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From twenty yards, he met her eyes, his head shaking slowly back and forth. A few Treckish soldiers held back the closest Ashlanders, but they were closing in again. It was all Andry could do to wave her off, his palm raised weakly.
“Get to the Spindle!” he forced out, gasping for air. “Corayne!”
A needle of pain went through her head again, nearly blinding. But she held on, one hand on the Spindleblade, the other open tothe ground. Screaming against the splitting sensation, she leaned, angling her body, her palm facing out.
She knew a moment later she would never be strong enough. Andry was too tall, too big, in leather and chain mail. She could never hope to pull him up.
He saw her closing in. By the flash in his eyes, Corayne saw he knew it too.
But she didn’t stop.
An inhuman howl of pain escaped Andry’s lips as he scrambled to his feet, balancing with his wounded leg. He fought his way toward her horse, picking up speed even as he gnashed his teeth, his face stricken with anguish.
He reached for her as she reached for him. Her fingers found his collar, his hands either side of her saddle. With another roar, he hurled himself into the saddle behind her, his breath coming in great, laborious pants.
Corayne nearly wept again as he slumped against her back, one hand around her middle, the other dangling free. Fighting the ache in her own body, she grabbed his other arm and tucked it close, making sure he wouldn’t fall.
Then the steps of the temple were beneath them, her horse’s hooves like hammers on stone. She glimpsed Sigil from the corner of her eye, her ax a red smile. Oscovko took Corayne’s other flank, both of them fighting to keep up with her horse. The three of them barreled forward together, a battering ram.
The temple doors loomed, its monsters lunging forward from the inner chamber. Between the Ashlanders, she glimpsed the Spindle. It bloomed pure gold and scarlet, the pounding in herhead beating in time with the changing colors. A presence watched Corayne from within, its eyes like burning knives stabbing her body. She tried to throw them off, but it was no use.
What Waits was waiting. Waiting for her.
She rode on, Andry at her back, the monsters all around. With a will, she pulled the Spindleblade from its sheath.
The jewels glowed with the Spindle’s light, pulsing red and purple, dancing at the edge of her vision.
Corayne raised the steel high, two hands on the hilt, her elbows up as Sorasa had taught her. Weakly, she hoped the assassin was still alive. Then the Spindle drove out all other thought. Nothing remained but the portal between realms, the crack in the doorway.
I need only push it shut,she told herself, her cheeks wet and streaked with tears.
Somewhere inside her head, What Waits laughed, a guttural, grating sound, like the pieces of the world rubbing together.
Her sword caught the light and she laughed back.
The horse stumbled beneath her, its legs failing, neck arched in sudden, jerking pain. Corayne flew forward, thrown from the saddle like a doll. She braced herself for impact, the stone walls of the temple rising up to meet her.
And then she hit dirt, her mouth filling with the horrendous taste of hot ash and bone dust.
Heat fell over her in a heavy curtain. The winter was behind, a flaming realm of pain and torment ahead.
Corayne sat up, trembling, the pain in her head extinguished like a candle blown out. She still had the Spindleblade tight inher hand, but nothing else. Not the horse. Not Andry. She stared, unblinking, trying to make sense of the red light around her.
“What is this place?” she murmured, if only to herself. In her heart, she knew. Her own realm lay behind, back through the portal.
The Ashlands were a wasting desert. Not like the golden dunes of Ibal, blue-skied and brilliant. This was a red world, a broken realm, its dirt like rust. She spat on the ground and clambered to shaking feet, her sword raised to fight. All around her the desecrated Ashlanders hung back, staring at her with empty eye sockets and slack jaws.
With a jolt, she realized she stood between them and the Spindle.
As if a girl were enough to do that.
Behind the Ashlanders, the landscape stretched horribly in all directions. This was a realm of jagged cliffs and drifting sand, with smoke trailing around the crimson horizon. It was day with no sun, night with no stars, existing somewhere between. Worst of all was the silhouette of a distant castle, shattered and abandoned, its towers crumbled beyond repair. A city lay around it, gone to ruin. Corayne trembled and knew she looked upon a broken realm. What Allward would become, if What Waits succeeded.
“It is a pleasure to meet you, Corayne an-Amarat,” a voice said, sliding like silk, but sharp as new-forged steel.
It came from everywhere and nowhere, from the Ashlands and within her own mind. Corayne heaved a breath, searching for the voice. There was nothing but a shadow on the ground, the silhouette of a cloaked man.
But no man stood to cast it.
