“We’re here!”
Andry panted as he rode up alongside their mare, back in the saddle, his face streaked with red dust. Blood bloomed along his sleeve, seeping from some wound. Corayne’s eyes flickered to it.
“One of the horses bit me,” he said, catching his breath. “Could’ve been worse.”
Another mare joined their number, breathing hard beneath the weight of Charlie Armont. “No shit. I nearly died,” he crowed, his face purple. There were angry burns on his arms, lines from the reins. He must’ve been dragged all the way through the canyon. “I nearly lost my supplies! My ink, my seals . . .”
Sigil rode out of the mirrored sand, her figure rippling into solid form. The horse danced beneath her. “A child could outride you, Priest,” she said dryly. “What of the witch?”
Corayne could not say what swelled in her, an instinct or a feeling or something deeper. But she didn’t bother looking for Valtik, in the herd or on the horizon. “She’ll come when we need her.”
Sorasa tightened under her hands, glancing over her shoulder. “I think we need her now.”
Soldiers ahead, soldiers behind. A Spindle between them.
Corayne looked to Dom, one hand on his reins, the other on her Spindleblade. He followed her gaze and dipped his brow. Again she saw him on the cliffs of Lemarta, kneeling on the road and begging her forgiveness. Asking me to save the world.
The water deepened the closer they rode to Nezri, until it was up to their horses’ knees, forcing them to slow to a trot. The Shiran pranced and bucked, snorting at the strangeness in their lands. Whatever protection they’d offered disappeared as the sand mares left the herd behind.
“Mirrors on the sand,” Sorasa murmured, the sun reflecting in her eyes. The strange water flecked her cheeks. She raised a hand to shade her gaze, inspecting the outpost ahead.
Corayne did the same, peering around the assassin’s shoulder. The palms sparkled, jeweled with dark droplets. A column of water like a gigantic fountain spouted into the air, a hundred feet high, wide as a tower, an impossible spring exploding out of the oasis basin. It roared with the crashing of a hundred waves, raining down on the city beneath. Like the water on the ground, it had an odd gray color, like oil or corruption. Corayne could feel it on her skin, tracking dirty lines down her face and neck.
Nezri was otherwise vibrant, but there was no one on the outskirts that Corayne could see. No citizens, no merchant caravans or pilgrims to the oasis temple. Perhaps the Spindle drove them away—or Erida’s men killed them all.
“There are at least two hundred men of Galland in that town,” Sorasa growled, pulling her bronze sword from the sheath strapped to her saddle. “Stay fast; don’t stop. Find the Spindle and get Corayne to it.”
Blades sang loose. An ax bit the air. A hook on a string swung in a lazy circle. Corayne felt for her stabbing dagger, somehow still at her hip. The hilt was unfamiliar, wrong in her hand, despite the little training she’d had from Sorasa and Sigil.
Seven against two hundred soldiers of Galland, a Spindle at their backs. Impossible, but then so was everything else up to this moment. We’ve overcome impossible before, Corayne told herself, trying to believe it, trying to be brave. For her mother somewhere, for her father dead. For her friends around her, and the realm threatening to collapse on them all.
“Dom, the sword?” she said, trying not to tremble. Her voice wavered but her hand did not, stretching across open air, her palm raised.
The Spindleblade shone, its etchings filled with the desert sun. Again, Corayne could feel the cold radiating off the ancient blade, as if its heart were frozen and not forged. Dom held it out to her, passing it between their mares.
Her fingers brushed the hilt, the leather soft.
A screaming mouth full of fangs rose up between their horses, spooking them down to the bone. The sea serpent was young, its scales a cloudy white, its eyes red and weeping black. Its jaws snapped inches from Corayne’s fingers, and Sorasa yanked her back out of its reach.
Dom changed his grip, flipping the blade through the air to take it by the hilt, swinging in the same motion. His horse reared and he missed, the Spindleblade chopping through open air instead of serpent flesh.
The mares tossed as the water foamed and rippled, splashing not from their hooves but from the quivering mass of serpents rolling over themselves, coiling and unfurling, white and black and red, gray and green and blue, scales like iridescent crystal or slick oil. The serpents circled, more and more drawn to the commotion, their movements like hunting waves.