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Corayne felt it now, clawing at her throat. The memory of her nightmares nearly turned sunlight to shadow. She swallowed hard but saw no lie in the old woman.
Then the squire jolted like a startled horse, some realization breaking over him. He circled the witch, incredulous. “I have not heard the whispers since I found you.”
“The whispers—what whispers?” Dom’s voice stumbled.
Trelland ignored him. “So many voices, and one like winter. One likeyours.” His breath caught. “You’ve been speaking to me for weeks, telling me what to do. Keep the sword hidden, abandon my mother—”
“How?” Dom sputtered. “Whispers? A sending? They were Taristan’s army, the Ashlanders exactly—”
Valtik said nothing, content to watch them flounder. And Sorasa watched her. She crossed her arms, keeping her distance from the Jydi witch, far from the circle of the weak fire.
“I think instead of how, we should be asking why,” Sorasa murmured. “Why whisper to Andry Trelland? Why send corpse shadows after us in the night?”
To her surprise, Valtik’s head snapped up and her grin was manic, unhinged for a shivering second. The kindling crackled at her back, outlining her hunched figure, leaving her face in shadow, half formed. The light played tricks. Her teeth were too long; she went cat-eyed, pupils like slits in the strange blue. The ivy braids gleamed metallic, slick. Sorasa clenched her jaw, willing herself to see what existed and not what the witch wanted her to see.
“You know why, Forsaken,” Valtik said, blinking. She shifted, and the shadows pulled back to show an old woman again. “Something to guide you. Something to guide them. To open your eyes, after where you’ve been.”
Her muscles tightened, taut as coiled rope. “Stop calling me that, Witch.”
“I only call people what they are,” Valtik replied with a half-moon smile. She waggled her feet like a child playing before the hearth.
“And what would you call yourself, Gaeda?” Corayne said, easing herself to her knees next to the witch. Andry tensed, as if he wanted to pull her back from the old woman. But Corayne was unafraid, looking intently into her eyes.
Valtik put a wrinkled hand to Corayne’s cheek.
Corayne didn’t flinch, letting the witch stare into her.
“The North Star,” the old woman finally said, tweaking her on the nose. Then her hand darted into her long cloak, pulling out the twig-and-bone charm still crusted with dried blood. She pressed it into Corayne’s fingers, closing each one over it. “Or bizarre,” she added, chuckling.
“I agree with the latter,” Dom said.
Corayne leaned back on her heels, whirling to him. “You go to sleep,” she said, full of force. He blanched, flushing red over his cheeks and neck. The Elder had probably not been ordered to bed for centuries, if it had even happened at all.
He sputtered, “I am not a mortal infant.”
Corayne stood and shrugged, undeterred by his towering height. “We need you healthy, Dom.”
“I—oh, very well,” he blustered, storming away from the campfire.
Sorasa nearly howled when he lay down in the dirt like a dog, with no cloak, no blanket, no bed of any kind. He simply folded his arms, face to the sky, his eyes dropping shut in an instant. The snore that followed was instantaneous and unbearable.
“Would anyone stop me if I smothered him?” she muttered, scuffing her boot in Dom’s direction. “Joking,” she snapped, catching sight of Andry and Corayne’s disapproval. “Andry, I’ll wake you when it’s your turn at the watch.”
The squire ducked his chin. “All right.”
“And you, no sendings, no whispers—” Sorasa added, turning back to the witch. But Valtik was gone, leaving no trace, not even the odd earthen scent that followed her everywhere.
“Oh she’s gone again,” the assassin sneered, eyeing the darkness. She felt oddly like the darkness was staring back. “Magnificent.”
With every passing day, Sorasa bet with herself. Who would break first and succumb to their curiosity? The next afternoon, she thought it would be Dom, when his eyes narrowed on her with his usual furor. But he never spoke. Corayne was an easy guess. The girl had thoughts about everything, from the strength of the wind off Mirror Bay to the growing season in the lowlands. Certainly she would find the spine to question Sorasa Sarn, the Fallen, the Forsaken. And there was Trelland too, not as blatant as the others. But he stole glances all day long, his interest obvious even to the horses. Valtik already knew and wouldn’t bother.She probably spends all day thinking up rhymes,Sorasa thought, grinding her teeth.
In the end, it was Corayne who summoned the courage. She had the tact to ask a few days later, in the evening, apart from the others, who were busy preparing another meager camp. Andry was off using his foolish kettle, brewing up some tea.
“Osara,” Corayne said, letting the word hang in the air.
The sky was clear, and Sorasa lifted her face to the stars. She stared at them instead of Corayne. They had known each other only a few weeks, and sometimes it was easy to forget that the girl had Corblood in her veins, and a pirate for a mother.Not tonight,Sorasa thought.
“It’s a title given to blooded Amhara exiled from the Guild,” she said plainly.
