Page 84 of Realm Breaker (Realm Breaker 1)

The Elder bit his lip. “Are you certain of that?”

The assassin shrugged. “Fine, slit her throat.”

“Sorasa,” Corayne hissed, sucking in a breath.

Andry squared his shoulders. “You’ll do no such thing,” he barked, and Corayne saw the flash of a knight in him.

Sorasa glanced between them, puzzled. “You’re being hunted by the Queen of Galland and a demon king. I don’t recommend making it any easier for them.”

The sleeping woman sat up quickly, as if she’d never been sleeping at all. Her eyes opened, blue as the most brilliant sky. Her mouth was like a gash, her lips thin, lined by wrinkles from a lifetime of smiling.

“Kill me and Allward is as good as gone,” the old woman said cheerfully. Her voice lilted, playful, edged in a familiar accent. The woman’s gaze bore into her like a battering ram, a grin jagged on her pale, old face. “Don’t gape,pyrta gaera; it hasn’t been so long.”

Corayne clenched her teeth against a cry of shock.

“You,” she breathed.The old woman from the ship, the Jydi peddler. Useless trinkets and silly rhymes.

Dom rose from his crouch as the woman scrambled to her feet. “You know her?”

“She was on the ship to the capital,” Sorasa said, putting her body between Corayne and the Jydi. “She boarded when we put in at Corranport and then got off in Ascal with the rest.” Her eyes roved over the old woman. She looked the same as she had on the galley, swaddled in a mismatched shawl and filthy dress. Her feet were bare and black with dirt. “You followed us.”

“I don’t see how that’s possible, Sorasa,” Corayne breathed.From the docks, to the palace, chased out of the city. It doesn’t make sense. She would have to know where we were going before we did.Her hand twitched at her side. Cold prickled in her fingers.

The old woman shook her head, laughing.

“You followedme,” she crowed, patting down her manic hair. “Or your horses did, good beasts they be.” She shuffled toward the pot in the hearth. Her hands were like bird wings, fragile and flapping.

Sorasa pushed Corayne away, backing them both out of the woman’s path.

She paid them no attention and upended the pot, spilling bones across the floor. Rib bones, leg bones, vertebrae, and skulls. Rats, rabbits, birds. All picked clean, white as clouds. She let them fall, observing a pattern the rest couldn’t see.

“You’re a witch,” Andry said, sounding dazed.

She didn’t answer, inspecting her mess. The Jydi was lithe for her age, turning and twisting, even dropping to the floor to inspect the spread of bones from every possible angle.

“A witch,” Corayne murmured. In her pocket, her fingers closed around a twist of wood. She pulled it loose, the sharp ends black with dried blood.

The Jydi shrugged. “I’m what I am, and that should be.” Then she tutted to herself, a liver-spotted hand on her chin as she searched the bones. “I should have done this under a tree.”

The charm trembled in Corayne’s hand. “Why did you give me this?” she asked, the bone beads dangling from her fingers.

The old Jydi didn’t reply, too busy with the floor.

Dom stepped around her, keeping his distance. He was twice her size, if not more. “I think the better question is,whoare you?”

“Or, perhaps, why are we bothering with this at all?” Sorasa said, her eyes flashing in frustration. She gestured to their horses, tied up across the lane. “We need to keep moving.”

“I gave you something?” the woman murmured to Corayne distantly. She finally looked at her, and at the charm still in her hand. Confusion clouded her brilliant eyes.

Corayne clenched her teeth. “Yes, on the ship,Gaeda.”Grandmother.“Do you remember?” She stretched out her arm, holding the charm within reach.

The old woman swooped, snatching it away. The touch of her fingers was like ice, and Corayne flinched.

“It’s only branch and string,” the Jydi said, inspecting the twigs. “Something and nothing.” She ran the beads over in her palms, then licked the bloody ends. The rest of the room grimaced as she tucked it into her dress.

“Sarn is right—we can’t stay,” Dom huffed.Desperate enough to agree with Sorasa.“Erida’s soldiers will be searching for us, and for the Spindleblade. We have to keep ahead of them.”

Andry picked his way through his neat piles, careful to avoid the bones. “Galland keeps a standing army in Canterweld, half a day’s ride north. They’ll be out ranging for us by the end of the day, if they aren’t already. Ten thousand combing the countryside.” He shook his head, despairing of their chances already. He stuffed a sack with cloth for bandages, a ball of string, and, to Corayne’s surprise, a dented teakettle. “If the Queen calls a muster...”

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