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The assassin fought the smile on her lips. “Between the two of us, I’m sure we can figure out a way to get a message through,” she offered. “He doesn’t exactly bother to cover his tracks.”
A corner of Charlon’s mouth lifted. “No, he does not.”
“I’ll help you pack up, Charlie,” she said, pulling him to his feet with a pat on the back.
In the street, the rain hissed.
“I bet you will, Sarn.”
Corayne and the others stayed in the tea shop, bent over a pot that never seemed to go empty. The Ishei keeper was a diligent man, quick with his hands. Andry happily engaged him in a whispered conversation about brewing. What sort of spices, which roots, what did the Ishei use to clear the chest or encourage sleep? Over the brim of her cup, Corayne watched him chattering animatedly.
He doesn’t belong here with us, as much as he tries to. The end of the world is no place for Andry Trelland. He doesn’t deserve it.
The squire felt her examination and glanced over his shoulder. Goose bumps rose along his forearms. They were toned and leaned, corded with muscle from years of squire work and sword training. He rubbed them smooth, fingers working.
“What is it?” he muttered, looking back to her.
Corayne tightened her grip on her cup, trying to draw the warmth into herself. It warred with the cold down her spine. She shook her head.
The tea shop was quiet and peaceful. Too much for her liking. She wanted noise, activity. She wanted to see and hear what was going on.
“The Long Sea is quiet in the summer,” she finally said, chewing over Charlon’s words back in the crypt. “Few storms at all, but shipwrecks? Running aground out at sea? Impossible. There are no reefs, no shoals. And what did Charlon say about Gallish soldiers on the move? Where are they going? Why would Erida send them beyond her own borders?”
“Well, she is hunting us,” Andry offered.
“I doubt she’s hunting in the wrong place. We aren’t exactly hard to follow, and we were obviously going in a certain direction.”We rode west. But where are the armies going?Her mind lit on fire, the blaze leaping up from always-burning embers. “She’s sent soldiers after us, but there are more elsewhere. Looking for something. Orguardingsomething. Perhaps both.”
Dom grasped his cup so tightly a crack broke down the clay side, like a black streak of lightning. “The second Spindle.”
“It could be.”
Corayne ran a hand through her hair, exasperated. It was like chasing the sunset. Impossible, just out of reach, even in the fastest ship or astride the swiftest horse. Something brushed the edge of her fingertips before dancing beyond her grasp again.
“Valtik?” she said, raising her voice to catch the witch, who was still examining the rainy sky. She swilled the rain in her cup. “What do the bones tell?”
The old woman responded in a loud tangle of Jydi, too fast for Corayne to decipher, or even to pick out a single word. It sounded like a melody, the rhythm soothing.And useless.
With a huff, Corayne began to stand. “Valtik—”
But another spill of Jydi cut her off. Spoken not in the old woman’s voice, but in a booming one. Deep, masculine, joyful.Familiar.
Corayne fell back into her seat with a painfulthunk, the backs of her thighs digging into the hard bench. She dropped her face, dropped her eyes, dropped her hood, trying to curl into herself as quickly as she could. Suddenly the quiet shop was too loud, the walls closing in. She wanted to disappear; she wanted to stand up and draw as much attention as she could. Her body felt torn in two.
Warm hands took her shoulder, Andry’s fingers closing over the corner of her cloak. “Corayne, what’s wrong?”
Dom spread his arms wide, bracing himself against the table. He looked to the doorway, hawk-eyed, ready for anything. An assassin, an army, even Taristan himself.
Instead there was Valtik, grinning her strange smile, jabbering away in the rain. She craned her neck, looking up into the face of a bald-headed Jydi raider, every inch of his exposed skin scarred or tattooed in complicated knots. He answered her rhymes eagerly.
“His name is Ehjer,” Corayne murmured beneath her hood.Recruited ten years ago, loyal to my mother. A pirate. A raider. An old friend.“The one next to him is Kireem, a Gheran navigator from the Tiger Gulf.”
Indeed, a smaller man stood at Ehjer’s side, half his size, one eye covered by a patch swirling with chips of black stone. Scars bled out beneath the patch, the purple lines violently dark against his ocher skin.Smart as a unicorn, he can read the stars even on blackest night.
The two had been together as long as Corayne remembered. Relationships among the crew were tolerated so long as they didn’t interfere with the ship, and the pair kept a fine balance. Now away from their duty, they should’ve relaxed.
Instead Corayne had never seen them more on edge.
The Jydi passed Valtik, entering the shop with the patch-eyed man. They beelined for the tea bar, settling in alongside the other patrons, putting their backs to the room.
