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Corayne blinked. The world tipped beneath her feet and she nearly stumbled.
Isadere tilted their head in confusion, as did their brother.
“The temple...?” Sigil began, perplexed.
She was not there. She does not know.
And while Corayne knew the story, knew who died upon the killing field, knew whose blood fed the forest in the foothills, she did not truly understand.I was not there either. I did not see my father die, or any of the others. I cannot know its weight.
Andry bowed beneath it, lowering his head, chin nearly resting on his chest.
“We must go back,” he whispered, his voice catching.
Corayne felt his shoulder beneath her hand before she knew what she was doing, his body firm and warm beneath her fingers. It was all she could do to comfort him.If there were another way...,she wondered, already knowing the answer.
Her eyes trailed from Andry’s head to the mirror at the back of the tent. The moon had risen, filtering through the hole in the sloped roof. It glowed on the mirror’s bronze surface. For a moment, Corayne thought she saw a face, cold and white.
“We must go back,” she echoed.
7
Not Even Ghosts
Domacridhan
It’s all right to miss him. It’s all right to feel this hole.
Andry Trelland said as much some weeks ago, by the river and the willow trees, when the nightmares grew too horrible for even Dom to bear. It certainly felt like a hole now, growing wider with every passing second. First it swallowed his heart. The rest of him would soon follow.
The immortal Veder glared up at a night sky furious with stars. A hundred pinpricks of light in the endless dark. They winked to life one by one, returning with every sunset. In that moment, Domacridhan of Iona hated the stars, for they could not die.
Not like the rest of them. Not like every person, mortal or immortal, who Dom held dear. All of them were either gone or close to it, dancing along the knife-edge of obliteration. It was a strange thing to grasp—that everyone and everything he knew could end.
Corayne was hunted by the two most dangerous people in the realm, her face and name plastered across the Ward. Not to mention she was the only thing standing between Allward and the apocalypse. A precarious position for anyone to be in, let alone a young mortal. Andry was a fugitive right alongside her, and too noble for his own good. He might step in front of a sword at any moment. And Ridha, his beloved cousin, was gods-knew-where, riding the Ward in search of allies who might never come.
He cursed her mother’s cowardice, but missed her in the same painful breath. If only the Monarch of Iona stood with them now, her power and the power of the other immortal enclaves alongside them. He feared for her too, for everyone at home in Tíarma, for everyone inside the Heir’s tent. Even Valtik, muttering her way among the sand dunes. Only Sorasa Sarn was spared his worries. Dom doubted even the ending of the world could kill her. She would find a way out of it, somehow, no matter the cost to anyone else.
It was difficult to breathe, as if he’d spent the last few days running across the sand instead of riding. Dom’s chest went tight, and the wound at his side, though healed over, stung like a fresh injury. The scars were worse, hot and itching. He felt the creatures of Asunder again, their bone fingers and broken blades tearing at his skin.
In the nightmares, he did not escape them. In the nightmares, they pulled him down and down and down, until the sky was little more than a circle above him, the rest of the world black and red. He could hear Cortael screaming. He could smell his blood. Even awake, he sensed them both, the memory too sharp.
And now we must return.
The stars wheeled for minutes and centuries, endless overhead. Even in Iona, there were never so many stars. Dom searched them, looking for an answer.
The many thousands of lights did not reply.
But Domacridhan of Iona was not alone.
“Some say the stars are every realm in existence, their lights a call and an invitation.”
Dom did not move as the figure appeared beside him. He was of the same height, black-skinned with a crown of braided black hair. And immortal, a son of Glorian as much as Dom was.
Dom’s teeth parted in shock and he sucked in a ragged breath.
The immortal wore no armor, but instead long purple robes, with fine bracelets on his elegant wrists. They were intertwined panthers, worked in jet and onyx, their eyes set with emeralds. Dom knew what they meant, and which enclave they belonged to.
“I knew the court of Ibal kept close council with the Vedera of the south, but I did not expect to find one here. Let alone a prince of Barasa. What news do you carry, Sem?” Dom said, speaking in Vederan. The old language of his people felt good on his tongue.
