“To her, it was a test. She’d been aware of the second group circling, and told me she wanted me to have some controlled experience. I’d never heard of anything more ridiculous.” The woman had been either brilliant or insane. Likely both. “But she told me … told me it was better to be suffering in the streets of Antica than in Innish. And that if I wanted to come here, I should go. That if I wanted something, I should take it. She told me to fight for my miserable life.”

Yrene brushed the sweat-damp hair from his eyes. “I patched her up and she went on her way. And when I got back to my room … She had left me a bag of gold. And a golden brooch with a ruby the size of a robin’s egg. To pay for my passage here, and any tuition at the Torre.”

He blinked in surprise. Yrene whispered, voice breaking, “I think she was a god. I—I don’t know who would do that. I have a little gold left, but the brooch … I never sold it. I still have it.”

He frowned at the necklace, as if he’d misjudged its size.

Yrene added, “That’s not what I keep in my pocket.” His brows rose. “I left Innish that morning. I took the gold and the brooch and got on a ship here. So I crossed mountains alone, yes—but the Narrow Sea …” Yrene traced the waves on the locket. “I crossed because of her. I teach the women at the Torre because she told me to share the knowledge with any women who would listen. I teach it because it makes me feel like I’m paying her back, in some small way.”

Yrene ran her thumb over the initials on the front. “I never learned her name. She only left a note with two lines. For wherever you need to go—and then some. The world needs more healers. That’s what I keep in my pocket—that little scrap of paper. What’s now in here.” Yrene tapped the locket. “I know it’s silly, but it gave me courage. When things were hard, it gave me courage. It still does.”

Chaol swept the hair from her brow and kissed it. “There is nothing silly about it. And whoever she is … I will be forever grateful.”

“Me too,” Yrene whispered as he slid his mouth over her jaw and her toes curled. “Me too.”

47

The pass between the twin peaks of Dagul was larger than it looked.

It went on and on, a maze of jagged, towering rock.

Nesryn and Sartaq did not dare stop.

Webs sometimes blocked their way, or hovered above, but still they charged onward, seeking any sort of path upward. To where Kadara might pluck them into the sky.

For down here, with the cramped, narrow walls of the pass, the ruk could not reach them. If they were to stand a chance of being rescued, they’d have to find a way up.

Nesryn didn’t dare let Falkan out—not yet. Not when so many things could still go so wrong, and letting the spiders know what sort of card they had up their sleeve … No, not yet would she risk using him.

But the temptation gnawed on her. The walls were smooth, ill-fitted for climbing, and as they hurried through the pass, hour after hour, Sartaq’s wet, labored breaths echoed off the rock.

He was in no state to climb. He was barely able to stay upright, or grip his sword.

Nesryn kept an arrow nocked, ready to fly as they rounded corner after corner, glancing up every now and then.

The pass was so tight in spots that they had to squeeze through, the sky a watery trickle high above. They did not speak, did not dare do more than breathe as they kept their steps light.

It made no difference. Nesryn knew it made little difference.

A trap had been laid for them, and they had fallen into it. The kharankui knew where they were. Were likely following at their leisure, herding them along.

It had been hours since they’d last heard the boom of Kadara’s wings.

And the light … it was beginning to fade.

Once darkness fell, once the way became too dark to manage … Nesryn pressed a hand to Falkan, still in her pocket. When the night settled upon the pass, she decided, then she’d use him.

They pushed through a particularly tight passage between two near-kissing boulders, Sartaq grunting behind her. “We have to be nearing the end,” he breathed.

She didn’t tell him that she doubted the spiders were stupid enough to allow them to walk right out of the other side of the pass and into Kadara’s awaiting talons. If the injured ruk could even manage their weight.

Nesryn just pushed onward, the pass becoming a fraction wider, counting her breaths. They were likely some of her last—

Thinking that way helped no one and nothing. She’d stared down death this summer, when that wave of glass had come crashing toward her. Had stared it down, and been saved.

Perhaps she would be lucky again, too.

Sartaq stumbled out behind her, breathing hard. Water. They desperately needed water—and bandages for his wounds. If the spiders did not find them, then the lack of water in the arid pass might very well kill them first. Long before any help arrived from the Eridun rukhin.

Nesryn forced one step in front of another, the path narrowing again, the rock as tight as a vise. She twisted sideways, edging through, her swords scraping.

Sartaq grunted, then let out a pained curse. “I’m stuck.”

She found him indeed wedged behind her, the bulk of his broad chest and shoulders pinned. He shoved himself forward, blood leaking from his wounds as he pushed and pulled.

“Stop,” she ordered. “Stop—wriggle back out if you can.” There was no other way through and nothing to climb over, but if they removed his weapons—

His dark eyes met hers. She saw the words forming.

You keep going.

“Sartaq,” she breathed.

They heard it then.

Claws clicking on stone. Skittering along.

Many of them. Too many. Coming from behind, closing in.

Nesryn grabbed the prince’s hand, tugging. “Push,” she panted. “Push.”

He grunted in pain, the veins in his neck bulging as he tried to squeeze through, his boots scraping on the loose rock—

Nesryn dug her own feet in, gritting her teeth as she hauled him forward.

Click, click, click—

“Harder,” she gasped.

Sartaq angled his head, shoving against the rock that held him.

“What a fine morsel, our guest,” hissed a soft female voice. “So large he cannot even fit through the passage. How we shall feast.”