To the north, the Corteth Mountains were a jagged dark haze, even to his eye. Snow clung only to the highest peaks this deep into summer. The Corteth, the Teeth of Cor, were dozens of miles away, on the other side of the Impera, the Emperor’s River. It wove through the valley, making its way west to Lecorra and the Long Sea. They would reach it soon and cross the river from which Old Cor had sprung. Dom did not know what legends the mortals kept or if there was even a grain of truth left in their histories, but in Iona, things were more certain. The Corborn mortals of another realm had first come to Allward somewhere in this golden valley, stepping through a Spindle to build their empire.

Trees grew over the rise, good camouflage from the road below. There was no campfire—Sarn would not allow it—but the air was warm enough. The Amhara slept strangely, her back propped up against the roots of a tree, her face forward, so she might only need to open her eyes to spot Dom at the far side of their meager camp. She did just that every twenty minutes, eyes glowing like hot coals before they closed again. Dom shook his head at her every time.

Corayne lay between them, tucked under her cloak. She’d woken just long enough to tumble out of the saddle and find a soft patch of grass.

With both his companions asleep, Dom finally allowed himself something to eat, if only to pass the time. It did not take long for a rabbit to pick its way into their circle, nose twitching and eyes bright. Dom made no noise as he snapped its neck and skinned it clean with a few quick cuts of his knife. With no fire, he made do and consumed it raw, eating the liver last.

Slowly, Corayne raised her head, her eyes wide and fascinated.

“Won’t that make you sick?” she whispered.

He wiped his fingers off on the rabbit’s fur. “We do not get sick,” he answered.

Corayne sat up slowly, her cloak pooling around her. “You don’t sleep either,” she said, resting her chin on a hand. Dom felt like a plant being studied, or a page of riddles deciphered. It was not unpleasant, somehow. Her curiosity was innocent.

“We sleep, but not often,” he replied. “We don’t need it as much as mortals do.”

“And you don’t age.”

“After a fashion.”

He thought of Toracal, with his streaks of gray hair, earned over thousands of years. His aunt, with the lines on her brow, at the corners of her eyes, around her mouth, on her hands. The Vedera are called immortal by those who can not fathom a life of so many millennia, stretched beyond the mortal ability to measure. Death avoids us, but it is not a stranger.

There was steel in the world, blades that could cut and kill them. Immortality seemed far less certain after seeing so many of his own die before the temple, their blood indistinguishable from that of any low mortal walking the Ward. And my scars are proof enough of our vulnerability, small as it may be.

“It’s a good thing there aren’t very many of you,” Corayne said in a low voice.

Dom startled, not in confusion, but surprise. “I beg your pardon?”

She brushed a lock of hair out of her eyes. “Or else your kind would have conquered the world.” Her answer was blunt.

“That is a very mortal impulse to have,” Dom said, and meant it. Conquest over the men of the Ward seemed foolish to him, even at his young age. Mortals rose and fell like summer wheat. Kingdoms were born and died. Those he’d known in his first century were dust now, barely shadows in his long memory. Why bother reaching out a hand for what could disappear before you grasp it?

Even so, there were histories of the Vedera too, records of immortals who fought alongside or against the men of the Ward. For glory, for sport, for nothing at all. Dom could not imagine it for himself or his people now. They defended their homes on rare occasion, but nothing more. Cowards they are now, hiding in their enclaves. Ready to let this world crumble around them.

Corayne stared with her keen gaze. She had a way of prodding without words.

“My people are focused on finding a way home,” he offered. “But the way was lost to us, the Spindle closed, and even its location destroyed long ago.”

“Destroyed?” she asked, cocking her head.

“The ground my people first arrived on is now at the bottom of the Long Sea, swallowed by the waves,” he answered softly, trying to see a place he had never been. “Every day we hope for another doorway, another Spindle. A way back to Glorian.”

The last cobwebs of sleep seemed to lift from Corayne, and she leaned closer, sharp with interest. Her tangled braid fell over one shoulder, gleaming almost blue in the starlight.

“Your realm must be magnificent,” she said.

“I suppose.” Dom shrugged again. “I am Wardborn, still young among my people, still learning the realm we live in now. And what I know of my own realm comes from others.”

He felt the familiar lick of regret that came every time he thought of the realm he did not know, the home he might never see. It was tinged with sour, green envy of all those who did know Glorian and could remember its stars.

“They are whole while I am not.”

“We have that in common, I guess,” Corayne said softly. She drew up her knees and wrapped her arms around herself, though the air was still warm, even for mortals.

Dom narrowed his eyes. He felt worlds apart from her, separated by a pane of glass. “How so?”

She dropped her gaze to the grass. “I only know my father, his blood, what we come from, what we were born as, from what others tell me.” Her fingers picked at a leaf nervously. “And they’ve told me very little.”

She’s interrogating me, Dom realized, looking Corayne over.

The curious gleam had not left her eyes. There was hunger too, a thirst for answers she could not get elsewhere, and a strong will to find them. Dom was reminded of scholars back in the enclave, combing their archives for some scroll or tome, for word of Spindles, for any whisper of Glorian Lost. But I am not a shelf of books eager to be picked through.

She ran her hands through the grass like a child. It was a good act.

This wound will never heal if you keep cutting it open, he warned himself. But somehow Dom wanted to. He wanted to remember Cortael and give Corayne something to remember too.

Do not, he thought. Shut the door on those decades, and let them turn to dust as the centuries pass. Such is the Vedera way, our only defense against years of memory.

“You’re Spindleblood. Corblood,” he said flatly, if only to give her something. “Your ancestors were travelers of another realm, mortal as the men of the Ward, but set apart. Some say the Cors were born of the Spindles themselves, not another realm. But your kind fell with Old Cor, your bloodlines dwindling through the centuries.” Her eyes shone in the starlight, egging him on. “It makes you restless; it makes you ambitious; it gives you a want so deep you can hardly name it.”

Her black gaze seemed to deepen. He could smell the eagerness on her.

“I said the same to your father, decades ago.” The wound opened again, a tear through his heart. Dom winced against it, carrying on. “When he raged in his way, frustrated, a mortal boy among living statues, who could not make his flesh into stone no matter how hard he tried.” His breath caught. “I am sorry you had to grow up with no one who knew your blood, what it demanded. What it makes you,” he said quietly.