Near dusk, Sorasa straightened, pushing up from the rail, her eyes on another passenger.

An old crone approached from the opposite side of the deck, her footsteps uneven as the boat moved beneath her. Her hair was wild and gray, braided in places, set with feathers, yellowed bone, and dried lavender. She held out a basket, smiling with gapped teeth, crowing in Jydi. Corayne only understood a few words, and that was enough.

“Pyrta gaeres. Khyrma. Velja.”

Pretty girls. Charms. Wishes.

She was a peddler of empty promises, selling bits of trash she called tricks or spells. A polished river stone, some useless herbs tied with human hair. Nonsense.

“Jys kiva,” Corayne replied in the woman’s language, her pronunciation poor. But the message was clear enough. No interest.

The crone only grinned wider as she came closer, undeterred. Her fingers were so knobbled by age and use they looked like broken branches. “No price, no price,” she said, switching to accented Paramount. “A gift from the ice.” The basket rattled in her hands.

Sorasa moved between the crone and Corayne like an older sister shielding her sibling from a swindler. “No need, Gaeda,” Sorasa said. Grandmother. Her tone was oddly soft, drawing little attention from the rest of the ship. “Back to your bench.”

The crone did not stop smiling, her face split with wrinkles, her skin pale and spotted. Everything but her eyes seemed bleached of color. They were a luminous blue, like the heart of a lightning bolt. Corayne stared, feeling a brush of something familiar at the back of her mind. But she could not catch it, the sensation always slipping from her grasp.

“It’s fine, Sorasa,” she muttered, putting out her hand to the old woman.

The Jydi dipped her head and grabbed a twist of blue-gray twigs from her basket. They were tied with twine and catgut, trailing with beads that could be bone or pearl. “Gods bless you, Spindles keep you,” she prayed, extending the gift.

Sorasa took it before Corayne could, holding the twigs between her gloved thumb and forefinger. She sniffed at it, drawing in a shallow breath. Then she touched her tongue to the wood. After a moment, she nodded. “Gods bless,” she said, waving the crone away.

This time the old Jydi did not argue, and shuffled off, her basket tucked close. She moved down the deck, bestowing similar bits of nothing to the other travelers.

“It isn’t poisoned,” Sorasa said, tossing the twigs at Corayne’s chest.

She caught them shakily and looked at the twist of garbage in disbelief. “I doubt a decrepit old woman is trying to poison me.”

“Old women have more cause to kill than most.”

Corayne turned the twigs over in her hands, quirking a smile. “Is guard duty part of your contract?”

The assassin returned to the railing, leaning back on her elbows. She tipped her face to the setting sun, enjoying the glow. “I was tasked to find you and get you to Ascal alive.”

Alive. Again, Corayne felt a chill that had nothing to do with temperature. I am marked somehow. There is something in my blood that blesses and dooms me.

“And the payment?” she asked, if only to have something to say. “I certainly hope you set a very high price for an Elder prince.”

“I certainly did.”

How much? Corayne wanted to ask. Instead she gritted her teeth and closed her fist around the Jydi charm. The beads dangled. They were not pearl, she realized, looking at them up close, but human finger bone, each one carved into a skull.

Some days later, Dom gasped free of the tiny cabin. To Corayne’s surprise, he looked pristine despite nearly a week cloistered in with sweating oarsmen, stale air, bad water, and little food. He sucked down a breath of fresh air and raised his hood, joining Corayne at the rail.

Meanwhile, Corayne felt dirty and slightly sick, her stomach still roiling from the waves of the open sea, though they were in the calm waters of Mirror Bay by now. Clearly her mother had not passed on her sea legs or strong stomach. But Corayne forgot her pains quickly.

Twilight fell softly, the sky fading from pink to purple over the water. The lights of Ascal loomed on the horizon, a constellation coming to life.

The great capital of Galland straddled the river delta, sprawled across the many islands at the mouth of the Great Lion. Bridges and gates strung across the waterways like necklaces set with torch jewels, their lights rippling where fresh water met salt. Corayne tried not to gape.

“It’s huge,” she gasped. “It’s bigger than I thought a city could be.”

Dom nodded at her side. “Indeed.” He glared out from beneath his hood, his face pulled once more into his now-distinct scowl. Ascal was no wonder to him, but an obstacle to be surmounted. Something to be feared. And that made Corayne afraid too.

“This was a Cor city too, once,” she added, feeling the truth of it in her skin. There were ruins beneath Ascal, the bones of an empire a thousand years dead. “How do I know that?”

She expected the Elder to have an answer, but words failed him, his face drawn.

Sorasa gave them both an odd look, then gestured to the shore. “It was destroyed and rebuilt a dozen times, in a dozen places. What was once Lascalla is now Ascal, capital of Galland, the great successor to Old Cor.” She spat in the water. “Or so they like to think.”

Temple domes and cathedral spires clawed against the waning sunset, ripping bloody streaks through the sky. The storied walls of Ascal, yellow in sunlight, gold at dawn and dusk, held in the bloated city like a belt. Smoke rose from the slums, a thousand plumes from a thousand hearths. Corayne squinted, searching the roofs and streets for what could be the palace, but found nothing. It must be buried deep in the city, guarded and walled again. Her stomach dropped at the thought of navigating their way to the palace, let alone getting inside.

Boats and ships of every flag skittered over the water, ants in a row, making for the teeming port of Ascal. The bridges and water gates forced all but the smallest vessels to use the same avenue. Their own ship fell in line, and the jaws of the city opened to them.

The assassin wrinkled her nose. “Brace yourself for the smell.”

They sailed past a great fortress for the city garrison, big as a lord’s castle, with stout towers and guarded ramparts. The green banners of Galland flew from its walls, the golden lion proud and massive. Corayne stared openly at the stone towers on either side of the delta channel. Both spat out gigantic chains that sank into the water, looping under the sea traffic and over the riverbed. She knew the chains could be raised, effectively cutting off the port and city within if need be. She could not help but think of Taristan’s army, the soldiers of Asunder, crawling over the chains like skittering white spiders.

“Those are the Lion’s Teeth,” Sorasa murmured, pointing at the towers guarding the river. Corayne leaned close, eager to hear more. “All must pass through except the navy of Galland, bound for Fleethaven.” She waggled her fingers at another island in the river mouth, then at a canal. “That goes to Tiber Island, for merchants and traders.”

Tiber. The god of gold. Corayne knew him intimately. Her mother’s crew sent prayers to him before every voyage.

“And what about us?” she asked, watching the city grow.

Sorasa pursed her lips. “Wayfarer’s Port. It’s first place anyone journeying by water arrives in Ascal,” she said. “Always crowded with weary travelers, pilgrims, runaways, and anyone else seeking their fortune in the capital. In short, a mess.”