“You’ll be caught,” Dom rumbled, his breathing labored, his face pulling in pain. “And killed, Andry. Caught and killed.” His green eyes wavered. “Taristan will not hesitate to end the life of a single boy. Innocent blood does not bother that demonic excuse for a man.”

“I know that.” Andry remembered all too clearly the way he had looked at Corayne—as if she were an obstacle, an object, something to be swept aside, all for the sword on her back. “But I cannot leave her.”

I’ve failed everyone else. I won’t fail the one who matters most.

Corayne was undeterred. “Wayfarer’s Port is on the other side of the city.”

“I know where it is,” he replied, growing impatient.

“But can you make it?” Dom said, forcing a shaky step toward the squire. Corayne moved with him, trembling under his weight.

“Safe journey to you all” was Andry’s only reply. He dipped his head, bending into a bow.

Corayne cut him off, her whisper hard and hissing. “You said yourself they’ll shut the city.” Something sparked in her, like a torch being coaxed into flame. Again she looked to the water, and the city islanded within it, her walls and lights endless. “Captains don’t wait to get stuck in closed harbors. That ship will be in Mirror Bay before you can get to the port, and it will have your mother on it.”

“Whatever you decide, possible death or certain death, be quick about it,” the Ibalet hissed, a shadow on the street.

His feet were already moving, boots smacking hard against the cobblestones. Get out, get to the docks, he told himself, the words like a prayer. Anything to drown out Corayne’s next burst of reasoning. Valeri Trelland beckoned in his mind, her warm hands pulling him close, her embrace like a blanket.

“You’ll die trying,” Corayne said, already an echo, already fading.

Andry Trelland had never seen Kasa, but he’d heard enough in his mother’s stories. The port of Nkonabo, the city spined with monuments wrought in alabaster and amethyst. The home of his mother’s Kin, its verdant garden courtyards, the little pond filled with purple fish. Family he never knew clustered around the gates, waving him inside, welcoming him to a new home.

His pace quickened, his heart racing, as if he could run all the way to Kasa.

But even the grand kingdom beyond the Long Sea is of the Ward. And the Ward is set to burn. Fires leapt up in his mind’s eye, engulfing the temples, the towers, the walls, the streets, as corpse soldiers overwhelmed the realm. They crawled over the courtyard, their flames eating the gardens, the water bubbling in the pond, the fish boiling alive. And his mother died with them, screaming in her chair, reaching for a son who could not save her.

Andry wanted to cry, his eyes stinging, his heart torn in two as his boots skidded to a halt. In the distance, the city watch roused to hunt.

There would be no reaching the port. And nowhere on earth his mother would be safe, if the realm fell to ruin.

“Ambara-garay,” he whispered, turning around.

Have faith in the gods.

18

TO DIE TRYING

Domacridhan

Dom had not known it was possible to miss the feel of steel between his ribs, but he certainly missed it now. His vision spun as it never had. From pain or blood loss, he did not know; he had never felt the true extent of either. Not in training at Tíarma, not in battles centuries past, not even at the temple, surrounded by an army of hellish Ashlanders, his face a bleeding ruin. This was so much worse. And I did it to myself, he cursed.

Corayne kept pace, still under his arm. The edge of her jaw was set like an ax, resolute and sharp, as she maneuvered them both up the bank. Dom braced a hand to the gash between his ribs, fingers sticky with his own blood. The pressure seared but kept him living, and served as a good distraction now.

The farther they walked from the squire, the deeper the ache in his chest became. At least I won’t have to watch him die, he thought bitterly. But his anguish was short-lived.

Dom heard footsteps, familiar long strides fighting to catch up. He turned to see Squire Trelland following in their shadows, leaving the canals and Wayfarer’s Port behind him.

“She’ll be all right,” Corayne said when she saw him, her voice somber. “And so will you.”

Andry did not reply, his face bowed. He was careful and quiet, but the immortal could still hear his tears. He looked as he had at the temple—overcome, dull-eyed, broken by the massacre. And still dutifully trudging forward, without even a flicker of hope to light the way.

They hurried through a market. Whitewashed wattle-and-daub shops and timber-framed homes leered over them, their windows like empty eyes. Dom heard no patrols as Sarn led the way, her shift glaring white in the alleys. It was like following a ghost.

How fast does word travel in a city like this? he wondered, thinking of the gates. At every turn, their journey seemed to face its ending, only to carry on a bit further. Perhaps Ecthaid has answered my prayers after all, and he protects our road.

Or we’ve just been lucky.

The luck held. Godherda Gate arched before them, the iron-bound oak shut but not barred, with only a pair of city watchmen on duty to guard the way. As Andry had said, it was small, barely a door in the outer walls of Ascal. Easy to defend, but easy to forget.

Sarn sped up, as did Corayne, pulling Dom along on shambling feet. Andry grabbed his arm once more, taking some of his weight, until he could nearly run. Again his vision swam, black spots growing and shrinking before his eyes.

“Just keep your legs moving, my lord,” Andry said, sounding both close and far away.

Bells began to ring somewhere, reverberating in the air and in Dom’s skull. He squeezed his eyes shut as they echoed, shrieking. For a moment, he was back at the temple, staring at the white tower and the impossible toll of an ancient bell.

The watchmen shouted something, their voices punctuated by the clank of their armor and the sing of steel drawn loose.

The bells are a command. Their queen calls. Our time is up.

“Bar the gates—they’re closing the port—” the first watchman ordered. His words ended in a wet squelch.

Dom opened his eyes to see Sarn cut through the second watchman. Her sword dripped rubies and the gate yawned behind her, a crack between the doors widening with each moment.

It was Corayne who pushed him through, kicking the wood open.

All he could do was move, his energy finally spent, the wound winning the hard battle against his body. Don’t drop, he told himself, repeating the squire’s words. The bells kept screaming, accompanied by a dozen horns all over the city, from every gate and watchtower. He tried to think, tried to remember this part of the realm. What roads lay ahead, what the land beyond Ascal was. But Dom could barely open his eyes, let alone puzzle out a plan.

You’ll die trying. Corayne’s last plea to Andry hung in his head, ringing like the bells.

That seems to be our only fate, Dom thought, feeling their circumstances rise up like a storm cloud. No allies, no direction. Nothing but the sword and the teenage girl who could barely wield it. To die trying.

He smelled as much as felt the horse as they shoved him on it, laying his great bulk across the saddle like a sack of grain. Dom felt the urge to apologize to it. Normally I am very good at this, he thought dimly. The ground moved beneath him, glimpsed through slitted eyes.