The squire looked up to find the Elder staring, studying him as he would an opponent.

“Cortael’s death feels . . . different,” Dom said, searching for the right words. “Worse.”

Andry dropped his head again, nodding furiously. “Because we were there. Because we lived while the rest didn’t.”

Sir Grandel and the Norths rose up before him, their faces white in death, their armor rusted, their bodies going to rot. Lord Okran appeared too, the shadow of Kasa’s eagle passing over him. Andry squeezed his eyes shut to block out the images, only to find them staring behind his eyes. Inescapable.

“We survived, and some part of us regrets it. It doesn’t make sense, that I live while they are in the ground,” he forced out, eyes stinging. “A living squire, and so many dead knights.”

Dom’s voice rumbled, low in his throat, choked with emotion he did not know how to feel. “If I could, I’d make you a knight right here. You’ve certainly earned it by now.”

Another figure joined the dead warriors in Andry’s mind: a knight of Galland with an easy smile and a blue-starred shield. Father, Andry thought, calling for someone who would never answer. I can’t even remember his voice.

He forced himself to look at Dom again, letting reality chase the visions away. He stared at the Elder, green as the forest, gray as stone.

“I don’t think that’s a path I can walk anymore,” he muttered. It felt like letting go of an anchor and drifting out to sea. Unbound but without direction, free but on treacherous ground. “The Battle of the Lanterns was fought on this land,” he said suddenly, looking back and forth along the willows crowding the riverbank. “Galland and Larsia, warring for a barren border.”

“I don’t know much of your recent histories,” Dom answered, sounding apologetic.

Andry nearly laughed. The Battle of the Lanterns was a century ago. “My mother had a tapestry of it in our parlor. The great legions. Galland standing golden and triumphant over the Larsian surrender. I used to stare at it, try to see my own face among the knights, the Lion across my chest, a victory in my hands.” He saw the woven image in his mind, the colors too bright, the soldiers of Galland suddenly hateful, their visages sharp and menacing. “Now I stand against them. Everything I’ve ever known, everything I’ve ever wanted. It’s gone.”

“I feel the same,” Dom said, to Andry’s surprise. “Let someone else be a prince of Iona. I want no part of that place, a haven for cowards and selfish fools.” The Elder sucked in a breath, chest rising and falling. He glanced at the willow where their great hope slept, small beneath her cloak. “Cortael never told me about Corayne.”

Andry followed his gaze. “To keep her safe?”

Dom shook his head. “I think he was ashamed.”

The squire felt his teeth gnash together, both in anger and to bite back a curse. I will not insult a dead man. “Then he never knew her,” he replied instead, eyes still leveled on the willow. A wind rustled the branches, revealing Corayne nestled among the roots. Brilliant, brave Corayne. “No parent could be ashamed of a daughter like that.”

“Indeed,” Dom answered, his voice oddly thick.

“It’s all right to miss him though. It’s all right to feel this hole.” The advice was as much for himself as it was for Dom.

As before, the Elder sniffed, turning to stone. “Sorrow is a mortal endeavor. I have no use for it.” He jumped up from the boulder, his face wiped clean of any emotion.

Andry joined him, standing with a shake of his head. “Sorrow touches us all, Lord Domacridhan, whether we believe in it or not. It doesn’t matter what you call the thing ripping you apart. It will still devour you if given the chance.”

“And how do I defend against such a thing, Squire?” the Elder demanded, his voice rising. Luckily, Corayne did not stir. “How do I fight what I cannot face?”

In the training yard, the knights would bash their gauntlets, clutch hands, pull each other up after a particularly nasty blow. Without thinking, Andry raised his own fingers, palm open, an offer as much as a plea.

“With me,” he said. “Together.”

Dom did his very best not to crush the squire’s fingers as they locked hands.

“It’s your turn for watch,” Andry muttered, wincing under the strength of Dom’s grips.

But it was worth the pain.

23

BELOW THE PRIEST’S HAND

Corayne

Corayne had heard stories of Adira from nearly every member of her mother’s crew, her mother included. The card tables, the concubines and brothels, the night markets hawking goods from all over the Ward, stolen or otherwise. Real dragon scales, ancient and crusty, in the curio shops. Spindletouched mages brewing up tonics and poison outside taverns. Thieves’ gangs and pirate crews outfitting their companies. The crown of Treccoras, the last Cor emperor, had been won in a game of dice in the House of Luck and Fortune, then immediately lost to the marshes. But the history was there too; she’d heard it mostly from Kastio. When moved to talk, he spoke of distant years, centuries long since passed, as if he were reciting from the pages of a university tome, or had an impossibly long memory.

It had been Piradorant once, truly the Adoring Port, beneath the ancient empire. The small city and surrounding territory had sworn allegiance to Old Cor long before her armies arrived. There was no conquest. She was a willing bride, and the Cors treated her as such. Her walls were gilded, her streets wealthy. She blossomed, a flower basking in the light of a doting sun. But the empire fell, night came, and the world moved on in its shadow. The stumbling kingdom of Larsia grew and eventually chafed with the might of neighboring Galland. The Larsians fought to defend their border from encroachment. The city now called Adira filled the cracks between.

Wedged between warring kingdoms, often cut off by battle or blockade, Adira survived through less than honorable means. Pirate ships regularly ran Gallish blockades to feed the hungry city. Cutthroats and rogues slipped around entrenched armies. Within the walls, the city rotted like an apple. The King of Larsia did not have the strength to wrest it back from the criminals who controlled it, and Galland would not bother. The Gallish kings cared for glittering capitals and vast expanses of rich land. Not a fortress slum on a marshy peninsula, its streets bristling with rusty knives and gutter rats. Adira adapted to the world as it was, becoming what it needed to be.