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Corayne could only pray Sigil’s iron bones would hold against the black knight’s wrath.
The next road was another ruin, choked with debris and a wave of the undead, all scrambling through the burning rubble. They broke through walls and doorways, pawing at the air, grasping for whatever skin they could reach. Corayne shrieked and stabbed one away, Andry another. But as in the churchyard, their numbers only grew. Sorasa urged the Companions on, her own daggers flashing like serpent’s fangs. They fought their way along, gaining some ground, but not enough.
Dread clutched at Corayne, its grip tighter than the hands of the undead. She looked up, searching for some sliver of sky between the plumes of smoke. Even the snow was gone, the blizzard losing its resolve. She did too.
Horse’s hooves nearly sent her to her knees and she whirled, expecting to see the murderous knight or Taristan himself, fresh from the dragon’s fire.
Instead it was Valtik on her strange gray horse, its breath steaming in the air, as if it stood upon the tundra instead of a burning street.
“The boy I’ll take,” she said, jumping out of the saddle. She grasped for Andry with one hand and threw the reins with the other. Sorasa caught them deftly, her bronze face flushed red. “Corayne, you follow the snake.”
The air seared from Corayne’s lungs, even as the undead surrounded them, pressing in from all sides. She looked to Andry and found him staring, his mask shattered, every emotion warring on his face. Corayne felt them too, each keen and cutting as a knife.Shame, regret, sadness. And anger, so much anger.
She opened her mouth to protest, only for Andry to seize her under the arms and throw her up into the saddle. His lips were fire on her palm, grazing the bare skin, before he wrenched himself away. It was the only farewell he gave, and Corayne’s heart bled, too many words bubbling up inside her throat.
None seemed right. None would be enough.
“We’ll meet you on the road,” Sorasa barked, jumping up behind Corayne. She looped the reins, bracing herself against Corayne’s back.
The horse reacted without command, bolting off down the street, leaving Andry Trelland and the old witch behind. To face the horde or be consumed by it. It only took a few strides of the horse for the smoke to swallow them up.
Corayne felt hollow from the inside out, as if her own heart had been carved from her chest.
Sorasa was not Sigil, born to the saddle, but she rode like a demon. The flames of Infyrna raged and she raged with them, coaxing the horse through narrower and narrower gaps in the fire. Even Corayne lost their heading, unable to tell north from south, but Sorasa never did, riding on and on, until Corayne caught a gasp of fresh salt air. The docks were close, and with them, the sea gate.
Behind them, the wave of undead rolled on. With a gasp, Corayne recognized Jydi among them, and Treckish warriors too. On the rooftops, the hounds kept up the pursuit, though the dragon was gone, disappeared into the smoky sky. Corayne hoped it had Taristan in its belly.
She bent low over the horse’s mane, trying to urge it faster. But even Valtik’s horse struggled to gallop under the weight of two riders.
“There,” Sorasa called, and Corayne raised her eyes to see it: the side gate of Gidastern.
It was blissfully open, portcullis raised, the wood already charred to nothing.At least the gods smiled on one thing today.
The hounds bayed, their sharp, stuttering calls echoing all over, but Corayne ignored them. She kept her focus ahead, on the gate, on the glimpse of road beyond, the sea crashing. Empty, open land. Freedom from this hell. The others would be waiting for them, whole and safe. Dom, Andry, Sigil, Charlie, Valtik. She saw their faces in the shards again, the broken steel shimmering like a mirage in the sand dunes.
Suddenly the reins were in her own hands, and the strong, bracing presence at her back was gone. Her eyes widened as she turned to see Sorasa leaping from the saddle, her body tucking into a ball as she hit the street.
Corayne felt her mouth open, a yell loosing from her own throat, but she couldn’t hear it. She tugged hard on the reins. It did nothing but make the horse faster, its hooves sending up sparks on the stone. The hounds quickened to match their pace, closing in.
Sorasa rolled to her feet and sprinted, not toward the undead wave or the hounds approaching, but to the gate, charging after the horse.
Screaming, Corayne leaned back over the mare’s flank, stretching out a hand for the assassin as the archway passed overhead. But Sorasa ignored her, going instead to the gears of the portcullis.With a kick, she loosed the mechanism and the iron bars fell into place, slamming shut inches behind the horse’s tail.
Everything pulsed, flaring with the rhythm of Corayne’s own heartbeat. Her mouth closed, her eyes still wide, as she watched the gate get smaller and smaller.
Sorasa’s figure turned her back, blade and whip raised. Her shadow ran long against the road, guttering with the flames, twisting and dancing, all her lethal grace on display. Hounds yelped and undead moaned, but the portcullis never rose. The gate remained shut. The road guarded, the realm of Infyrna contained.
And Sorasa with it.
Corayne was alone, a mad horse beneath her, galloping with all the speed of the four winds.
The Cor road ran hard along the coast, turning to packed dirt as the horse carried them away from Gidastern. The cold blue sea crashed to her left, kicking up frigid spray. Corayne trembled, her face wet with the sea and tears. For once, saltwater brought her no comfort. Weeping, she raised her eyes to the sky and realized she was out from under the smoke, with gray light above her.
One last snowflake landed on her cheek, shivering her spine.
Her throat burned, ragged from the smoke and her own anguish.
Without warning, the horse slowed, blowing hard, its flanks dark with sweat. Up close, it seemed a common horse, a simple gray like the winter clouds. She tested the reins, trying to pull it around, but the horse held firm, stubbornly faced away. Corayne glared at it, cursing whatever Valtik had done to make the horse disobey her.
