born, certainly knew more of the world than a pirate’s daughter bound to shore.
The assassin returned Corayne’s stare, her eyes hard again. “I’ve seen many things that would terrify
most,” she replied. “Monsters and men. Mostly men.”
Corayne remembered her on the hilltop outside Lemarta, how she’d looked in the darkness when the
creatures went up in smoke. The danger was gone, had never even existed in the first place. And yet
Sorasa was afraid.
“So that’s a no,” Corayne scoffed.
“You are a long way from your safe harbor, Corayne an-Amarat.” Sorasa’s breath was cool, her eyes
narrowing to slits. Corayne felt seen through and hated it. “With only farther to go.”
Corayne clenched her teeth and turned away from the city. She glanced at Sorasa’s neck again,
remembering the scorpion, black as oil, its hooked stinger raised to strike. Was the tattoo a prize earned
or a punishment endured? Corayne fought the urge to ask.
“You’re a long way from home too, Sorasa.”
The sun glowed in Sorasa’s hair, illuminating each bend of black. With the sky bright and her hood
lowered, Corayne could see old scars on her exposed skin. Small cuts, long healed, from the nick of a
blade or a fist. They spoke of many hard years in a place Corayne would never see. Her curiosity flared,
not to be sated. It was annoying at best, like facing a puzzle she could not solve.
The assassin shifted. “Perhaps you should check on Dom. Make sure he hasn’t rotted down below, or
been sick again,” she said, gesturing toward the hold. The Elder was not so adept at disguise and so
would spend their journey to Ascal in a glorified cabinet below deck.
Instead Corayne curled her fingers on the railing, gripping the wood. She stood firm, refusing to be
chased away.
“I don’t like the way he looks at me,” she muttered. “He sees my father. He sees death. He sees failure.”
Corayne felt her shoulders bow with the weight of a person she had never known.
Sorasa glared at the sky. If there was one thing Corayne knew, the assassin hated the immortal. “I’d
guess a Spindlerotten Elder isn’t used to such things.”
“I think he sees my uncle too,” Corayne added, shoving out the words, hoping to cast out her guilt with
them. Her cheeks flared with heat. “I didn’t know I looked so much like them.”
The assassin didn’t answer, looking her over. Looking for the face of a fallen prince and a rising monster.
“I don’t belong anywhere,” Corayne said, her voice failing.
To her surprise, Sorasa cracked a smile. “There are plenty of people like that,” she said. “And nowhere
is still a somewhere.”
“That’s foolish.”
“Well, if you don’t belong to a place, perhaps we belong to each other? We who belong nowhere?”
Sorasa offered. Her copper eyes glimmered, dancing with the light off the river.
Despite the ugly feeling in the pit of her stomach, Corayne found herself smiling too. “Perhaps,” she
echoed.
“I never knew my parents,” Sorasa pressed on. “I only know where they came from. Couldn’t tell you
their names, who they were, if they are living or dead.” She spoke evenly, without emotion or attachment.
It was a statement of fact, nothing more. Not even a secret worth keeping.
Corayne bobbed her head. She felt the key in the lock. She need only turn it to open a door into Sorasa,
the Amhara, their ways. “The Guild is your family?” she asked, drawing closer.
A corner of Sorasa’s mouth lifted, her smirk turning cruel. She muttered something under her breath, in
Ibalet so fast and violent Corayne could not translate it, before switching to clear, daggered Paramount.
“They are not,” she growled.
The key shattered.
Neither spoke again until the ship was moving, the bright waters of the Impera carrying them out of the
city. Lecorra gave over to the walls and outskirts, then farmland, then forest and scrabbly hills. A few
towns clustered on the riverbank, with clay tile roofs and sleepy streets. Corayne turned her face
forward, to watch every new curve of land as it came into view. Sorasa did not move from her side but
did not bother to hide her annoyance at such a task.
On the deck, other travelers knotted in their groups. Most were merchant bands, along with a pair of
Siscarian couriers in a duke’s livery, and a performing troupe that was very bad at juggling. They
clustered, eager to stay out of the hold, where the row benches stank. Corayne thought of Dom, cooped
up in a minuscule cabin,
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