“Nor did I,” Domacridhan answered. Like Ridha, he scrambled for some understanding but found none. “Nor did he, until that monster appeared out of the mist.”

“I’m sure she thought it was the right thing to do. Raise one, protect one. Create only a single heir to Old Cor. Leave no room for conflict. For the Ward.”

Though Dom nodded, he could not agree. Not in his heart. She did it for herself, for Glorian. And no other.

With a steel will, Ridha leapt into the saddle. She looked down on him, a picture of a fierce warrior proud and true. “Ecthaid be with you.” The god of the road, of journeys, of things lost and found.

He nodded up at her. “And Baleir with you.”

On Baleir’s wings, she rode west.

After changing his clothes and scrubbing the muck from his body, Domacridhan of Iona rode south. No one stopped him, and no one bid him farewell.

5

THE STORM’S BARGAIN

Sorasa

Her sword was back at the harborside inn, hidden beneath a loose floorboard with the rest of her gear. She only needed her dagger, the bronze edge dim in the dark bedroom of a merchant king. She stood patiently over him, counting his breaths. He slept fitfully, jowled like a fat dog, his breath rattling through yellowed teeth. His wife dozed on the bed beside him, a dark-haired beauty, barely more than a child. Sorasa guessed her to be sixteen. Probably the merchant’s third or fourth bride.

I am doing you a favor, girl.

Then she slit his throat, the well-fed blade cutting with ease.

His mouth gurgled and she covered it with one hand, turning him onto his side so the blood did not wash over his wife and wake her. When he finished the familiar process of bleeding to death, she removed his left ear and his left index finger, tossing both on the floor. Such was the mark of Sorasa Sarn, for those who knew to look. This kill was hers and no other’s.

The merchant’s young wife slept on, undisturbed.

The steady drip of blood was louder than Sorasa’s footsteps as she retreated to the balcony, unfurled her whip, and swung across the courtyard to the wall beyond.

She crouched against the pale pink stone, using her hands to steady her balance. The fruit trees of the garden hid her well, and she gave her eyes time to adjust to the midday light. The merchant’s guards were slow in the heat, making their rounds on the other side of the courtyard. She took the opportunity to drop to the empty alley below. It offered little shadow.

The sun was high and merciless. It was a dry summer on the Long Sea, unseasonably so, and dust clouded even the wealthiest streets of Byllskos. The capital of Tyriot, usually cooled by sea breezes, burned in the heat. But the weather bothered Sorasa little. Her life had begun in the sands of Ibal, and her mother was of the Allforest, a woman of Rhashir. Sorasa’s blood was born for the dry cruelty of the desert or the cloying hot air of a jungle. These men know nothing of the sun, she thought as she walked the alleys, winding her way toward the docks.

She kept her steps measured and well timed. The blue waters of the Tyri Straits flashed between gaps in the walls, every home looking down on the famed port. Only the Sea Prince’s palace rose higher, its pink towers and red-tile roofs like a burst of Cor roses.

Sorasa glanced at the great harbor of Tyriot, the famous docks reaching out into the Straits like the arms of an octopus. A trade galley would take her forth, leaving behind no trace of Sorasa Sarn.

No trace I have not chosen to leave, she thought, her lips curling with satisfaction.

A shadow, she descended into the temple district, weaving along domed shrines and godly towers. Dedicant priests walked their noon rounds, followed by peasants and sailors, their hands outstretched for blessings from the gods of Allward.

The villa was well behind her when the alarm went up, a strangled cry of guards calling for the city watchmen. Somewhere among the villas, a trumpet sounded. Sorasa grinned as it was drowned out by the tolling bell of Meira’s Hand, a looming tower ruled by the goddess of the seas. Sailors begged her mercy, fishermen her bounty.

Sorasa begged for nothing but the bell and the crowd. Both surged, as good as a wall between her and the corpse in his bed.

The crowd moved in a current, most following Meira’s blue priests down the main thoroughfare that cut Byllskos in two. They would hit the port soon, and on a market day no less.

An easy chaos to get lost in, Sorasa thought. All precisely to plan.

She navigated with sure footing, unaffected by the crowd and its stink. Byllskos was a bustling city, but a village compared to Almasad and Qaliram in Ibal, where Sorasa had spent the majority of her thirty years upon the Ward. She ached now for the baked stone streets and vibrant markets as far as the eye could see, for patterned silk, a sky like turquoise, the smell of fragrant blossoms and spice bazaars, the grand temple of sacred Lasreen, and the shade of the Palm Way. But all paled next to the memory of the sandstone citadel on the sea cliffs, with the hidden gate and the tearing salt wind, the only home she had ever known, her place since childhood.

She felt the shift of air over her a split second before a hand clamped down, its grip tight on the muscle between her neck and shoulder. Fingers squeezed and pinched, sending a jolt of pain through her body.

Sorasa dropped and twisted out of the well-known maneuver, one she had mastered years ago. Teeth bared, she glared up at her would-be attacker.

He did not attack.

“Garion,” she bit out. Around them, the parade of godly followers thinned.

Like her, the man was hooded, but Sorasa did not need to see his face clearly to know him. Garion was taller than she, his skin white even in shadow. Still a lock of mud-brown hair fell into his dark eyes, as it had when he was a boy. Where her clothes were plain, dyed in earthen colors easy for an eye to slide over, his own tunic and cloak were garish. Scarlet and embroidered silver were impossible to ignore. He sneered at her coldly.

“I did not take you for a thief, Sarn,” he hissed in Ibalet. Though he’d learned it young, it was not his mother tongue, and it still sounded odd in his mouth.

Sorasa waved him off. The black tattoos on her fingers matched his own.

“Perhaps that moral compass of yours needs adjusting,” she replied. “I stole a man’s life from you, and it’s the stealing that has you concerned?”

Garion pursed his lips. “By the Spindles, Sorasa,” he cursed. “There are rules. A guild contract is given to one and one alone.”

Such tenets were inked in her deeper than any tattoo or scar. Sorasa wanted to roll her eyes, but she had long since learned to school her expressions and hide emotion.

Instead she turned on her heel, setting off at a trot. “Jealousy doesn’t become you.”

He followed swiftly, as expected. It reminded her of different days. But those days were long ago, and she curled one hand in a fist, the other close to the dagger at her hip. Should he draw, she would be ready.

“Jealous? Hardly,” Garion said through clenched teeth. The pair wove deftly through the gathering crowd as they caught up to Meira’s faithful. “You have been named and inked. No amount of blood will rewrite what has already been written.”

The long tattoo down her ribs suddenly itched, the last marking not a year old. Unlike the many others, blessings and trophies, it had been given against her will.

“Thank you for telling me what I already know,” she said, throwing Garion a glance meant to wither a man to the root. “Go back to the citadel. Pace your cage until another easy kill lands in your lap. And I’ll steal that one from you too.”