the world moved on in its shadow. The stumbling kingdom of Larsia grew and eventually chafed with
the might of neighboring Galland. The Larsians fought to defend their border from encroachment. The
city now called Adira filled the cracks between.
Wedged between warring kingdoms, often cut off by battle or blockade, Adira survived through less than
honorable means. Pirate ships regularly ran Gallish blockades to feed the hungry city. Cutthroats and
rogues slipped around entrenched armies. Within the walls, the city rotted like an apple. The King of
Larsia did not have the strength to wrest it back from the criminals who controlled it, and Galland would
not bother. The Gallish kings cared for glittering capitals and vast expanses of rich land. Not a fortress
slum on a marshy peninsula, its streets bristling with rusty knives and gutter rats. Adira adapted to the
world as it was, becoming what it needed to be.
The peninsula had a gray-green look as they approached from the north, a spit of land shoved out into
the Bay alongside the mouth of the Orsal. The river flowed through marshland, belching silt into the bluer
salt water. Adira sat at the peninsula’s head, the city walled in by a crown of mossy stone and wooden
palisade. A stone causeway zigzagged over the marshes, through the worst of the mud, with no less
than six drawbridges, all of them pulled up. It was a Cor-built wonder, like the roads, aqueducts, and
amphitheaters within the old borders. There would be no assaulting Adira from land, not by any army
upon the Ward.
As they rode onto the causeway, Corayne caught sight of the docks before the mist closed it. The sails
of a dozen ships crowded the harbor like needles in a pincushion. Pirates and smugglers all. Not a
single flag of a lawful kingdom. Corayne smiled as she had in Lecorra, drawn to this place, rooted in it
somehow. But this time it wasn’t the Spindletouched echoes of Cortael she felt. This was the land of her
mother, of Hell Mel.
Andry balanced her obvious excitement with naked fear. His eyes locked on the first drawbridge, drawn
up against the sky like a flat hand ready to fall and crush them all. The squire of a noble court had no
place here. He already stuck out like a sore thumb, even next to Dom. And that was a very high mark to
clear.
“Hey, no worries,” Corayne murmured to him, drawing her horse in close. She bent, the sword digging
into her back. “Half the stories aren’t even true. No one’s going to boil your face off and sell your skull.”
The reins cracked in his fists. His eyes widened. “I never heard that one before.”
The first drawbridge fell without so much as a word from any of them, not even a bribe from Dom or a
threat from Sorasa. On the other side, two bridge wardens stood, toothless and gray-faced, silent as
they rode on. Corayne thought a bit of face boiling might improve their appearance.
“Draw your hoods,” Sorasa said, pulling her cowl into place. She arranged the shawl around her
shoulders so the daggers in her belt and the sword at her side would be easy to wield.
Dom did the same, stone-faced, sweeping the green cloak of Iona back from his left hip. He seemed a
bit lighter these days. The road must agree with him, Corayne thought. The mist closed in, nearly
obscuring Valtik as she plodded along at the rear. On her gray horse in her gray clothes, she was a
shadow as much as the bridge wardens, a ghost of the marsh. Even her lurid eyes were veiled, gone to
gray like the rest of the world.
Corayne felt like a horse blinkered. There was only the causeway and the muffling silence of the mist.
The land around Adira existed in some eerie in-between, part of no kingdom, separated by a narrow
barrier of mud.
At the second bridge, the wardens had bows ready, arrows quivered at their hips. Corayne suspected
there were more hiding in the wetlands.
“You lost?” one asked, his voice lisping over his broken teeth. His cheeks were pockmarked.
“Not yet,” Sorasa answered.
The bridge fell.
Such was the way at every turn: wardens shouted challenges and Sorasa answered. Corayne couldn’t
tell if it was a code or not. She memorized the responses all the same. You lost? Not yet. What’s your
business? Same as yours. Who do you know in the city? Too many to name. Are you