“Not like your mother does,” Dyrian muttered. “The Monarch of Iona is Glorianborn. I cannot fault her for seizing any opportunity to return to the land of our ancestors, the realm that sings in her blood. She aches for home, as so many do.” He turned in his chair, assessing the other immortals. A few were silver-haired, thousands of years old, their hearts in another realm too. They stared, silent, their faces like a stone wall no one could ever climb.
Ridha felt sick, her stomach twisting.
Then the Monarch looked back to her, his wolf eyes alight.
“I do not,” he said sternly.
She felt the breath leave her body. “My lord—”
His mother stood, her dress of mail shimmering like scales on a fish. She was near seven feet tall, milk-skinned, a warrior queen with scars on her knuckles.
“What brought you here?” she demanded. There was a strange rasp to her voice, unnatural. Ridha gulped, spotting another scar, a pearly line of white cut across her throat. “Of all the enclaves? We are not the strongest nor the largest. The journey is not easy, even before the winter, even for an immortal such as you. Why us, Ridha of Iona?”
“The raiders of the Watchful Sea have not raided; no gray sails fly,” she said simply. It was no use to tell them she heard this at a no-name tavern, from mortals already fading to dust.
“Their longboats haven’t been spotted this season. The towns and villages of the southern kingdoms have not burned.” It had been decades, but Ridha still remembered the sight of longboats on the water, emerging from a cloud of smoke with flame at their backs. Like dragons rising out of the sea.
The Vedera of Kovalinn did not answer.
Ridha crept forward. If this was victory, she could feel it in her fingers, nearly slipping. “What are they running from?”
“Running?” Dyrian scoffed. He eyed his mother, still standing, nearly a bear herself. “No, the raiders of the Jyd do not run.”
Fear lanced down Ridha’s spine. Fear . . . and hope. Her voice shook. “Then what are they preparing to fight?”
On the floor, the bear stirred, yawning his fearsome jaws. His teeth were three inches long, yellow and dripping. He looked up at his master and blinked sleepy, warm eyes. Again, Dyrian scratched his fur, earning a satisfied hum from the bear’s throat.
This time, the Monarch did not smile. He did not look like a child anymore.
“The enemy we all must face,” he said. “Whether we choose to or not.”
30
AGAINST THE GODS
Sorasa
There were three prisons in Almasad. One on the water, the cells half flooded at high tide, with crocodiles tearing at the bars. One on the outskirts, between the city and the dunes, the cells open to the sun, so that prisoners burned and blistered within hours of captivity. The third was buried beneath the citadel fortress of the city’s central garrison, its cells dark and cool and sepulchral, secure as a tomb. The first two were unpleasant, but manageable. Sorasa Sarn had swum and climbed her way out of both.
She gritted her teeth as they were led, bound and gagged, to the third. Taltora, she knew, cursing its name.
Sorasa kept her face lowered. It wasn’t difficult to look defeated. After all, Sigil had betrayed them.
I should have known, she thought as their footsteps echoed. She never saw the corpses on the hill. She never saw Taristan of Old Cor, the red wizard at his side. Sigil is of the Ward, still existing within the rules she understands.
And she’s right, Sorasa thought. In another time, I would have done the same.
The Ibalet officers brought them to a guardroom below the prison fortress, flaring with torches, its walls lined with shelves and trunks. The Ibalets wasted no time stripping away their weaponry, relieving Dom and Andry of their swords. Corayne grimaced in the flickering light, her eyes too wide as they removed her cloak and tossed it away. She fought weakly, choking against her gag, when they unbuckled the Spindleblade and took it gingerly from her back.
Dom bucked against his captors, but six men and a heavy iron chain around his wrists and ankles were enough to keep the Elder from escape. Sigil warned them, Sorasa cursed, watching him writhe in vain.
The bounty hunter was nowhere in sight, and neither were the Gallish soldiers in their cloaks. While the soldiers patted down Valtik, puzzling at her trinkets, Sorasa imagined Sigil in the soldiers’ mess, surrounded by the northern troops. Or perhaps in the warden’s office, collecting a seal of merit to be presented for payment in Ascal. The latter, most likely. Sigil enjoys nothing until her business is completed.