Until she lowered her face, her mouth inches from his ribs. He could feel her breath on his skin, ghosting along the ridge of the closed wound. Dom nearly sprang off the table as she bit through the thread, tying off the last of his stitches. Her face was still, impassive, but smirking victory danced in her eyes.
Behind him, Corayne failed to smother a laugh. “I’ll take who I can get,” she said, patting Dom on the shoulder, “to accomplish what we need to do next.”
Her eyes trailed, fixing on the corner. Dom sat up and followed her gaze to see the Spindleblade, propped up and half hidden. A beam of sunlight spilled before it, swirling with motes of dust. Inside the mill, the Spindleblade seemed unremarkable, not even a relic. The jewels of the hilt were dull, the steel dim. Dom remembered it in the vaults of Iona, surrounded by a hundred candles, the reflections dancing. It had sat there for centuries, free from the ravages of time. He remembered it in Cortael’s hand, when it was time for him to take the Spindleblade as his own. There was no magic in the steel beyond its tie to the Spindles, but it seemed to bewitch him. The sword was a relic of a world dead, a people all but lost. It spoke to him in ways even Dom could not fathom. He wondered if the blade spoke to Cortael’s daughter in the same way. He could not know. She was more difficult for him to read, her eyes always darting, her mind working in furious motion. She changed paths too quickly for him to follow.
“We can’t hope to close the Spindle at the temple now,” Dom murmured. Gingerly, he stepped off the table, testing his legs. They held, the weakness of his wound fleeing. “Not without an army to fight our way through. He’ll have thousands of those specters assembled, many thousands. The wrath of the Ashlands and What Waits gathers.” Despite the warm air of the mill, he shuddered, hair raised on his bare arms. “And then there’s Taristan himself. I don’t know how to kill him.” He thought of Cortael, his sword plunging through Taristan’s chest. It did little. It did nothing. “If he even can be killed.”
Corayne’s eyes ran the length of the blade again, losing focus. Then she blinked, coming back to herself like someone rising from sleep. She turned her back on the blade and went to the wall, where a few crates were piled, not to mention some stolen saddlebags from the stolen horses outside. After a moment, she produced a dark gray, rough-spun shirt and tossed it at Dom. He pulled it over his head, nose curling at the smell and the touch of the poorly made clothing.
“Let’s focus on what we can do, not what we can’t,” Corayne said. “We’ve got a Spindleblade. We’ve got Spindleblood. We’ve got an immortal prince of Iona who witnessed the tearing of a Spindle and Erida’s alliance to my uncle. We’ve got—all this,” she added, gesturing vaguely at Sarn, now leaning against the window. “Certainly there are others who will listen. Other monarchs, Elders, someone.”
Dom rolled the sleeves of the shirt, which were somehow too long. “I have a cousin, heir to the throne of Iona. She rides the Ward now, seeking aid from the other enclaves. If anyone can rally the Vedera, she can,” he said, as much as the thought of Ridha pained him.
Corayne bobbed her head. “Well, that’s something.”
“It’s basically nothing,” Sarn muttered from the window.
“It’s something,” Corayne snapped.
The assassin shrugged, unconvinced. She flicked a braid over her shoulder, peering out the window.
Dom could finally hear Andry outside, his footsteps harried as he burst through the door.
The squire was less disheveled than the other two. Even his bruises were not so bad. With his open manner and lanky frame, he could easily pass for a wealthy farmer’s son, or a young tradesman traveling the countryside. He had the kind of face people trusted and overlooked.
“Sorasa, you should—” he began, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder. Then he spotted Dom standing and ducked into a quick, practiced bow. “Oh, good to see you awake, my lord.”
Sarn curled her lip. “Don’t call him that.”
Dom ignored her, as he tried to do always. “Thank you, Andry. What is it?”
The wheel churned outside, gears groaning as the stream babbled on. Birds sang in the fields, and the wind was gentle through the leaves. Dom listened hard but could find nothing amiss. After Ascal, the peace of the farm was shocking.
Andry glanced back and forth, one hand braced to keep the door open. He gestured to the farmhouse, a dilapidated wreck across the lane, half hidden by gnarled apple trees. Abandoned, for years if not a decade.