Across the clearing, Marigon lost a hand to an ax, and then her head.

Surim and Dom roared, unable to reach her, islands in the bloody sea. The waves closed around Surim first. He whistled for his horse, but the steppe pony was already in the fray, fighting to his side. She was torn apart before she could reach him. It was Surim’s ending too.

Andry had no voice left, no thought even to pray.

In the circle, Cortael screamed his rage, his blows coming fierce again. With a swing of his sword, he knocked away Taristan’s dagger, the blade falling deep into the mud. With another, he dismantled Taristan’s guard and drove the Spindleblade deep into his brother’s chest.

Andry froze, one foot in the stirrup, not daring to hope.

The corpse army stopped too, bloody jaws agape. On the steps, Ronin’s hands dropped, his scarlet eyes wide.

Taristan fell to his knees, the blade protruding from his body. He gaped in shock. Above him, Cortael watched without joy or triumph, his face still but for the rain washing him clean.

“You did this to yourself, Brother,” he said slowly. “But still I ask your forgiveness.”

His twin choked, the words difficult to form.

“It’s—it’s not your fault you were born first. It’s not—not your fault you were chosen,” Taristan stammered, staring at his wound. When he looked up, his black eyes were hard, resolute. “But you continue to underestimate me, and for that, you are to blame.”

With a sneer, he drew the sword from his own chest, the blade slick and red.

Andry could not believe his eyes.

“Those bells have not tolled for the gods in a thousand years,” Taristan said, rising back to his feet, a Spindleblade in each hand. All around him, the creatures made strange sounds, like chittering insect laughter. “And they do not toll for your gods today. They toll for mine. For Him. For What Waits.”

Cortael toppled back on his heels, terrified. He raised a hand between them, undefended, at the nonexistent mercy of a forgotten brother. “You will destroy the Ward for a crown!”

“A king of ashes is still a king,” Taristan crowed.

In the bog of bodies, Dom struggled, battering his way to his friend.

He won’t make it, Andry knew, his vision swimming. He is too far, still too far.

Taristan stabbed Cortael’s Spindleblade into the mud at his side, favoring his own sword. Cortael could do nothing to stop him as he raised it. There was nowhere to turn, nowhere to run. His face crumpled, a prince reduced to a beggar.

“Brother—”

The blade struck him true, shearing through plate armor and mail into Cortael’s heart. The heir to Old Cor fell to his knees, head lolling on his shoulders.

Taristan used one booted foot to draw the sword from Cortael’s chest, letting his body slump. “And a dead man is still dead,” he hissed, sneering over the corpse.

He raised his weapon again, ready to hack his brother’s body to pieces.

But his sword met another, a blade of Iona in the hand of the last Companion alive.

“Leave him,” Dom snarled, furious as a tiger. He shoved Taristan back with ease.

The Elder planted himself between Taristan and his friend’s body, feet set for another fight though he was torn apart, surrounded, and already beaten. Cortael’s sword, bloody and useless, still stood upright in the mud, a gravestone waiting for them both.

Taristan laughed openly, amused. “The stories say your kind are brave, noble, greatness made flesh. They should say you are stupid too.”

Dom’s lips twitched, betraying a smile of his own. His eyes, the Elder eyes of an immortal realm, were shockingly green. They shifted for an instant, looking up the hill, to the squire planted firmly in the saddle of a white stallion.

Andry’s heart surged, his jaw set in grim resolve. He nodded, only once.

The Elder whistled, high and true. The horse exploded, charging down the hill. Not into the battle, but around it, past the creatures, the bodies, the Companions fallen and dead.

Moving with the speed only an immortal could claim, Dom lunged for Cortael’s sword, vaulting head over feet to draw the blade from the mud. He threw it as he rolled upright, using all his momentum to hurl the blade like a javelin, up and over the scarred heads of the Spindle army. It sailed, an arrow from the string. One last gasp of victory against defeat entire.

Taristan roared as the blade and the stallion raced each other.

Andry’s world narrowed to the flash of steel as it landed in the slick grass ahead. He felt the horse beneath him, all muscle and fear. The squire was trained to ride, trained to fight in the saddle. He slung himself sideways, thighs gripping hard, brown fingers reaching.

The Spindleblade felt cold in his hand.

The army screamed but the stallion did not break stride. Andry’s pulse rammed in time with the hooves pounding beneath him, an earthquake rattling up in his chest. His mind blurred, a haze as each fallen Companion flashed before him, their endings irrevocably carved into his memory. No songs would be sung of them. No great stories told.

It was too much. All his thoughts splintered and re-formed, melting into one.

We have failed.

1

THE SMUGGLER’S DAUGHTER

Corayne

There was clear sight for miles. A good day for the end of a voyage.

And a good day to begin one.

Corayne loved the coast of Siscaria this time of year, in the mornings of early summer. No spring storms, no crackling thunderheads, no winter fog. No splendor of color, no beauty. No illusions. Nothing but the empty blue horizon of the Long Sea.

Her leather satchel bounced at her hip, her ledger safe inside. The book of charts and lists was worth its weight in gold, especially today. She eagerly walked the ancient Cor road along the cliffs, following the flat, paved stones into Lemarta. She knew the way like she knew her mother’s own face. Sand-colored and wind-carved, not worn by the sun but gilded by it. The Long Sea crashed fifty feet below, kicking up spray in rhythm with the tide. Olive and cypress trees grew over the hills, and the wind blew kindly, smelling of salt and oranges.

A good day, she thought again, turning her face to the sun.

Her guardian, Kastio, walked at her side, his body weathered by decades on the waves. Gray-haired with furious black eyebrows, the old Siscarian sailor was darkly tanned from fingertips to toes. He walked at an odd pace, suffering from old knees and permanent sea legs.