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“Yes, quite enough,” the woman said, materializing out of the path. Her hand clawed Lemon’s straw-like hair, pulling his head backward, exposing more of his throat. He couldn’t see her, but the squire went rigid, feeling the blade against his skin.
“Sooner than I thought,” Corayne muttered, glancing at the squire’s legs.
As much as he wanted to see Lemon grovel, Andry knew better. He stepped forward, reaching out to the Ibalet dagger, a bronze artistry with a hilt like a coiling snake. The woman holding it was calm, her face too still.
“Don’t kill him. Please,” he said, his voice filled with force.The last thing we need is more blood spilled.
The woman’s mouth twitched in annoyance. “Remember Trelland’s mercy, boy,” she breathed, lowering the blade from his throat.
Lemon met Andry’s eyes, showing what little remorse he could. “Thank—”
Her fist connected with his jaw, knuckles on bone, snapping his head to the side with crackling force. The squire fell forward in the dirt, out cold.
“Was that necessary?” Andry gaped. Lemon lay flat, a puddle of drool already forming.
The woman sheathed her dagger with a snap. “You wanted him alive.”
Andry felt another burst of cold. He swallowed hard, watching the woman’s back. Dom joined her from the shadows, still limping. She moved like a predator, all angles. The court of Galland was no stranger to the women of Ibal, but this one was like none he’d ever met before. Her gown was torn to shreds, and there was blood on her hands and face. Not her own, but Dom’s.And some knights too. She killed Sir Welden in the hall,he thought, remembering the old soldier as he bled to death, his neck cut open. The memory threatened to make him sick.
Corayne fell in next to him, her arm inches from his own. She looked pale in the moonlight, glancing back at Lemon’s unconscious body as they ran from it. It didn’t seem to unsettle her quite so much.
“Who is she? What the hell are we doing?” Andry muttered.
Corayne huffed out a breath. “I’ve been asking myself that for a while now.”
They burst through another gap in the hedge, nearly careening into a shallow pond of lilies and lazy fish. On the far side, a gateway opened onto a plaza of cut stone, the tiles arranged like sunbeams spilling out from the cathedral. The walls of the New Palace ran up against the sanctuary without gap or flaw. The vaulted windows were dark and looming. Lights like fireflies moved along them, the reflections of torches as the garrison wove through the maze in hot pursuit.
Dom kept pace now, his legs moving furiously without any rhythm. He surged with the Ibalet at his side, her sword unsheathed and gleaming. It was plain but well made, flashing darkly. Still nothing compared to the Spindleblade.
The Syrekom yawned, a mouth of vaulted portals and gargoyles—winged gods and stone kings—looking down with empty eyes. The curved doors were solid oak, locked fast for the evening. It took the Elder only two tries to kick them open, even with his wound. He panted, fading, his skin paler than the moon. On top of everything else, Andry felt a squeeze of fear for Domacridhan’s life.
The nave of the cathedral stretched, tall enough to house a forest, its columns marching in double rows to the far wall of windows. They clambered down the aisle bisecting the empty pews. Only a few candles guttered in their stands. Most went dark as they ran past.
“Gods, please don’t kill any priests,” Andry muttered, glancing toward the Ibalet.
“Wouldn’t be my first,” she answered neatly.
A red light grew in the glass windows. It flickered and flamed, born of a hundred torches as the Queen’s soldiers overtook the palace grounds, surrounding the cathedral.
Andry clambered up the steps to the solid gold altar, where the high priest performed services. Six windows loomed over it, stained-glass portraits of mighty Syrek and his great deeds. After years of worship, Andry knew them all without looking. Each image, of flame, of war, of conquest, of creation, was picked out in red, gold, and green, filled with swords and lions, brilliant in the sunshine, foreboding in the dark. He winced when Dom grabbed a bronze brazier and lobbed it into the closest glass masterpiece.
It shattered with a crone’s shriek, spitting glass into the river below.
“Ride the tide; keep under as long as you can,” the Ibalet barked, waving Corayne up to the broken window. The woman checked Corayne’s sword, tightening the buckles of the belts for her. Again Corayne looked back, finding Andry. This time, he saw fear in her. Only a flash, but enough.
He ducked his chin, giving her the best nod he could muster.
She nodded back, resolute.
Dom was the first to jump through, and Corayne followed with a graceful dive. The Ibalet didn’t hesitate, leaping into the dark air, the splash of her body almost soundless in the river below.
Andry stepped up to the jagged edge of the window. The water was relatively clean; most refuse got caught on the water gates that kept boats away from the palace. They wouldn’t be swimming through slum garbage. It didn’t make jumping any easier. Nor did the thoughts swirling in his mind.
Torchlight filled the windows, and he heard the whipcrack bark of orders outside as the garrison arrived. There was nothing behind him but steel and fire. The Queen was with Taristan, the man who had killed Sir Grandel, Lord Okran, Cortael—his own twin—and all the rest, their bodies left to feed the crows.
They’ll torture me. Question me. Punish me for hiding the sword, for helping Corayne.This was obvious. Andry could already see the dungeons of the keep in his mind.And then they’ll name me a traitor and kill me.
But still he could not jump. It wasn’t the fall that frightened him, all twenty feet of it into the rushing black river. The drop could have been two inches or two miles. Either way, it felt like an ending, a gate falling shut. A failure of everything that came before.
