But the ghosts of Sir Grandel and the Norths are far away, if they even exist at all.

A pavilion looked over the grave sites, its chairs empty, shaded by a canopy of green silk. The Queen and her own entourage had not yet arrived.

While the knights dismounted, their squires moved in a flurry to grab reins and tend horses, allowing the lords to line up in their ranks. The pages kept out of the way, shunted to one side. Of the squires, only Andry, Lemon, and Sir Raymon’s boy, Karl Daspold, had no one to serve. Karl was as kind as Lemon was cruel and kept himself between the two. A dog trailed at his heels, a shaggy yellow hound. It looked up with baleful eyes, waiting for a master who would not return.

Three wagons brought up the empty caskets, each hung with silk. Red with the silver falcon for the Norths, gray and sky blue check for Sir Grandel. A detachment from the palace garrison escorted each wagon as it was wheeled into place aside the pavilion. Even before the arrival of the Queen, Andry guessed there were near a hundred men and boys gathered to pay respects. Sir Grandel would have liked that, he knew. Sir Grandel had flourished under attention.

The Queen arrived with a somber call of trumpets. Andry glanced over her entourage—Lord Konegin and his trollish son were easy to recognize, and Lord Thornwall was known even to the pages. As the supreme commander of Galland’s great army, he lived in a grand set of rooms in the palace barracks and visited the yards often. Knights and squires alike bloodied each other hoping for his attention.

Right now, Andry only wanted to be forgotten and overlooked. He lowered his eyes, praying the rest of the great lords and ladies passed without paying him any mind.

But it was impossible to ignore the Queen herself. When she dismounted her horse, everyone knelt. Andry glanced up through his lashes, glimpsing Erida of Galland. His jaw clenched again, this time with frustration.

The Lionguard surrounded her, their armor like the sun, their cloaks catching the warm breeze. Andry saw the faces of Sir Grandel and the Norths beneath every helm, their eyes unfocused, dark, dead. As all will be if we don’t do something.

Light bounced off the steel, bathing the Queen with a heavenly glow. Her gown was cloud gray, the royal color of mourning in Galland. It gave her pale skin a moonlit pallor. A red jewel hung from her neck, a ruby bright as new fire. As she looked over her knights, her piercing blue gaze snagged on Andry, and she held his stare for a long moment.

Despite the summer heat, Andry felt a cold finger trail down his spine. He dipped his head again, until all he could see were his own feet and the grass between them. The blades rippled like the sea. Andry pictured his mother on a ship, her face turned southeast.

We will go to my mother’s family. There is a ship from Ascal to Nkonabo. She’ll be safe with Kin Kiane, and from there I can return north.

Andry Trelland had ridden to Iona before, and he remembered the way to the immortal city. Up the river, past granite cliffs and the yew forest, deep in the glen. He swallowed, terrified of what must be done. To leave his mother, ill and alone, while he returned to the place that doomed the rest? It felt like the height of stupidity.

But what else can I do? he thought, his stomach twisting.

I can tell the Elders what befell us in the hills, what comes from the temple. Certainly they will defend what Erida will not.

And they will know what to do with the Spindleblade.

The service began, but Andry heard little of it. The whispers rose once more, too familiar, his only constant since the slaughter at the temple. In spite of himself, he watched Erida again. The whispers sharpened.

Say nothing; keep your distance, they said, howling with too many voices, all brittle as ice. Shadow the sword; hide its brilliance.

The summer wind blew cold, catching the flags of Galland. The Lion seemed to leap in the sky. At the pavilion, the Queen and her ladies clutched at their gowns. Andry shivered down to his toes.

Spindleblood and Spindleblade.

This time, the voices were as one: an old woman, rasping like a knife through silk. It almost sent Andry back to his knees. Shock kicked him in the gut, but he could not react, not here before a hundred eyes. Before the Queen, still watching him with her sapphire stare.

Even while willing the voice away, his hands fisted at his sides, Andry strained to remember it. But the voice was like smoke, twisting through his fingers, impossible to grasp. Disappearing in one breath of wind while flaring in another.

It curled again, seemingly all around him.

A new hand comes, the alliance made.

9

CHILDREN OF CROSSING

Domacridhan

Domacridhan saw so much of Cortael in her. Beneath her mother’s influence there was Corblood in her veins, as vital to Corayne’s being as roots to a tree. And just as tangled. She struggled with it, grappling with what she could not understand.

Cortael was the same, in his youth, Dom thought, remembering his friend when he was a boy. Restless and searching, hungry for a place to belong but hesitant to drop anchor. Such was the way of Old Cor: humans born of travel and crossing, conquest and voyage from one realm to the next. It was in their bones and blood, in their steel, in their souls.

And she does not understand, for there was no one to tell her.

He watched as Corayne haggled at the Lemarta stables, negotiating for three horses. The trader was eager to see them both gone—his eyes darted to Dom standing at her shoulder, and to the sword hanging at his side. Dom kept still under his scrutiny, trying not to draw more attention than need be.

She easily bargained the trader down to half his price, handing over a purse for reins.

There were two stallions and a mare, fully tacked with filled saddlebags, all common bays with brown bodies and black manes. Dom thought of the fine horse that died beneath him in Iona. It was like comparing a hawk to sparrows, but he did not complain. The horses would serve their purpose, and their destination was only a few days’ ride away.

Corayne smirked as they walked, leading the horses from the stables clustered against the western gate of Lemarta. Their shadows were short beneath them, the sun high in the sky.

“I don’t suppose I could convince you to work with me when this is all done?” she said.

There was laughter in her voice, but he could not fathom why.

“I do not follow,” he said, the words stilted.

She shrugged. “Merchants are easier to bargain with when they’re terrified, and you seem to terrify them.”

Dom felt strangely self-conscious. “I’m terrifying?” he blanched, glancing over himself.