23 BELOW THE PRIEST’S HAND

23

BELOW THE PRIEST’S HAND

Corayne

Corayne had heard stories of Adira from nearly every member of her mother’s crew, her mother included. The card tables, the concubines and brothels, the night markets hawking goods from all over the Ward, stolen or otherwise. Real dragon scales, ancient and crusty, in the curio shops. Spindletouched mages brewing up tonics and poison outside taverns. Thieves’ gangs and pirate crews outfitting their companies. The crown of Treccoras, the last Cor emperor, had been won in a game of dice in the House of Luck and Fortune, then immediately lost to the marshes. But the history was there too; she’d heard it mostly from Kastio. When moved to talk, he spoke of distant years, centuries long since passed, as if he were reciting from the pages of a university tome, or had an impossibly long memory.

It had been Piradorant once, truly the Adoring Port, beneath the ancient empire. The small city and surrounding territory had sworn allegiance to Old Cor long before her armies arrived. There was no conquest. She was a willing bride, and the Cors treated her as such. Her walls were gilded, her streets wealthy. She blossomed, a flower basking in the light of a doting sun. But the empire fell, night came, and the world moved on in its shadow. The stumbling kingdom of Larsia grew and eventually chafed with the might of neighboring Galland. The Larsians fought to defend their border from encroachment. The city now called Adira filled the cracks between.

Wedged between warring kingdoms, often cut off by battle or blockade, Adira survived through less than honorable means. Pirate ships regularly ran Gallish blockades to feed the hungry city. Cutthroats and rogues slipped around entrenched armies. Within the walls, the city rotted like an apple. The King of Larsia did not have the strength to wrest it back from the criminals who controlled it, and Galland would not bother. The Gallish kings cared for glittering capitals and vast expanses of rich land. Not a fortress slum on a marshy peninsula, its streets bristling with rusty knives and gutter rats. Adira adapted to the world as it was, becoming what it needed to be.

The peninsula had a gray-green look as they approached from the north, a spit of land shoved out into the Bay alongside the mouth of the Orsal. The river flowed through marshland, belching silt into the bluer salt water. Adira sat at the peninsula’s head, the city walled in by a crown of mossy stone and wooden palisade. A stone causeway zigzagged over the marshes, through the worst of the mud, with no less than six drawbridges, all of them pulled up. It was a Cor-built wonder, like the roads, aqueducts, and amphitheaters within the old borders. There would be no assaulting Adira from land, not by any army upon the Ward.

As they rode onto the causeway, Corayne caught sight of the docks before the mist closed it. The sails of a dozen ships crowded the harbor like needles in a pincushion. Pirates and smugglers all. Not a single flag of a lawful kingdom. Corayne smiled as she had in Lecorra, drawn to this place, rooted in it somehow. But this time it wasn’t the Spindletouched echoes of Cortael she felt. This was the land of her mother, of Hell Mel.

Andry balanced her obvious excitement with naked fear. His eyes locked on the first drawbridge, drawn up against the sky like a flat hand ready to fall and crush them all. The squire of a noble court had no place here. He already stuck out like a sore thumb, even next to Dom. And that was a very high mark to clear.

“Hey, no worries,” Corayne murmured to him, drawing her horse in close. She bent, the sword digging into her back. “Half the stories aren’t even true. No one’s going to boil your face off and sell your skull.”

The reins cracked in his fists. His eyes widened. “I never heard that one before.”

The first drawbridge fell without so much as a word from any of them, not even a bribe from Dom or a threat from Sorasa. On the other side, two bridge wardens stood, toothless and gray-faced, silent as they rode on. Corayne thought a bit of face boiling might improve their appearance.

“Draw your hoods,” Sorasa said, pulling her cowl into place. She arranged the shawl around her shoulders so the daggers in her belt and the sword at her side would be easy to wield.

Dom did the same, stone-faced, sweeping the green cloak of Iona back from his left hip. He seemed a bit lighter these days. The road must agree with him, Corayne thought. The mist closed in, nearly obscuring Valtik as she plodded along at the rear. On her gray horse in her gray clothes, she was a shadow as much as the bridge wardens, a ghost of the marsh. Even her lurid eyes were veiled, gone to gray like the rest of the world.

Corayne felt like a horse blinkered. There was only the causeway and the muffling silence of the mist. The land around Adira existed in some eerie in-between, part of no kingdom, separated by a narrow barrier of mud.

At the second bridge, the wardens had bows ready, arrows quivered at their hips. Corayne suspected there were more hiding in the wetlands.

“You lost?” one asked, his voice lisping over his broken teeth. His cheeks were pockmarked.

“Not yet,” Sorasa answered.

The bridge fell.

Such was the way at every turn: wardens shouted challenges and Sorasa answered. Corayne couldn’t tell if it was a code or not. She memorized the responses all the same. You lost? Not yet. What’s your business? Same as yours. Who do you know in the city? Too many to name. Are you going to make trouble? Most likely. In truth, it was probably the combination of a tattooed Amhara and a hulking mountain of a man with a sword to match his glowering face that opened the bridges. The rest of them were inconsequential. Even Valtik kept her mouth shut, following in off-putting silence.

The final bridge dropped without a challenge, connecting the causeway to the city hill. The mist lifted while they climbed, and the world came back into sharper focus. A shantytown bunched around the gate and walls, loosely organized, as the city spilled out of its own boundaries. It had the look of a slum but none of the despair.

Adira was bigger up close, hunched on the rise, thrust out of the haze, with clear sight in all directions: over the marsh and the foggy causeway, over the flat waters of Mirror Bay. The border was not far but felt a thousand miles away. Taristan and Erida cannot touch us here. As the smell and sounds of the city intensified, Corayne felt something like an embrace. She sucked down a breath of fresh salt air, raising her face to the sun. This was one of the most dangerous corners of the Ward. And the safest place we can be.

“All those bridges, and they leave the gates open,” Andry said, eyeing the city wall.

Indeed, the gates were flung wide, flanked only by a pair of wardens. They leaned on old spears, more for show than for function. Corayne smirked. “I suppose after six bridges, the marsh, and whoever else watched our approach, they have no reason to keep the gates shut all day long.”

The wardens were dressed in leather and rough-spun cloth. Like the bridge guardians, they wore no uniform or color to unite them in their work. They watched, silent but sharp.

Sorasa said nothing to either of them, urging her horse onward. She only pulled down her cowl, exposing her face as she rode first through the gate. Maybe it was a trick of the shifting light, but Corayne thought she saw the assassin’s shoulders droop, releasing some tension. A criminal haven was a lullaby to a contracted killer.

Andry retreated into his hood, showing only the hard set of his jaw. Despite his unease, he seemed less a squire and more a traveler, weary but unafraid. Still, his fingers twisted on the reins. Corayne was struck by the very odd impulse to grab his hand. She blinked, startled, and pushed it away. Warmth flushed in her face, and she willed her cheeks not to turn red.

The wall wasn’t thick, barely as wide as three men abreast. Corayne passed through quickly. She couldn’t help but notice murder holes pocking the ceiling. Her skin crawled at the thought of a man pouring hot oil down on her.

“At least it doesn’t smell as awful as Ascal,” Dom grumbled as he cleared the gate, one hand resting on his sword. Valtik followed close behind.

The square inside the gate was oddly quiet, but then it was still daylight. Corayne assumed that most of Adira’s residents would be sleeping off the night before, and the ones who weren’t were well past noticing a few more riders on the streets.

Sorasa nudged her horse east, past a headless statue, its hands raised in supplication. Someone had draped their laundry from its fingers.

“I didn’t know there could be so many places to drink,” Andry whispered to Corayne, leaning close as they passed a stretch of taverns, each one more cramped than the last. Unlike Dom and Sorasa, he was still unarmed. The best he had was the kettle, still thunking softly in his saddlebags.

“Want to peel off?” she replied. The square became a spiderweb of streets, quieter than the gate. An old man weakly advertised games of chance from a balcony while a woman squawked at him to stop talking. “I doubt Sorasa would mind.”

He laughed, meeting her stare. Up close, his eyes were dark stones flecked with amber.

“I think Dom and Sorasa would rather tie us up and drag us than let us explore,” he said, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder. The Elder rode close behind, his glare leveled on Corayne’s back. I might as well be tied up already. “Not that I want to.”

“Oh, come on, Squire Trelland.” Corayne smiled and leaned further, one hand gripping the pommel of her saddle for balance. She cut a glance at the street. It felt like a vein, thrumming with life she couldn’t see. Two men stumbled out of a dice house, trying to fight and missing every blow. They reminded her so much of the Tempestborn crew her heart ached. “Aren’t you curious?”

Andry watched the pair. “I’ve seen drunks before, thank you.”

A pair of knights a bit tipsy on the Queen’s vintage are not drunks,Corayne thought.

“There’s more to do here than drink,” she replied.

Andry nodded. “And I hope we get it over with quickly.”

“Maybe not too quickly,” Corayne shot back. He glanced at her, an eyebrow raised in question. She bit her lip, chewing the moment. “It’s nice to see you worry about something that isn’t the end of the world,” she finally said, almost too softly for mortal ears.

Beneath his hood, Andry smiled, his face brightening.

“Likewise, Corayne.”

“The laws of Adira are simple.” Sorasa’s voice was as gentle as a whipcrack, snapping over them both. She turned in the saddle, directing her horse with only her knees and the grip of her leather- sheathed thighs. “There are none,” she concluded, matter-of-fact.

Corayne got the sense her warning was mostly for Dom, who barely understood a proper mortal city, let alone one run and ruled by outlaws. And for Andry, who gaped at their surroundings.

“Kill a man in the street if you like, but know you can be killed just as easily. Cut a purse and be prepared for a cut in return. There are no guards, no city watch. Only the wardens on the bridges, walls, and gates. And their objective isn’t to protect you; it’s to protect Adira.” Sorasa waved her fingers, gesturing back the way they’d come. Like she said, there were no more wardens to be seen, a stark contrast to every other city Corayne had passed through. “Nothing and no one else. Anything can be taken, from every direction. Keep your eyes up. Don’t lose sight of me.” Then she reached, tugging on the bridle of Corayne’s horse, so that the mare huffed and drew in close. Sorasa met Corayne’s eyes with a stare to bore through steel. “Don’t wander off.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Corayne answered like a child accused. I can’t exactly explore with the Spindleblade between my shoulders, balancing the salvation of the Ward with its impending doom.

“Good,” Sorasa cut back. “And before you start in on your questions, we’re headed to the Priest’s Hand.”

Andry blanched. “There are priests here?”

Sorasa grinned. “Not the kind you’re used to, Squire.”

The Priest’s Hand was a church, or had been sometime in the last two centuries. Now it was a marketplace, the pews long since removed to make room for stalls. Smoke wafted overhead, trapped by the domed roof of a former shrine to Tiber, the god of trade and craftsmen. His face was painted on the walls, wearing his usual crown of coins. Corayne knew him well.

There was little order to the place. The smell of muddy soup wafted from a cook stand, while a Tyri sailor with gold teeth displayed a cage of beady-eyed ravens. A man sold animal bones next to twin sisters praying over glittering lengths of jewels and beads. There were cloth merchants, fishmongers, fruit vendors, and stalls with no obvious purpose but to sell bits of junk. Stolen goods, Corayne knew, eyeing the displays as they passed. She saw her charts again, weaving the lines of trade through the Long Sea. She smirked at the telltale oily sheen of Treckish steel at a workman’s table, though Trec kept a tight fist on their mines and craftsmen. She wanted to linger, but Sorasa drew them through the church as if they were all tied together. Only Valtik halted. Naturally, she went to a spread of ribs, spines, and femurs, pawing through them with a slack grin. She even tested a few, tossing them between her hands and over the ground like a gambler playing at dice.

Perhaps that was the idea. So far, my fate seems like a bad turn of luck.

Dom kept close at her back. For once, he wasn’t so out of place. While the streets were quiet, the Priest’s Hand was busy, and many Adirans were as large as Domacridhan. Bruisers, bandits, pit fighters, sailors with sun-damaged cheeks. Lean thieves and beautiful courtesans from all over the Ward wove among them. A man with diamond-pale, glowing skin even winked at Dom, blowing him a kiss with a beckoning hand.

Corayne stopped searching stalls and began searching faces, hoping to spot whoever Sorasa intended to recruit to their quest. She nearly halted before an Ibalet man, his look similar to Sorasa’s, with a belt of daggers and eyes like a falcon. But Sorasa passed him by without a second glance. Soon the long walk through the church was finished, and they stood before the abandoned altar. Instead of a droning priest reciting godly scripture, a pair of dogs lounged around it, panting with slobbering smiles.

“Are they here? Have we missed them?” Corayne said, looking back down the church. A few eyes trailed them, watching carefully. The two most obvious were a pair of men in long gray robes, their boots new leather. They had the look of a religious order, even if there was no religion under this roof. “We’re being followed,” Corayne said flatly.

“I’m being followed,” Sorasa replied with a sigh. She even waved a hand in their direction. “They’re nothing. The Twilight Brothers are a joke.”

Andry’s jaw dropped. He looked from Sorasa to the robed men, not bothering to drop his voice. “The Twilight Brothers? They’re killers, assassins—”

“And what am I? A milkmaid?” Sorasa smirked, once at Andry and then at the Brothers. They sneered, turning tail with a dramatic spin of their robes. Steel flashed beneath, their swords naked with no sheaths. “Like I said, a joke. They’re waiting to get me alone, make me an offer again. All so I can refuse again.”

Sorasa declined to elaborate.

Dom cared more for the stone tiles beneath them, flat and worn, making up the raised the dais of the altar. He scuffed a boot over them.

“There’s more beneath us,” he said sharply.

“Nothing gets past you, Elder,” Sorasa said, waving them all past the chipped altar. The dogs panted in their wake, watching with baleful eyes. Andry stooped to give one a scratch.

He caught Corayne watching and shrugged. “A criminal dog is still a dog.”

A narrow stair hid behind the altar, cramped between the dais and the exterior wall. Another image of Tiber, his mouth spilling coins, loomed over the stairway. Sorasa gave him a familiar pat on the nose as she descended the steps. Corayne did the same, hoping for a blessing.

A square chamber, once a crypt, opened up below. Three of the walls had long rectangular openings, vaults for coffins. They were blissfully empty. Corayne swallowed, put off by the vaults, but at least no skeletons leered in the dim light.

On the only flat wall, a single torch burned, off center against the brick and mortar. When it flickered, Corayne could make out something like a doorway, nearly blending into the wall, visible only at the edges where it couldn’t lie completely flush.

But Sorasa didn’t go to the door. Instead she reached into one of the vaults, never hesitating, and rapped her knuckles on the back wall inside. It sounded like wood. After a hasty second, it slid back, and a pair of eyes appeared where a body once rotted.

“Five—” Sorasa said to the eyes, then stopped herself and checked their number. Valtik was still upstairs. “Four. The witch is mingling.”

“You know the rules: no more than two,” came a raspy reply. The eyes darted. They were green and watery, surrounded by fat, pink flesh.

Sorasa bent closer. “Since when have rules meant anything around here?”

Before the eyes could answer, another voice sounded behind the sliding panel.

“Is that Sarn I hear?” a male voice said.

The eyes rolled. Before Sorasa could say another word, the panel snapped back into place, slamming shut.

Dom rumbled out a low laugh. “You have that effect on most people.”

There was a grinding, a gear turning somewhere in the wall as a pair of latches pinged open. Corayne jumped when the door in the brick wall swung forward, heavy on great iron hinges. The chamber beyond was long, well lit by torches and streams of daylight.

Sorasa smiled in the Elder’s face, or as close as she could reach. “I certainly do,” she said, passing into the next room with a bounce in her step.

The original crypt extended the length of the church above, set with fat, cobwebbed columns and high, flat windows to bring in at least some natural light. It shifted, blue and white with the passing clouds. There were more vaults along the walls, all stuffed with crates, tools, and food stores, as well as miles of parchment and gallons of many-colored inks.

Corayne looked it over, noting wood blocks that looked suspiciously like printing stamps, not to mention several cast-iron molds. Her eyes narrowed.

We’re in a forger’s workshop.

“Charlon Armont,” Sorasa said, approaching the stubby young man bent over a workbench. She said his name with the characteristic Madrentine flourish, words swooping. “So nice to see you.”

He looked up, one eye exaggerated by a magnifying glass. The other was mud brown, like the thick hair held back from his face by a tight braid. He straightened, revealing a strongman’s gut and broad, rounded shoulders. He had the build of a laborer, sturdy as a wall. But his hands were thin and delicate, skillful. His skin was pale, unnaturally so, as if he spent most daylight hours down in the crypt. It’s probably true, Corayne thought.

“Don’t lie, Sarn. You’re too good at it; it unnerves me,” he said, lowering his eyeglass to let it dangle from the cord around his neck. Without looking down, he swept the papers on his desk into a box, hiding the contents from sight. Corayne tried to catch some of it, but he moved too quickly. “It isn’t like you to come with company. Especially this kind of company,” he added, eyeing the rest of them. His curiosity deepened as he glanced from Andry to Dom to Corayne, taking their measure.

Corayne did the same. Armont didn’t look older than twenty, his face unlined by age, his skin smooth as marble and the color of honeyed milk.

His assistant, the owner of the green eyes, wavered nearby. She was small with a frizzy head of sandy hair. Charlon dismissed her with a nod, and she made herself scarce. The brick door shut behind her, the gears above it now clearly visible. It even had padlocks and a broad bar to be lowered into place.

He looks ready for a siege,Corayne thought.

“Strange days,” Sorasa answered, her hands spread wide. Both her palms were as tattooed as her fingers. On her right hand, the sun; on the left, the crescent moon.

Charlon nodded. He removed the glass, shoving it into the tool belt around his wide-set hips. He looked like a bull. A very nervous bull. “Indeed, there’s been odd talk.”

“What sort of talk?” Corayne said sharply.

It felt like being home again in Lemarta, listening to sailors trade tales at the tavern, or merchants jaw in the market. She wanted to sink her teeth in, tear out something useful from the nonsense. Once, she’d have grabbed for a line on a treasury ship moving currency. Now, perhaps, some word of where Taristan was going next, or where he had been. What Spindle will tear next, and which is already torn? What new dangers lurk on the horizon, waiting for us—and anyone else caught in the crossfire?

Charlon eyed her and she eyed him back, unyielding. “Storms out of season,” he answered. “Villages going quiet. Gallish troops on the move, and not to any war anyone knows about. Ships running aground out at sea,” he added, moving a hand over his chin. The tips of his fingers were stained a dull, dark blue. Years of ink. “One of them limped in this morning, hull nearly cracked in two. And there’s that whole fuss about the Queen of Galland marrying some no-name without gold or a castle.”

Corayne flinched. But he has an army.

“News certainly travels fast around here,” Andry said shakily. “By the way, I’m Andry Trelland,” he added, extending his hand.

Charlon did not return the gesture, perturbed by his politeness.

“Good for you,” he muttered. “What can I say, we’re people of the realm. We like to stay in the know. Ain’t that the truth of it, Sarn?”

A corner of Sorasa’s mouth twitched, betraying a smile. “If you want information, come to Adira.”

“And be prepared to pay for it,” Charlon replied neatly. “So, what do you need?” He gestured to the vaults with a blue-tinged hand. “I’ve some fresh seals made for the Siscarian dukes, and with the mess in Rhashir, I’ve got a line on a genuine Singolhi mark-press. Not cheap, but easy. Run off your own Rhashiran notes. Wash the money for gold or land before their treasury knows what’s what.”

Corayne felt her jaw drop. A mark-press from the Bank of Singhola, the treasury of Rhashir. Noble seals. And, based on the vast collection of ink, paper, quills, and wax stuffing the shelves, a great deal more where that came from. He could probably make letters of trade, privateer papers from every crown on the Long Sea, wax-sealed orders. As good as a shield to any ship, smuggler, or pirate on the water. Her hands twitched as she eyed the shelves again. She saw the symbol of the Tyri navy, a mermaid holding a sword. One stamp of that in blue wax and Mother could run any fleet blockade or enter any port without so much as a wink.

“See something you like?” Charlon followed her gaze, taking a step closer. He narrowed his eyes. “If you have the coin, I’ve got the means.”

Only then did Dom stir, moving to loom over them both. Stout Charlon craned his neck, looking up. “You must have money on you, with a bodyguard like this,” he said nervously.

“We’re not looking for seals or forgeries,” Sorasa said sharply, bringing them back to the task at hand. “We’re looking for you.”

Charlon barked out a dry laugh. He wagged a finger at her. “The days really are strange. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you tell a joke in all your life.”

“She isn’t joking, sir,” Corayne said, wrenching herself away from the wall of iron seals.

“‘Sir,’” he chuckled. Again he waved a hand at Sorasa, as if scolding her. “Well, are you going to explain what you’re going on about? So I can tell you again why I can never leave the walls of this city?”

Sorasa didn’t hesitate. She opened her mouth to explain, but Corayne felt a shiver down her spine. She swallowed and raised a hand, cutting the assassin off.

“Let me,” she said, shrugging off her cloak.

It took a long moment, but she managed to unbuckle the sword belt from her shoulders. I’m getting better at this. Charlon went round-eyed as she drew the Spindleblade from its sheath. It was still heavy, and her hands trembled around the hilt, but it felt familiar now. My father’s sword.

Even in the forger’s crypt, the steel gleamed strangely, etched and marked by a realm lost. It fed on the underground light, brightening as the rest of the chamber darkened, until it was the only thing in Corayne’s world, a mirror of cold flame. When she finally pulled her eyes away from the blade, she found Charlon staring just as deeply, his keen focus trained on the sword. He was a craftsman. He knew delicate, intricate, and ancient work when he saw it.

“That’s no ordinary steel,” he breathed. He didn’t step forward or reach out, though he certainly looked like he wanted to. “Not Treckish. Not Elder.” His eyes darted to Dom again, the wheels in his head turning with obvious motion.

Corayne shook her head. “This is a Spindleblade,” she murmured, and his face went paler than she thought possible. “Forged in a forgotten realm, the land of my ancestors.”

“You’re from the lines of Old Cor.” Charlon stopped staring at the sword to stare at her. “Spindleblood.”

She returned his gaze. “I am.”

“Not too many of you still walking the Ward,” he said.

Corayne pursed her lips and slid the sword back into its sheath. The blade sang the length of the leather. “There won’t be much of anything walking the Ward if we fail.”

“What?” Charlon said, the smile still floating on his face.

She saw Taristan in her mind, looming over her, reaching for the sword, with no concern for anything but his own desire. In her head, the blue scars were already there, dragged along his cheek, the only mark on his fair skin. She wanted to claw him to pieces, expel him from the Ward and her fears.

“You’re right. The Queen of Galland has married a man with no titles and seemingly no purpose,” Corayne said plainly. “No purpose but the destruction of Allward, the entire realm, ripped apart at her Spindles. Burned, broken, and conquered, beneath the Queen, beneath him, and beneath What Waits.”

She could smell them again, the corpses, even if they had only been sendings of Valtik’s magic. Echoes of a real threat. Like the red presence in her dreams, shifting behind shadows. She felt its weight now, the grip tightening as she thought of What Waits and His growing influence through the realm. If Charlon could see terror written on her face, she did not know. But she saw it in the others: in the flash of Andry’s eyes, the pull of Dom’s mouth, the fall of a mask over Sorasa’s face, to hide the rush of emotions beneath.

The forger drummed his fingers on the work desk, his smile curdling at the edges. She expected him to laugh. Instead he watched their faces, seeing their fear.

“Oh, is that all?”

After suffering what Corayne had to say about her uncle, her warning of a children’s villain made real, not to mention Dom and Andry’s recollection of the battle at the Spindle temple, Charlon demanded air. He set a manic pace through the Priest’s Hand and out into the streets. He led them down to the waterfront, muttering to himself and casting scowls at Sorasa, who weathered them all with disinterest. Valtik caught up with them somewhere outside the church, the smell of cold following in her wake.

“And who’s this one?” Charlon demanded, eyeing the witch.

“Don’t ask,” they said in unison.

It began to drizzle, bringing the mist up the hill and into the city. By the time they reached the port, a gray curtain dragged across the Bay, eating up the ships anchored in deeper waters. Despite the weather, the streets quickened with people as the day wore on and the docks spat out sailors.

The Adira port jutted over the water, fat planks hammered together to make a square. It bridged the main peninsula and a set of rocky islands, each one no bigger than a cathedral. The islands were land unto themselves, built up. One had an onion-domed roof painted pale orange, the telltale sign of a Treckish church. A palisade walled another, the planks painted woad blue with white-and-green knots marked over them. Jydi symbols. Charlon led them toward an island with a flat top, crowned in a verdant garden and a small bell tower, its white and yellow-gold pennant flags looping from roof to roof.

An Ishei district.Corayne’s heartbeat doubled. Isheida was the edge of the map, the end of the Ward, farther even than the old Cor borders. Not even Hell Mel had been there, its jagged lands far from the tides of the Long Sea.

The island smelled of sweet flowers and cooking meat, undercut with a rich swell of tea. Isheida ruled the mountains and the Crown of Snow, a kingdom of peaks north of Rhashir. Her sailors were few, and they congregated here, trading news beneath the eaves of cookhouses and tea shops. There were priests too, with white robes and long, glossy hair combed straight down their backs. Each looked bathed in moonlight, even under the gray clouds. The Ishei had high, flat cheekbones and dark eyes. Their faces varied in color, ranging from porcelain to bronze and dusk, but all were black-haired, with long eyelashes and easy smiles. Corayne stared, unable to check her wonder. She didn’t speak Ishei, but she could have listened to them talk all afternoon, jotting notes in her ledger. Sorasa nearly had to seize her by the collar to drag her along.

To her delight, Charlon led them into a tea shop with a cheery hello to the keepers. He must have been a regular. The three other patrons, two Ishei and one Ibalet in wrapped silks, offered him nods from the long bar set down the middle of the shop.

For the first time since setting foot in Adira, Andry seemed at ease, lulled by the smell of brewing tea. He relaxed when they sat, planting his back against the sturdy wall. With the rain outside and the cocooning warmth of the tea shop, Corayne felt as relieved as he looked. Before she could even think to ask, there was a cup in her hand and a pot on the table, steaming gently.

Charlon plucked a flower from the vase, blue petals in the shape of a star. He crushed them in his fist and added them to his cup before drinking. “So the realm stands on the brink of destruction. It might have tipped already. And for some reason, you need me to join this . . .” He glanced down their line. This time his scrutiny felt like an insult. “Merry band of heroes?”

Sorasa snorted into her tea.

“The witch said seven,” Corayne answered. “Sorasa led us to you. I trust her judgment.”

It was Dom’s turn to snort. The Elder didn’t quite know how, and it came out like a wet snarl.

“I’m still not clear on the whole witch thing.” Charlon looked from the table to the eaves of the shop, open to the street. Valtik didn’t sit, choosing instead to stand at the curb, collecting rainwater in her empty teacup.

“Neither are we,” Dom replied.

Charlon sipped his tea again. “And you, Elder, where do you stand on this?”

“Our number is sufficient,” Dom said stiffly. “In fact, I think we could do with one less.”

“One big happy family, then.” The young man laughed. “Well, regardless of why you need me in whatever you’re planning—”

“Close the next Spindle torn open,” Corayne said sharply.

“Wherever it is,” Andry said, almost under his breath. He glanced at Corayne, eyes soft but not apologetic. She felt torn between annoyance and agreement. There was still so much they did not know, so much higher to climb.

But we can’t be daunted by the size of it, or we’re done for.

“I’m in Adira for a reason.” Charlon laid his hands on the table, one finger jabbing at the wood in his fervor. He seemed plain outside his crypt, unremarkable. It was almost too easy to forget his shop full of seals and ink, his fingers stained blue. “No laws means no crowns. No bounties. I might get my throat slit tonight, but no one’s going to drag me out of these walls and back into crown territory to face judgment or execution. Adira is her own, and the streets will turn on anyone who turns on her. I’m safe here. I can shut my eyes without worrying that that Temur wolf is going to snap me up.”

Andry tipped his head. “Temur wolf?”

“I can handle Sigil,” Sorasa cut in before Charlon could explain.

Sigil?

Charlon blustered, flapping his lips. “As much as I’d like to see that, I’m not willing to risk my head for it. She’ll have me in chains before sundown, on my way to the gallows for whichever kingdom set the highest price.”

“That’s a long list,” Sorasa said, unamused. She sat oddly in her seat, turned to the room. An assassin always, waiting for an attack or planning her own. It set Corayne’s teeth on edge.

“It’s good to take pride in your work,” Charlon said with a shrug. “And I’d like to keep working, which I won’t be able to do without a head. I will not set foot outside these walls.”

“You really think Sigil of the Temurijon is camped out in the marsh waiting for the likes of you? You have a very high opinion of yourself, Charlie.” The assassin laughed coldly, a sharp sound. “She’s the finest bounty hunter in the realm. Last I heard she’s rounding up bandits for the Crown Prince of Kasa, terrorizing the Forest of Rainbows. A world away.”

Some tension was released from Charlon’s shoulders.

He’sright, Corayne thought with the shadow of triumph. Sorasa is very good at lying.

“I know someone who is waiting for you, though,” she added, lowering her voice. Her eyes wavered, moving from Charlon’s face to his hands. They clenched on the table, knuckles standing out white.

“Don’t, Sarn,” he growled. Again he reminded Corayne of a bull. This time, one who saw a red flag waving in front of his face. “Don’t talk about him.”

Sorasa was undeterred.

“If the Ward burns, so does he.”

A cord wound behind Charlon’s eyes. His bared his teeth. “Don’t talk to me about Garion,” he growled, suddenly as dangerous as any other criminal in Adira.

Sorasa was undeterred, a predator on the hunt, smelling a kill. “I saw him, you know. In Byllskos.”

Charlon went white, his already pale cheeks turning to alabaster. “Is he well?” he murmured, leaning into the assassin without regard. Corayne saw the desperation in him plain as the rain pouring down outside. Whoever Garion was, he was very important to the forger.

“As well as usual,” Sorasa said with a dismissing wave. “Preening, overly proud. Pissed with me for stealing his contract.”

The cord broke, unfurling, and he nodded. His lethal edge disappeared, receding like a curtain drawn away. “Good,” he said in a small voice, running a finger over his lips. “I don’t suppose you can . . . entice him to join your endeavor too?”

It was Sorasa’s turn to harden. “That’s not something I can do anymore.”

“Fine,” Charlon said, his eyes on the table. “Fine.” Then he glared at Corayne, his voice forceful again. “What do you think, Cor girl?”

Corayne blinked, taken off guard.

“About all this,” he clarified. “Your quest to save the realm, and my place in it?” He gestured to the sword on her back.

She felt it down her spine, cold steel and leather. Most of the time it was a deadweight, an anchor. Now it reassured her, and she leaned into it, hoping to bring some of its steel into her bones.

Corayne raised her head, tossing back her braid of black hair.

“I think we’re being hunted by a kingdom and a devil. The devil, there’s not much you can do about that.” So far to climb, but I cannot look up, or look back. “But the kingdom, an army . . . it will be good to have someone like you to smooth the way.”

That seemed to agree with Charlon. He leaned back, clapping his hands together. “I can get you passage papers by the end of the day. Diplomatic envoy seals. Marks of travel. No city gate will be barred, no palace closed; no patrol would dare stop you. Only the Queen herself could demand your arrest. All at a price, of course,” he added, cutting a glance at Dom.

The Elder scowled. “I’ll have sold Iona before all is said and done.”

“But what good is that to a Spindle burning in the wild? Two Spindles?” Charlon added, asking the question they all had. “What good will I be?”

Sorasa didn’t seem to share his sentiment. “We’ll certainly find out.”

“But I’m not going,” Charlon added sharply. “And you don’t even know where you’re headed!”

“Leave that to us,” Corayne heard herself say.

Leave that to me.

Already the threads were pulling together, inch by inch. She needed only weave them into something that made sense, a simple direction.

She felt Sorasa’s copper-flame eyes. The assassin did not smile, but there was victory in her all the same. She reached across the tea table, taking Charlon by the shoulder.

“Would I be here if this weren’t real?” she murmured, leaning so she was all he could see. Her voice dropped an octave, stern. “Would I risk my life for anything less than the end of the world?”

The forger’s jaw tightened. “No, you wouldn’t,” he said thickly, then fell silent. Sorasa let him think, giving him a long moment to make his decision. “What of Garion? He must be warned.”

The assassin fought the smile on her lips. “Between the two of us, I’m sure we can figure out a way to get a message through,” she offered. “He doesn’t exactly bother to cover his tracks.”

A corner of Charlon’s mouth lifted. “No, he does not.”

“I’ll help you pack up, Charlie,” she said, pulling him to his feet with a pat on the back.

In the street, the rain hissed.

“I bet you will, Sarn.”

Corayne and the others stayed in the tea shop, bent over a pot that never seemed to go empty. The Ishei keeper was a diligent man, quick with his hands. Andry happily engaged him in a whispered conversation about brewing. What sort of spices, which roots, what did the Ishei use to clear the chest or encourage sleep? Over the brim of her cup, Corayne watched him chattering animatedly.

He doesn’t belong here with us, as much as he tries to. The end of the world is no place for Andry Trelland. He doesn’t deserve it.

The squire felt her examination and glanced over his shoulder. Goose bumps rose along his forearms. They were toned and leaned, corded with muscle from years of squire work and sword training. He rubbed them smooth, fingers working.

“What is it?” he muttered, looking back to her.

Corayne tightened her grip on her cup, trying to draw the warmth into herself. It warred with the cold down her spine. She shook her head.

The tea shop was quiet and peaceful. Too much for her liking. She wanted noise, activity. She wanted to see and hear what was going on.

“The Long Sea is quiet in the summer,” she finally said, chewing over Charlon’s words back in the crypt. “Few storms at all, but shipwrecks? Running aground out at sea? Impossible. There are no reefs, no shoals. And what did Charlon say about Gallish soldiers on the move? Where are they going? Why would Erida send them beyond her own borders?”

“Well, she is hunting us,” Andry offered.

“I doubt she’s hunting in the wrong place. We aren’t exactly hard to follow, and we were obviously going in a certain direction.” We rode west. But where are the armies going? Her mind lit on fire, the blaze leaping up from always-burning embers. “She’s sent soldiers after us, but there are more elsewhere. Looking for something. Or guarding something. Perhaps both.”

Dom grasped his cup so tightly a crack broke down the clay side, like a black streak of lightning. “The second Spindle.”

“It could be.”

Corayne ran a hand through her hair, exasperated. It was like chasing the sunset. Impossible, just out of reach, even in the fastest ship or astride the swiftest horse. Something brushed the edge of her fingertips before dancing beyond her grasp again.

“Valtik?” she said, raising her voice to catch the witch, who was still examining the rainy sky. She swilled the rain in her cup. “What do the bones tell?”

The old woman responded in a loud tangle of Jydi, too fast for Corayne to decipher, or even to pick out a single word. It sounded like a melody, the rhythm soothing. And useless.

With a huff, Corayne began to stand. “Valtik—”

But another spill of Jydi cut her off. Spoken not in the old woman’s voice, but in a booming one. Deep, masculine, joyful. Familiar.

Corayne fell back into her seat with a painful thunk, the backs of her thighs digging into the hard bench. She dropped her face, dropped her eyes, dropped her hood, trying to curl into herself as quickly as she could. Suddenly the quiet shop was too loud, the walls closing in. She wanted to disappear; she wanted to stand up and draw as much attention as she could. Her body felt torn in two.

Warm hands took her shoulder, Andry’s fingers closing over the corner of her cloak. “Corayne, what’s wrong?”

Dom spread his arms wide, bracing himself against the table. He looked to the doorway, hawk-eyed, ready for anything. An assassin, an army, even Taristan himself.

Instead there was Valtik, grinning her strange smile, jabbering away in the rain. She craned her neck, looking up into the face of a bald-headed Jydi raider, every inch of his exposed skin scarred or tattooed in complicated knots. He answered her rhymes eagerly.

“His name is Ehjer,” Corayne murmured beneath her hood. Recruited ten years ago, loyal to my mother. A pirate. A raider. An old friend. “The one next to him is Kireem, a Gheran navigator from the Tiger Gulf.”

Indeed, a smaller man stood at Ehjer’s side, half his size, one eye covered by a patch swirling with chips of black stone. Scars bled out beneath the patch, the purple lines violently dark against his ocher skin. Smart as a unicorn, he can read the stars even on blackest night.

The two had been together as long as Corayne remembered. Relationships among the crew were tolerated so long as they didn’t interfere with the ship, and the pair kept a fine balance. Now away from their duty, they should’ve relaxed.

Instead Corayne had never seen them more on edge.

The Jydi passed Valtik, entering the shop with the patch-eyed man. They beelined for the tea bar, settling in alongside the other patrons, putting their backs to the room.

“Are they a threat?” the Elder murmured, never taking his eyes off them.

Corayne shook her head once.

“You know their crew,” Andry breathed, close enough to feel his heat. She glanced out from under her hood, meeting his wide, dark eyes like pools of still water.

“As well as I know myself. The Tempestborn is here,” she whispered.

And so is my mother.

If I get up now, they won’t notice. I can cross the square, hunt the docks. It will only take a moment.She imagined her boots, each step faster than the one before, until they pounded over the planks and up the gangway, into her mother’s waiting arms. There would be yelling, arguments, perhaps the locked door of the captain’s cabin. But Meliz an-Amarat was here. Hell Mel was here. We could be gone with the tide. To whatever horizon we choose. Toward danger, or away from it.

Corayne knew which her mother would choose for them.

And it would be the world’s ending.

It took everything to stay in her seat, gripping the edge of the bench lest she bolt away.

“Should we get out of here?” Andry said, his hand on her shoulder again.

Corayne didn’t answer, her focus on the Jydi’s broad back. Swallowing hard, she brought a finger to her lips, gesturing for quiet.

“I’ve never known you to be a tea drinker, Ehj,” Kireem said, his voice musical, the Paramount accented by his native Gheran. He shrugged out of her salt-worn coat.

Ehjer laughed heartily on his stool. “The storm rang my head like Volka’s bell. I don’t think I could touch Mother’s mead, let alone stomach whatever yss they serve up in the Adira taverns,” he said, hissing out the Jydi curse. Piss, it meant. One of the first words Corayne had ever learned in his language. “Many thanks, friend,” he added, raising his fresh cup to the tea keeper. “So, will the ship live?”

“Lost a mast, barely salvaged the hull.” Kireem crushed flowers into his own pot, stirring idly. “What do you think?”

Lost a mast and nearly the hull.Corayne’s heartbeat quickened. She tried to picture the proud and fierce Tempestborn limping into the port like a wounded animal. Nearly broken in two, Charlon had said, describing some poor ship Corayne had barely pitied. Now she knew better. Now she knew fear for that galley and its crew. Under the table, her knuckles went white.

Until there was not the bench beneath her fingers, but skin, darker than her own, warm where her flesh went numb. She squeezed Andry’s hand gratefully.

“You know better than I,” Ehjer blustered, in his booming version of a whisper. “The Captain tells you things.”

“A few weeks, if the supplies can get in. But with the Sea the way it is . . .”

“Never seen the Sarim like that.” Ehjer slurped his tea. “Whirlpools, waterspouts, thunder . . . it was furious. The gods themselves warring in the water.”

Kireem didn’t touch his cup, his single eye fixed on the steam rising from the liquid. He traced it, transfixed or dazed. “I’ve never seen anything like that thing,” he hissed. The navigator had been with Hell Mel for as long as Corayne lived, and nothing had ever unsettled him so.

“Where did it come from?” The big Jydi was just as agitated.

Kireem shrugged. “You’re the godly one between us, Ehj.”

“That doesn’t mean I understand why the goddess of the waters sent a monster to devour us.”

Corayne ripped her eyes from her mother’s crewmates, looking to Dom with lightning speed. He was already glaring back, his mouth set into a thin line. A monster. The goddess of the waters. Her stomach churned like the angry ocean.

Kireem dropped his voice again. “Did you see what the captain cut out of its belly?”

“I was busy chopping a tentacle off Bruto. The beast was still choking him even while it bled to death.”

The other patrons of the shop were clearly listening, as was the tea keeper. Everyone froze, dropping all pretense of pretending not to eavesdrop. Corayne felt as if she might forget to breathe.

Tentacle.

“Three Ibalets, sailors of the Golden Fleet,” Kireem hissed. His fingers wound around Ehjer’s wrist, nails like claws. “In full sail armor and dyed silk, half eaten. All there out on the deck with the creature’s rotten guts.”

Ehjer gingerly nudged his tea away. “Meira of the Waters is ravenous.”

“I can’t believe that,” Kireem scoffed, but his eye said something different. Wide and worried, it darted wildly, searching Ehjer for an answer he could not accept.

“You don’t have to believe it,” Ehjer answered. Licking his lips, he brushed his fingers over the tattoos on his cheeks, tracing the swirls of ink. The action soothed him somewhat. “Gud dhala kov; gud hyrla nov. The gods walk where they will, and do as they please.” Then he raised his voice to his usual roar, gesturing to the tea-shop eaves, where Valtik still stood. “Ah, Gaeda, sit, have a cup,” he said, beckoning to her. “Tell me tales of home! I sorely need them!”

Without a glance at her compatriots, Valtik all but bounced into the shop, the raindrops running from her braids. Corayne did not know it was possible for the old witch to act even stranger, but somehow Valtik accomplished just that. She preened in Jydi again, patting Ehjer on both cheeks, tracing the tattoos he had.

It was distraction enough.

Corayne moved quickly out into the street, one hand pulling her hood low, the other cold without Andry’s skin. They followed her in silence, but she heard the questions rolling from their bodies. She scrambled for answers, trying to make sense of what she’d heard—and which ship was waiting nearby, wounded beyond measure.

Weave the threads,she told herself, drawing a breath through her teeth. Fit the pieces.

Again, she wanted to run. The Tempestborn would be easy to find. Battered, riding low among the proud ships and galleys of the port.

Hell Mel, Meliz an-Amarat, Mother.She wanted to scream each name and see which would draw an answer. She’s nearby; I can feel it. Maybe in the dock market, bartering for supplies. And doing poorly without me.

The wetness on her cheeks could not be rain. Raindrops didn’t sting your eyes.

Her next words came hard, like a knife drawn from her own body.

“I know where the second Spindle is.”