveying a message Ridha could not read.

  “Oh, I thought you were here for a social visit,” he said, shrugging. “So, then, Ridha of Iona, what do you want of us?”

  No, those with endless years tend not to worry about time lost. Even when they should, Ridha thought, biting her tongue. Again she looked over the advisors, weighing their influence as she weighed Dyrian’s. I’m not a diplomat, she thought. I’m no good at this.

  Dom would be far worse.

  “I want you to fight,” she bit out, laying a hand on her sword. Her eyes dropped to the pine bough in his lap. “Lay down the branch, take up the ax.” She felt desperate. She sounded desperate. Ridha hated it but would not stop. If I have to beg, so be it. “The Ward is not yet lost. And I don’t think it’s worth losing.”

  “Not like your mother does,” Dyrian muttered. “The Monarch of Iona is Glorianborn. I cannot fault her for seizing any opportunity to return to the land of our ancestors, the realm that sings in her blood. She aches for home, as so many do.” He turned in his chair, assessing the other immortals. A few were silver-haired, thousands of years old, their hearts in another realm too. They stared, silent, their faces like a stone wall no one could ever climb.

  Ridha felt sick, her stomach twisting.

  Then the Monarch looked back to her, his wolf eyes alight.

  “I do not,” he said sternly.

  She felt the breath leave her body. “My lord—”

  His mother stood, her dress of mail shimmering like scales on a fish. She was near seven feet tall, milk-skinned, a warrior queen with scars on her knuckles.

  “What brought you here?” she demanded. There was a strange rasp to her voice, unnatural. Ridha gulped, spotting another scar, a pearly line of white cut across her throat. “Of all the enclaves? We are not the strongest nor the largest. The journey is not easy, even before the winter, even for an immortal such as you. Why us, Ridha of Iona?”

  “The raiders of the Watchful Sea have not raided; no gray sails fly,” she said simply. It was no use to tell them she heard this at a no-name tavern, from mortals already fading to dust.

  “Their longboats haven’t been spotted this season. The towns and villages of the southern kingdoms have not burned.” It had been decades, but Ridha still remembered the sight of longboats on the water, emerging from a cloud of smoke with flame at their backs. Like dragons rising out of the sea.

  The Vedera of Kovalinn did not answer.

  Ridha crept forward. If this was victory, she could feel it in her fingers, nearly slipping. “What are they running from?”

  “Running?” Dyrian scoffed. He eyed his mother, still standing, nearly a bear herself. “No, the raiders of the Jyd do not run.”

  Fear lanced down Ridha’s spine. Fear . . . and hope. Her voice shook. “Then what are they preparing to fight?”

  On the floor, the bear stirred, yawning his fearsome jaws. His teeth were three inches long, yellow and dripping. He looked up at his master and blinked sleepy, warm eyes. Again, Dyrian scratched his fur, earning a satisfied hum from the bear’s throat.

  This time, the Monarch did not smile. He did not look like a child anymore.

  “The enemy we all must face,” he said. “Whether we choose to or not.”

  30

  AGAINST THE GODS

  Sorasa

  There were three prisons in Almasad. One on the water, the cells half flooded at high tide, with crocodiles tearing at the bars. One on the outskirts, between the city and the dunes, the cells open to the sun, so that prisoners burned and blistered within hours of captivity. The third was buried beneath the citadel fortress of the city’s central garrison, its cells dark and cool and sepulchral, secure as a tomb. The first two were unpleasant, but manageable. Sorasa Sarn had swum and climbed her wa
y out of both.

  She gritted her teeth as they were led, bound and gagged, to the third. Taltora, she knew, cursing its name.

  Sorasa kept her face lowered. It wasn’t difficult to look defeated. After all, Sigil had betrayed them.

  I should have known, she thought as their footsteps echoed. She never saw the corpses on the hill. She never saw Taristan of Old Cor, the red wizard at his side. Sigil is of the Ward, still existing within the rules she understands.

  And she’s right, Sorasa thought. In another time, I would have done the same.

  The Ibalet officers brought them to a guardroom below the prison fortress, flaring with torches, its walls lined with shelves and trunks. The Ibalets wasted no time stripping away their weaponry, relieving Dom and Andry of their swords. Corayne grimaced in the flickering light, her eyes too wide as they removed her cloak and tossed it away. She fought weakly, choking against her gag, when they unbuckled the Spindleblade and took it gingerly from her back.

  Dom bucked against his captors, but six men and a heavy iron chain around his wrists and ankles were enough to keep the Elder from escape. Sigil warned them, Sorasa cursed, watching him writhe in vain.

  The bounty hunter was nowhere in sight, and neither were the Gallish soldiers in their cloaks. While the soldiers patted down Valtik, puzzling at her trinkets, Sorasa imagined Sigil in the soldiers’ mess, surrounded by the northern troops. Or perhaps in the warden’s office, collecting a seal of merit to be presented for payment in Ascal. The latter, most likely. Sigil enjoys nothing until her business is completed.

  When it was her turn, Sorasa leaned into the shadow, trying to obscure her face. She winced when a guard with a badge of office examined her, his eyes narrowing beneath full, dark brows. He had the hawk face of a noble Ibalet, his eyes a warm, syrupy brown. She recognized his black beard, shaved and oiled into perfect curls beneath his cheekbones. Without removing the gag, he grabbed her by the chin, turning her head from side to side. Then his gaze dropped, taking in the tattoos at her neck and the lines on her fingers.