13 THE NOOSE

13

THE NOOSE

Corayne

Dom brushed dust and dirt from his cloak, cleaning himself off after the debacle with the tunnel gate. Even though his appearance should be far, far down his list of priorities, Corayne thought, watching him rework the braid at the back of his head, gathering half his hair into a severely neat plait as he walked the now-dry tunnel. At least he’s effective. The cracked gate far behind them was testament of that.

Though it felt like an eternity, winding through the heavy darkness, barely twenty more minutes passed before Sorasa’s torch illuminated the bottom of a spiraling staircase.

“Finally,” Corayne said. She drank in a gasp of fresher air, tasting the difference.

Dom glared at the steps. “You first, Sarn,” he growled low in his throat.

The assassin sneered, ascending the steps. “An immortal Elder, hiding behind a woman and a child. How noble.”

He didn’t rise to her needling, but a muscle feathered in his cheek.

“I’m seventeen, hardly a child,” Corayne muttered under her breath, frowning at the stairs.

Her legs were still sore from their days in the saddle. Just the prospect of the climb already had her thighs burning. And burn they did, after only a few minutes’ time. Her breath echoed, growing heavier by the second. Though she had run the cliffs of Lemarta since she was a child, mounting the steps of the port town without blinking an eye, this felt infinitely more difficult.

She tried counting the steps, to pass the time and to keep her nerves level. Every step brings us closer to the palace above, to a sword that might not be there, to a queen who might not listen. Marching into the black unknown was like carrying a log across her shoulders. It weighted down every step, even the easy ones.

“You said your squire is a lady’s son,” Sorasa said, her voice echoing down “He’ll be in the east wing, where the courtiers keep their apartments.”

Corayne tried to check her labored breathing. She gulped down wet air. “Is that far?”

“Not particularly.”

That isn’t an answer.

“You’ll go first. You can pass for a kitchen maid,” Sorasa added, looking over her shoulder. Without breaking stride, she ran her eyes over Corayne’s clothing. “Ask for his rooms. Simple.”

Corayne looked down at her boots, her leggings, and a tunic dried stiff with salt spray. “I don’t look much like a maid.”

Sorasa rolled her eyes so strongly Corayne nearly felt it. “You’re within the walls already,” she sighed. “Just keep your chin up, seem bored, speak plainly. And you’re a girl. Harmless. No one will bother looking at you twice.”

Suddenly Corayne wished the steps were endless. “I don’t know if I can do that.”

“It’s all right—” Dom began, but Sorasa cut him off with a click of her tongue.

The assassin quickened her pace, as if in punishment for Corayne’s fear. “You’re the ship’s agent for one of the most notorious pirates of the Long Sea, and her daughter besides. I’m sure you’ve got steel in that spine somewhere.”

Heat bloomed in Corayne’s cheeks, flaming against the cold, damp air of the stairwell. No spine, she heard her mother whisper in her ear. The memory shivered her and emboldened her in equal measure. I’ll show you spine.

The stairs ended in a wide, flat room, dim but not dark, the ceiling supported by dozens of fat columns. An undercroft of some sort, very different in style from the ancient tunnels below. Sorasa led them through, picking out a path no one else could see, until they reached another set of stairs. Luckily, it was much shorter, and led to a single ancient door.

Now Sorasa was quiet, and put her ear against it.

With the slightest huff, Dom placed his hands on the Amhara’s shoulders. She tensed like a predator, a fist balled, one hand drawing her knife, even as he shifted her out of the way. Her eyes went wide, livid, her nostrils flaring as she sucked in a hissing, angry breath.

Dom shot her a look of annoyance before laying his face against the door, his ear pressed up. Corayne nearly laughed aloud. Of course an Elder would hear better than any mortal, even an Amhara. It was simple logic.

That didn’t calm Sorasa at all. “I’ve killed men for less,” she growled.

“You’re welcome to try,” Dom said with disinterest, his focus elsewhere. He listened for a long second while the assassin seethed. “The room and passage beyond are empty. A guard is making his rounds above us, but moving away,” he said, drawing back to look down on them. “Perhaps let me do the spying from now on.”

Sorasa dropped her torch. It spit embers across the stone. “About time you made yourself useful,” she hissed, reaching for the door.

“About time you both shut your mouths,” Corayne muttered.

The assassin paused, her teeth bared in a threatening smile. Her copper eyes darted, reflecting the weak light of the torch smoldering at their feet. “Well, I won’t burden you with my presence much longer.”

Corayne wasn’t surprised. An assassin had no place in their quest; her road ended here. But still she felt the pang of loss. “You’re gone after we find Trelland.”

“In the wind,” Sorasa said with a nod. Then she leered at Dom. “Until someone finishes his great task, and upholds his end of our bargain.”

The shadows moved over his face, sharpening his features. He seemed old for a moment, as though the long years of immortality were finally catching up to him. “It will be upheld.”

“Unless you die,” Sorasa said airily, pulling hard on the door.

“Gods willing, if it means never seeing you again,” Dom muttered as it opened.

Corayne blinked fiercely in the sudden light, her body tensing. She braced herself for shouting, a guard or a maid, someone to raise the alarm. But Dom had heard truly. There was no one on the other side, just a half-empty storeroom. The air was dry and stale. This room was forgotten, barely used. From this side, the door was unremarkable, old wood threatening to splinter. It had no handle or doorknob Corayne could see.

No one will be coming back this way.

The passage was as empty as the storeroom. Tapestries hung from the walls, and fine rugs carpeted the floor, muffling their footsteps. Most were Gallish-made, by weavers without much skill or artistry. Green and gold, again and again. Do they ever get sick of those colors? Corayne wondered, as they passed a woven image of a lion with a squashed face.

She told herself not to be afraid. She walked with an Elder prince, a witness to a great terror. If they were waylaid before finding Andry, they would simply be brought to the Queen first. They could warn her all the same. Or be thrown directly into the dungeons for trespassing.

She pushed the thoughts from her mind and focused on trying to look the part of a maid. A servant in the palace would keep her eyes down, not gape at tapestries she saw all day long. You work in the kitchens, in the kitchen garden specifically. That would explain the dirt on her hands and knees from their long journey. You tend the . . . what’s in season right now? Tomatoes? Cabbage? Her mind spun, grasping for a good story to tell. A courier came in from the stables; he had a letter for Valeri Trelland. Sent me to run it to her. Though Corayne had spent years negotiating on her mother’s behalf, trading stolen cargo and illegal goods, she was never alone in her lies. The Tempestborn always had her back.

TheTempestborn is far away now. I’m on my own.

Sorasa and Dom navigated well, avoiding the clank of armor that meant guards or knights. It was only a few minutes, but the seconds dragged and Corayne’s heartbeat thundered.

“Servants,” Dom breathed at her shoulder. “Through the archways.”

Corayne’s jaw clenched and she felt herself nod. Up ahead, the passage widened, one side scalloped with columns and arches opening onto a flourishing garden of roses. Steeling herself, she walked forward while the others hung back. You work in the kitchens.

A pair of women knelt among the roses, filling their baskets with scarlet flowers. Their faces gleamed with sweat, and they wore thick leather gloves to defend against thorns.

“Please tell us Percy sent you to help,” one of the women said with a gasp of breath. She wiped her brow with the back of her hand. “We’ll be cutting flowers all night at this rate.”

Corayne’s voice faltered. “I—”

The other maid, older than the first, waved a fistful of roses in her direction. “Hope you brought gloves, dear.”

“No, sorry—” Corayne said, speaking around the lump in her throat. She swallowed, eyeing the two. “I’ve got a message for Lady Valeri Trelland. A letter, from a courier—”

“Trelland?” The young maid blanched. “Isn’t she dead?”

Corayne’s stomach plummeted to her feet.

“She’s not dead,” the other answered, still wagging her roses. “She’s just sick is all. Sick the long, slow way. Doesn’t leave her chambers much anymore. But she’s still kinder than all the rest put together.” Then she pointed with the flowers. “Keep on the way you’re going. Her quarters are at the bottom of Lady’s Tower. Look for the painting of King Makrus.”

Corayne bobbed her head in a grateful nod. “Thank you.”

The older maid screeched as she moved on. “And tell Percy we need more hands if we’re to cut enough flowers by morning!”

“I shall,” she replied, though she had no idea who Percy was and even less inclination to seek him out.

The tightness in her chest unwound and she turned back to the passage, only to find Dom and Sorasa waiting idly on the far side of the arches. Both had passed by without the maids, or even Corayne, noticing. Sorasa jabbed her thumb over her shoulder, her lips forming words with no sound. This way.

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 theTempestborn, 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 notechoed.

“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.”