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Infyrna hound.
Corayne gritted her teeth, watching the candle split into many, the vicious barks echoing across the miles. Beneath her, the horse lungedinto a gallop. The mare remembered Taristan’s burning hounds as well as Corayne did.
His army will not be far behind, Corayne knew. Her stomach dropped to her feet.If not Taristan himself.
She kicked her heels, willing the horse to move even faster. Corayne could barely think as they galloped along the dark coast. Her body ached with exhaustion, but she could not fall.
For the realm falls with me.
Valtik’s magic lasted and the horse rode on.
Light grew slowly in the east, turning the black sky to deep blue. The stars battled valiantly against the sunrise, but one by one, they blinked out of existence.
Darkness still clung to the land behind her, pooling in the shadow of the hills and trees. A black column of smoke rose in the west, the last remnants of Gidastern. Smaller trails of smoke pocked the sky, like flags to mark the hounds as they careened across the wilderness.
A few were close, less than a mile off.
Corayne tried to think around the fog of exhaustion. To figure out some way through the path ahead, whatever it might be. If they were here, Sorasa and Charlie would tell her to head for the closest village, to throw some unsuspecting garrison at the hounds. Dom would turn and fight, Sigil laughing at his heels. Andry would make some valiant, stupid sacrifice to give the rest of them time. And Valtik, impossible and inscrutable, certainly had some incantation to turn the hounds to dust. Or she would simply disappear again, only to turn up when the danger had passed.
But what about me?
Part of Corayne despaired. The rest of her knew she could not. The realm would not survive her sorrow, or her failure.
She thought of the map, of the landscape around her, the northern reaches of Galland.
Erida’s kingdom. Enemy territory.
But the Castlewood was near, the great forest of the northern continent. It stretched for endless miles in almost every direction. To the south lay the Corteth Mountains, then Siscaria and the Long Sea.Home.Corayne’s heart ached at the prospect. So much of her wanted to point the horse southward, and ride until they crashed into the waves of familiar waters.
To the east were more mountains. Calidon.And,she knew,Iona.Domacridhan’s enclave, an Elder stronghold. And perhaps the last place upon the Ward where she might find help.
It seemed impossible. Miles away, at the edge of a fading dream.
But the enclave burned a hole in her mind, its name a whisper in her ears.
Iona.
The enclave was still hundreds of miles away, beyond the Castlewood and across the mountains, hidden in Calidon. Corayne could hardly fathom what the enclave looked like, shrouded in mist and glen. She tried to remember how Andry and Dom had described Iona, without remembering Andry and Dom themselves. It was an impossible endeavor.
She saw Andry’s face, his warm, kind eyes, his lips pulled into a gentle smile. His laughter never had any bite to it. Only kindness and joy. Corayne doubted the squire ever carried an ill thought for anyone. He was too good for all of them.
Too good for me.
Above all, she remembered his blazing kiss against her palm, his lips pressed to her skin in the only goodbye they would ever have.
Her palm itched on the reins, threatening to burn like everything else.
Then the smell of smoke filled the air, somehow heavier than her bottomless grief.
The scent was overpowering, but not so terrible as the keening scream of a hellhound as it thundered over the hill behind her. Its overlong black legs ate up the landscape, leaving a burning trail with each footfall. Flames leapt along the beast’s spine, and its open mouth glowed like hot coals.
Corayne felt a scream of her own rise in her throat, but only dug in her heels. Beneath her, the horse obeyed, somehow gaining speed.
The hound drove on, snapping and barking. Its brethren answered, their howls echoing beyond the dawn.
“Gods help me,” she murmured, tucking low against the horse’s neck.
Despite her galloping horse, the hound closed the distance between them. Over one maddening hour, the hound gained, inch by inch. Every heartbeat felt a life age. Every faltering step a lightning bolt in Corayne’s chest.
