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“I wish it was over,” Andry blurted out. He leaned into the air, hands braced against the ramparts of the city wall. “Whatever our fates may be. I just want to know what comes after, and finally be done with all this.”
Despite the cold breeze, his cheeks flushed hot, going red with shame. Andry tucked his chin, looking down the walls to the sheer granite cliffs, and then the valley below. The great height made his head spin.
A warm hand closed on his shoulder, heavy through Andry’s cloak and furs. He turned to see Dom watching him, a thoughtful look on his face. Without judgment. It anchored Andry a little.
“Think of after,” Dom said. “Think ofyourafter. Where you will go, what you will do. All the things you’re fighting for, big and small.”
Andry wanted to lose himself in such an endeavor. It was one thing to dream, and wish. It was another entirely to hide himself in a delusion, especially now, as the red sun rose and time wore out.
“What about you?” Andry muttered, turning the question back on the Elder.
Dom replied too quickly, without thought or care. “Sorasa wants to return to Ibal. If she can,” he said with a shrug, as if it were the most obvious answer.
Andry felt his eyebrows nearly disappear into his hairline. He blinked at Dom, shocked, waiting for the Elder to understand what his words meant.
“And you would... go with her?” Andry said in a halting voice.
Suddenly, he found himself replaying Dom and Sorasa’s journey overin his head. Trying to read between the lines of what they’d told the Companions. And what they hadn’t.
The realization swept over Dom, his expression changing inch by inch. His usual scowl loosened, his eyes going wide, blinking rapidly. He turned to Andry.
“I don’t know why I said that,” he muttered.
Despite the circumstances, Andry grinned.
I do.
Dom did not smile back. He glowered out at the valley, darker than a storm cloud.
And then Andry was laughing, doubled over the ramparts, clutching at his sides. He felt overwhelmed, every emotion overflowing.
Other soldiers on the wall looked at him as if he were a madman. Dom only seethed, his teeth bared.
“I am tired, Trelland,” he bit out, his face going scarlet as the sky. “I misspoke.”
“Indeed,” Andry teased.
Domacridhan was an immortal Elder, five hundred years old, a fearsome warrior, a true hero. Andry had seen him stabbed, burned, and left for dead. But never so fragile as he was now, red-faced and blinking, contemplating the valley as a scholar would a book.
Andry laughed again. Dom was a fighter above all things, and he fought like a tiger against his own heart.
But Andry’s amusement was short-lived.
A horn blast echoed over the city, a long, deep sound carrying out of the east. Andry and Dom turned toward it in unison, color draining from both their faces. All down the walls and on the streets, it was the same. Terror washed over Iona, from the mortal soldiers outside the gates to Isibel enshrined on her throne, the greatsword laid across her knees.
It was Dom who ordered Elder scouts into the mountains, but the horn relay was Andry’s idea.
The horn sounded again, then another blew, louder and closer. And then another, the horn blasts traveling rapidly across the valley, from the mountain pass all the way to Iona. At the city gates, an Elder raised a spiraling horn, blowing a call to shake the city.
The message was clear.
“They are coming down the Godhead Pass,” Dom breathed, running a careful hand over his weary face. He glared into the mountain range, as if he could see all the way up into the jagged slopes.
Perhaps he can, Andry thought darkly.
Somewhere deeper in the city, the sound of hoofbeats clattered through the stone streets. Andry’s heart rammed in time with the galloping horses, a pair of them, carrying two Elder riders. They flew down from the stables, fast as birds of prey, tearing through the city gates.
One will ride north, and one south, Andry knew. It was another one of his own suggestions.To make sure someone lives to tell of what happened here. What we fought, and what we fell to.
