Andry sighed, rapping his knuckles against the wood. “How can you narrow that down? Ibal has the largest navy in the world.”

“Divided into fleets. The Crown Fleet patrols the Strait of the Ward and off Almasad, the Jewel Fleet the southern coast, where the gem mines operate. The Storm Fleet hunts raiders as far as the Glorysea. The Golden Fleet defends the Aljer, the Jaws of Ibal.” Her nails drummed the rail. “I’d bet every coin in the realm the Spindle is near there, in the water or close to it.”

The squire didn’t know the Ward as well as a pirate’s daughter, but his teachers had not neglected geography. Ibal was vast, a mighty kingdom of mountains, deserts, rivers, and coastlines, its cities like jewels in a shield of hammered gold. The grand port of Almasad was said to rival Ascal, and its capital, Qaliram, was even more magnificent, a wonder of monuments and palaces along the Ziron. Sacred horse herds moved through the landscape like storm clouds, moving from grassland to desert under the protection of Ibalet laws. There was the Great Sands, a sea of dunes like cresting waves, cut by canyons and salt flats. The countless oases, some large enough to support cities of their own, some little more than a few palm trees. And then the famed Ibalet coast, cliffs and gentle slopes above pale green waters, patrolled by the greatest navy in the realm. The Cors conquered ancient Ibal once, but at great cost, and their kings lived on, second only to the emperors of the north. His heartbeat quickened at the thought of seeing such things, such marvelous places, so far from the land he knew as home.

He shook his head. “That’s still a lot of ground to cover.”

To his surprise, Corayne shrugged. She looked delighted by the challenge, not daunted. “Like you said, we’ve got Valtik and now Charlie. Maybe they have something to say about that. If Taristan was able to track down an old Spindle, why can’t they?”

Andry looked over the experts in question. Both were currently occupied. Charlon crouched in the shadow of the sail, his tongue between his teeth, his eyeglass screwed in, as he painstakingly went over a piece of parchment with quill and ink. Documents of passage for when they arrived in Ibal. He looked like an overlarge toad, sweating in the shade. Surprising no one, Valtik had caught a daggerfish, striped and spiny. She deboned it bloodily on the deck, ignoring the glares of the crew. Most of the fish she ate raw, her smile red as she sang to herself, counting ribs.

Hardly a convincing sight.

The trade ship cut through the water on a sharp wind, prow breaking through undulating waves. Andry had never been out of sight of land before, and he sucked in a gasp of salt air. He expected to feel unnerved by the journey, but only hunger stirred in his belly.

He could feel Corayne’s eyes hard on his face, watching him instead of the sea. “Your mother will be in Aegironos by now,” she said, the wind in her hair again. “The ships bound for Kasa replenish supplies in the Gulf of Farers. Safe waves. A beautiful city.”

He tried to picture it. Tried to see his mother smiling beneath a warmer sun, her skin glowing again, even as she curled in her chair. He knew she wanted this, wanted to see home again, and had for years. She’s getting her wish, he told himself, trying to ease the shame beneath every inch of his body. And she’ll be safe.

“Have you been to the southern continent?” he asked.

Corayne shook her head, her lips in her teeth. “My mother has southern blood and so do I, but I’ve only heard stories of the world, from the people allowed to see it.”

“You’re seeing it now.”

She gave him a withering look. “I don’t think this counts, Trelland.”

“Maybe after.” He shrugged. After seemed so foolish and impossible, far beyond reach. They would probably die trying to save the realm, or in the doom that followed their failure. But the hope of after, distant as it was, felt like a balm on fevered skin. Andry leaned into it, chasing the sensation.

“I can’t exactly be a squire anymore.” Not for a queen trying to kill me. “Before he died, one of the Companions—a knight of Kasa, his name was Okran—he invited me to Benai.” Perhaps my last happy memory, before everything went to ashes. Andry wished he could step back, take Okran’s horse by the reins, drag him away from the temple and his doom. “He promised to show me the land of my mother, and her people.”

A stillness crossed Corayne’s face, only her eyes moving. Andry felt searched. She read him like her maps, connecting one point to another, reaching a conclusion he could not see.

All the same, he saw understanding. Corayne thirsted for the world more than he did. She knew what it was to look to the horizon and want.

“Maybe after,” she murmured. “Your mother can show you herself.”

The hope guttered in his chest, slipping through his fingers. It left behind an ache. Something told him that dream would never come to pass.

Andry did not sleep down below, where the air was tight and the sailors stank, belching and breaking wind all night. Only Charlon and Sigil could bear it, though perhaps the bounty hunter kept close should her fugitive take any opportunity to attempt escape. Even if they were in the middle of the sea. Valtik was gods-knew-where, somehow able to disappear even on a trade galley. Probably hanging from a rope over the side, luring turtles for their shells.

Instead, Andry slept on deck. The ship rocked in an easy lull. He felt himself suspended between sleep and waking, reluctant to dream of the temple, the feel of the sword, and the red, ruined hands on his skin. In his nightmares, the horse faltered. The sword fell. He slipped from the saddle and was eaten, the hope of the realm dying with him. Starlight bled through his eyelids, brighter than he had ever seen. So far from land, from smoke and candlelight, the stars were like needles through the heavens, pinpricks from their realm to the heaven of the gods. He tried to ignore Corayne dozing only a few yards away, half obscured by Domacridhan sitting next to her. She was little more than a lump in her cloak, the sword half hidden beside her, a spit of black hair curling out of her hood.

The first jolt felt like nothing. An errant wave. A gust of wind filling the sail.

Andry opened his eyes to find the sail flat, the sea calm. A trick of sleep, he thought. Like when you think you’re falling. Even Dom didn’t stir, the constant sentinel staring at his boots.

Andry settled back again, warm in his cloak, the salt air cool on his face. I don’t know why people complain about sailing so much. It’s quite pleasant.

The second jolt made the hull creak, the ship tipping beneath Andry’s body. Still gentle, an easy, steady movement. One of the crewmen on watch whispered to another, their Larsian harsh and hissing with confusion. Another looked over the side of the galley, staring into the black waters.

Andry narrowed his eyes as Dom straightened. His white face paled in the dim light; his lips twitched beneath his golden beard. The Elder stared toward the prow, where Sorasa slept upright, her arms folded over her body in a tight embrace.

Something unfurled in the dark, outside the weak spheres of light swaying from the mast, prow, and stern. Andry stared, squinting.

The Elder was on his feet in a second, his voice raised in warning, already lunging.

For once, the immortal was not quick enough.

A muscular arm of green and gray snapped out of the darkness, curling around a sailor’s chest. It was slick and gleaming, reflecting the light like the belly of a slug. The man choked out a wet gasp, the air crushed from his lungs before he went overboard.