How many ships, how many crews, how many left dead in my mother’s wake? She wanted to ask. She wanted to never know. But you knew this—you knew what they were, Corayne told herself. This is what Mother wants, to frighten you away, to keep you onshore, alone in a quiet place at the edge of the world. A doll on a shelf, with only the fear of gathering dust. She bit her lip, forcing herself to remain steady and staring. The room was filled with beasts wearing human skin, their claws made of steel. If Corayne looked hard enough, she might see the blood all over their hands. As well as her own.

“Killers all,” Meliz said again, her grip unyielding. “So am I. You are not.”

Corayne drew a shuddering breath, her eyes stinging. She blamed the smoky air.

“You think you carry no illusions, Corayne, but you are still blinded by many. Be rid of them. See us for what we are, and what you cannot be.” Meliz stared intently, her gaze intensified by the rim of dark color drawn around her eyes. Her voice softened. “You don’t have the spine for it, my dearest love. You stay.”

Never had Corayne felt so alone, so distant from the only family she knew. You don’t have the spine. You don’t belong. When Meliz let go of her collar, she felt as if she were falling, dragged away by an unseen tide. It was cold and cruel, and so unfair. Her blood flamed.

“At least my father was good enough to only abandon me once,” Corayne said coolly, her teeth bared. With a will, she stepped away from Meliz. “You’ve done it a thousand times.”

Only when she reached the cliffs did Corayne allow herself to break. She circled, eyeing the horizon in every direction. Over the water. Behind the hills, gnarled by cypress groves and the old Cor road. She wanted nothing more than the edges of the world she knew, the cage her mother would never let her escape. The Long Sea, normally a friend, became a torment, its waves endless beneath the starlight.

Even now, she casts me aside. Even when she knows how terrible this feels.

I thought she of all people would understand.

But Meliz could not, would not, did not.

Corayne knew why, in her marrow—she was different, she was not the same, she was separate from the rest. Unworthy, unwanted.

Adrift.

And there was a reason. Something she could not change.

“No spine,” Corayne spat, kicking the dirt road beneath her boots.

The stars winked overhead, reliable and sure. The constellations were old companions through many solitary nights. Corayne was a smuggler’s daughter, a pirate’s daughter. She knew the stars as well as anyone and named them quickly. It soothed her.

The Great Dragon looked down on the Siscarian coast, its jaws threatening to devour the brilliant North Star. Back along the cliffs, Lemarta glittered like a constellation of her own, clustered around her harbor, beckoning Corayne to return. Instead she kept walking, until the old white cottage appeared on the hillside.

Stupid to mention my father. Now, on top of everything else, Mother will want to talk and talk and talk about the man we barely knew, telling me nothing of use, only upsetting both of us.

Corayne liked to have a plan, an agenda, a list of objectives. She had none now. It set her teeth on edge.

Lemarta is not terrible, she thought, listing absolutes. My lot is not horrible. My mother loves me—she knew that in her bones. I am lucky. Allward is wide, filled with danger and risk. Famine, war, disease, all kinds of hardship. None of it touches me here.

This is a good place, she told herself, looking back to the harbor. I should be content.

And yet I cannot be. Something in me will not take root.

On the horizon, the Unicorn rose, twinkling with stars. It battled the Dragon every year, each chasing the other through the centuries. Dragons were long dead, but there were tales of unicorns still hidden across the Ward, deep in the guarded enclaves of the legendary Elders, or racing through distant steppes and sand dunes. Corayne did not believe those stories, but it was good to wonder. And if I stay here, how will I ever know for sure?

Two shadows on the road jolted her out of her misery. With a start, Corayne realized she was not alone on the cliff.

The travelers were almost upon her, their footsteps impossibly silent, softer than the wind in the grass. Both were hooded and cloaked, black against the night. One was small and lean, with a weaving stride. The other, far larger, made no noise at all. Strange, for someone of such great size.

Corayne set her feet. They were already too close for her to run, even if she wanted to. It would do her no good to turn her back now. She thought of the knife in her boot. It had never been used, but it was a small comfort.

“Good evening,” she muttered, standing aside so they could pass.

Instead they halted, standing shoulder to shoulder. Or shoulder to chest, rather. One towered over the other, standing at least six and a half feet high. At this distance, Corayne could tell he was a man, broad and well built. He held himself like a warrior, his posture rigid. The shape of a sword poked out beneath his cloak. His hood kept most of his face obscured, but there was a scar she could see, even in the blue darkness. It dragged at one side of his pale jaw, ragged, wet, and . . . still healing.

Corayne’s stomach turned. No spine echoed in her head.

“The port is behind you, friends,” she said. “This way’s the road to Tyriot.”

“I do not seek anything in Lemarta,” the man answered from beneath his hood.

Fear clawed inside her. She moved before the man, stepping back, but he stepped forward to meet her, his motions too smooth, too quick. The other figure remained still, like a snake coiled at the roadside, waiting to strike.

“You keep away!” Corayne snapped, drawing the dagger from her boot. She waved it between the travelers.

To her dismay, the man lunged forward, and Corayne tightened her grip, willing herself to fight. But she couldn’t move an inch. No spine roared, and she braced herself for a blow.

Instead the man sank to a knee before her, his sword suddenly in hand, the tip of the gilded blade pointed to the dirt. Corayne eyed the silver hilt and good steel. He bowed his head and pushed back his hood, revealing a golden curtain of blond hair and a beautiful face half ruined with scarred flesh. A strange design edged his cloak, antlers worked in silver thread.

“I beg your forgiveness and your mercy, Corayne an-Amarat,” he said softly. His eyes glinted green, but he was unable to hold her gaze.

Corayne blinked, her eyes darting between the travelers. She was torn between fear and bewilderment.