“Run,” he rattled.
“We won’t make it back the way we came in. And the kitchen bridge, the Bridge of Valor, the garrison docks . . .” Sorasa faltered, ticking off every path, every escape route she knew. Each one shuttered before her eyes. “I can get myself out of here, but not the rest of you.”
“Well, that’s helpful,” Corayne snapped.
The door banged again as something large and heavy collided with the wood. Probably a table being used as a battering ram. It wouldn’t be long until the door fell, or Erida’s guards approached from the other side. They had minutes, maybe.
Seconds.
Trelland crossed to the windows, looking out into manicured gardens. Torches leapt up all over as guards were roused and dispatched. A maze stood beyond the green lawns, shadowed in its spirals, a labyrinthine design of hedges. The palace cathedral sneered over it, proud and daunting, a grand wonder. Its columns arched like a rib cage. The squire’s face tightened.
“We should try Syrekom,” he said in a low voice.
“The cathedral?” Sorasa scoffed. The knight’s blood and Dom’s dried on her face and hands, crusting over. There was no difference between them, mortal and immortal. They tasted the same. “Claiming sanctuary only works in the stories, Squire. This isn’t one of them.”
A few knights were in the gardens, their torches bobbing, but none entered the maze. Sorasa tried to remember Syrekom Cathedral beyond it, a monster of gray marble and glass, a crown jewel of Ascal, built to honor their greatest and most terrible god.
“Syrekom,” Trelland said again, firmer this time.
His hand twitched, reaching for a sword that was not there. He had no armor, not even a knife that Sorasa could see. Only his trousers and torn coat, a bit short at the wrists. He was still growing, a boy even now, after all he’d seen. But he does not sound like a boy now.
“I’ll take us through the maze and then . . .” His gaze hooked on Dom’s blood. “I hope you can all swim.”
Sorasa eyed Dom. His breath came in short, beleaguered gasps. He glared back at her.
“I learned to swim before your bloodline began,” he growled, setting off with a stormy glare and a furious pace. She almost expected him to walk straight through a wall. Instead he kicked a door open, leaving it dangling on gold hinges.
Maybe he’ll drown, Sorasa thought idly, half a wish.
17
FOR THE REALM
Andry
The New Palace had been a home, a sanctuary, a school, a training yard. Now it was a prison, a hunting ground, an executioner’s block.
Andry felt the ax hanging over his head as he led the others into the maze, sprinting as fast as his long legs would carry him. In the barracks, he’d learned to run in armor. It had made him strong in steel, and even faster without it. But he felt bare now, vulnerable. I don’t even have a knife, he thought in frustration. Not that he could blame himself. How could he have expected Erida to turn on them, on him, on the Ward?
But she didn’t turn tonight, he told himself. His body shook all over, unmoored as the realization swept him out to sea. She’s already been against us, for gods know how long.
She’s been with him, Lord Cortael’s twin. That rogue bastard. The curse smarted in his head. Andry Trelland didn’t care for foul language, even running for his life.
Shouts rose all over the palace grounds, and torches flared through the gardens as the Queen’s knights gave chase. But they only existed on the edges of his mind. To Andry, there was only the maze—and his mother.
At Wayfarer’s Port by now, he told himself. It felt like a prayer waiting to be answered. On a ship already, safe with her carers, tucked into her chair. Sails raised, with a captain bound for her home. His heart tore inside him as he pictured Valeri Trelland at the rail of a ship, waiting for her son. I should have gone with her. This is no place for me. The maze pressed in, the rows perfectly manicured, not a leaf out of place. He wanted to burn it all to ashes. I just need to get off this island. That’s all I have to do. Get out of the palace, and get to the docks. He breathed hard, in through his nose, out through his teeth. Get off the island. Get to the docks.
Corayne panted next to him, fighting to keep up. Back in the apartments, she had not seemed so small, but now, with the sword on her back, with the world on her shoulders, Andry thought she might fade into nothing. Only her eyes were unchanged, somehow blacker than the sky above them. She looked back into the maze, trying to see through the hedges as they spiraled. Lord Domacridhan and the Ibalet woman kept up behind them.