In the chaos, Ead looked for the Night Hawk, but there was too much panic, too many bodies. Sabran stayed rooted in place, fists clenched at her side, unbowed.
A preternatural calm descended on Ead. As she drew two blades, she forgot that Ladies of the Bedchamber were not educated in combat. She let fall the cloak of secrecy she had worn for all these years. All she knew was her duty. To keep Sabran alive.
The war dance was calling to her. As it had the first time she had hunted a basilisk. Like wind on fire, she flashed into the next wave of attackers, wheeling her blades, and they fell dead around her.
She pulled herself back from the brink. Lintley was staring at her, his face dappled with blood. A scream made his head turn. Linora. She keened in terror, pleading, as two of the doomsingers wrestled her to the ground. Ead and Lintley both ran toward her at once, but a knife opened her throat, spraying blood, and it was too late, she was lost.
Ead tried to temper her shock, but bile scalded her gorge. Sabran stared at her dying lady. The Knights of the Body encircled their queen, but they were surrounded, the threat everywhere. Another masked figure charged at the royals, but Roslain, with a ferocity Ead had never seen in her, thrust her knife into his thigh. A shout came from behind the mask.
“The Nameless One will rise,” a voice said, panting. “We pledge our allegiance.” Fog obscured the eyeholes. “Death to the House of Berethnet!”
Roslain went for his throat, but he smashed his fist into her head, snapping it back. Sabran cried out in anger. Ead pulled out of the fray and ran toward her just as the knave slashed with a knife at Lievelyn, who raised his sword just in time to parry.
The tussle that followed was short and violent. Lievelyn was the stronger, years of tutelage behind every movement. With one brutal downcut, it was over.
Sabran backed away from the corpse. Her companion beheld his own sword and swallowed. Blood dripped from its blade.
“Your Majesty, Your Royal Highness, follow me.” A Knight of the Body had broken free of the fray. His copper-plated armor was redder than before. “I know a safe place in this ward. Captain Lintley commanded me to take you hence. We must go now.”
Ead pointed one of her knives at him. Most Knights of the Body wore close helms outdoors, and the voice beneath this one was muffled. “Come no farther,” she said. “Who are you?”
“Sir Grance Lambren.”
“Take off your helm.”
“Peace, Mistress Duryan. I recognize his voice,” Lievelyn said. “It is not safe for Sir Grance to remove his helm.”
“Ros—” Sabran was straining to reach her Chief Gentlewoman. “Aubrecht, carry her, please.”
Ead looked for Margret and Katryen, but they were nowhere to be seen. Linora lay in her lake of blood, eyes glazed in death.
Lievelyn gathered Roslain into his arms and followed Sir Grance Lambren, who was rushing Sabran away. Roundly cursing Lievelyn for his trust, Ead chased after them. The other Knights of the Body strove to join their queen, but they were overwhelmed.
How had someone orchestrated such a swarm?
She caught up to Sabran and Lievelyn just as Lambren was leading them around a corner, out of sight of Berethnet Mile. He took them through an overgrown charnel garden on Quiver Lane, to a sanctuary that had fallen into ruin. He shepherded his royal charges inside, but when Ead reached the doors, he barred her way.
“You ought to find the other ladies, mistress.”
“I will follow the queen, sir,” Ead said, “or you will not.”
Lambren did not move. She tightened her grip on her knives.
“Ead.” Sabran. “Ead, where are you?”
The knight was as a statue for a moment longer before he stood aside. Once Ead had passed, he sheathed his sword and bolted the doors behind them. When he removed his helm, Ead beheld the ruddy face of Sir Grance Lambren. He shot her a look of intense dislike.
The interior of the sanctuary was as wild as the charnel garden. Weeds fingered through the shattered windows. Roslain lay on the altar, still but for the rise and fall of her breast. Sabran, who had covered her with her own cloak, stood beside her with outward composure, holding her limp hand.
Lievelyn paced back and forth, his face pinched. “Those poor souls outside. Lady Linora—” Blood smeared his cheek. “Sabran, I must return to the street and assist Captain Lintley. You stay with Sir Grance and Mistress Duryan.”
At once, Sabran went to him. “No.” She grasped his elbows. “I command you to stay.”
“Mine is as good a sword as any,” Lievelyn told her. “My Royal Guard—”
“My Knights of the Body are also outside,” Sabran cut in, “but if we die, their labors to protect us will be in vain. They will have to think of us as well as themselves.”
Lievelyn framed her face in his hands.
“Sweeting,” he said, “I will be all right.”
For the first time, Ead saw how deeply in love with Sabran he was, and it shook her. “Damn you, you are my companion. You have shared my bed. My flesh. My—my heart,” Sabran snapped at him. Her face was taut, her voice ragged. “And you will not leave our daughter fatherless, Aubrecht Lievelyn. You will not leave us here to mourn you.”
His face twitched from one expression to another. Hope kindled a light in his eyes.
“Is it true?”
Holding his gaze, Sabran took his hand in hers and guided it to her belly.
“It is true,” she said very softly.
Lievelyn released a breath. A smile pulled at his mouth, and he stroked a thumb over her cheek.
“Then I am the most fortunate of all princes,” he whispered. “And I swear to you, our child will be the most beloved princess who ever lived.” Breathing out, he gathered Sabran to his chest. “My queen. My blessing. I will love you both until I am worthy of my good fortune.”
“You are already worthy.” Sabran kissed his jaw. “Do you not wear my love-knot ring?”
She set her chin on his shoulder. Her hands stroked up and down his back, and her eyes fluttered shut as he touched his lips to her temple. Whatever tension had been there was erased. A flame pressed into nonexistence as the rift between their bodies closed.
Fists hammered on the doors.
“Sabran,” a voice called. “Majesty, it’s Kate, with Margret! Please, let us in!”
“Kate, Meg—” Sabran pulled away from Lievelyn at once. “Let them in,” she barked at Lambren. “Make haste, Sir Grance.”
Too slow, Ead heard the trick. It was not Lady Katryen Withy behind that door. It was an imitation. The mockery of a mimic.
“No,” she said sharply. “Stop.”
“How dare you countermand my orders?” Sabran rounded on her. “Who gave you authority?”
She was flushed with anger, but Ead kept her nerve. “Majesty, it is not Katryen—”
“I think I should know her voice.” Sabran nodded to Lambren. “Let my ladies in. Now.”
He was a Knight of the Body, so he obeyed.
Ead wasted no time. One of her knives was already slicing through the air when Lambren unlocked the doors and someone crashed into the sanctuary. The intruder avoided whirling death with one deft turn, fired a pistol at Lambren, then pointed it at Ead.
Lambren collapsed with a peal of armor on stone. The bullet was buried between his eyes.
“Don’t move, Ersyri,” a voice said. The pistol smoked. “Put down that knife.”
“So you can kill the Queen of Inys?” Ead remained still. “I would sooner you kept that pistol on my heart—but I suspect you only have one bullet, else all of us would be dead.”
The cutthroat gave no answer.
“Who sent you?” Sabran squared her shoulders. “Who conspires to end the bloodline of the Saint?”
“The Cupbearer wishes you no ill, Your Majesty, except when you do not listen to reason. Except when you lead Inys down paths it should not tread.”
Cupbearer.
“Paths,” the woman continued, her voice muffled by
the plague mask, “that will lead Inys toward sin.”
As the pistol snapped toward the royals, Ead threw her last knife. It struck the cutthroat through the heart just as the pistol fired.
Sabran flinched. Ead closed the space between them and felt for moisture on her bodice, sick with dread, but there was no blood. The gown was still pristine.
Behind them, Aubrecht Lievelyn dropped to one knee. His hands were at his doublet, where darkness was spreading.
“Sabran,” he murmured.
She turned.
“No,” she rasped. “Aubrecht—”
Ead watched, as if from a great distance, as the Queen of Inys ran to her companion and lowered him to the floor with her, gasping out his name as his heart’s blood soaked into her skirts. As she held him close and pleaded with him to stay with her, even as he slipped away. As she doubled over him, cradling his head. As he grew still.
“Aubrecht.” Sabran looked up, her eyes overflowing. “Ead. Ead, help him, please—”
Ead had no time to go to her. The doors opened again, and a second cutthroat stumbled into the sanctuary, heaving. At once, Ead divested the dead Lambren of his sword and pinned the cutthroat to the wall.
“Take off your mask,” she bit out, “or I swear to you, I will take off the face beneath it.”
Two gloved hands revealed a pale countenance. Truyde utt Zeedeur stared at the lifeless High Prince of Mentendon.
“I never meant for him to die,” she whispered. “I only wanted to help you, Your Majesty. I only wanted you to listen.”
27
East
Niclays Roos was conniving. And it was a plan so dangerous and unflinching that he almost wondered if he really had come up with it, eternal coward that he was.
He was going to make the elixir and buy his way back to the West if it killed him. And it very well might. To escape Orisima for good, and to breathe life back into his work, he needed to take a risk. He needed what Eastern law had denied him.
He needed blood from a dragon, to see how gods renewed themselves.
And he knew just where to start.
The servants were busy in the kitchen. “What help can we be, learnèd Doctor Roos?” one asked when Niclays appeared in the doorway.
“I need to send a message.” Before Niclays could lose the speck of courage that remained to him, he held out the letter. “It must reach the honored Lady Tané at Salt Flower Castle before sunset. Will you take it to the postriders for me?”
“Yes, learnèd Doctor Roos. It will be done.”
“Do not tell them who sent it,” he added quietly. She looked uncertain, but promised she would not. He handed her money enough to pay a postrider, and she left.
All he could do now was wait.
Fortunately, waiting meant more time to read. While Eizaru was at the market and Purumé was tending to patients, Niclays sat in his room, the bobtail cat purring beside him, and perused The Price of Gold, his favorite text on alchemy. His copy was well worn.
As he turned to a new chapter that afternoon, a sliver of delicate silk fluttered out.
His breath caught. He retrieved the fragment from the floor and smoothed it out before the cat could claw it to shreds. It had been years since he had last brought himself to look at the greatest mystery of his life.
Most of the books and documents in his possession had once belonged to Jannart, who had bequeathed half of his library to Niclays, as well as his armillary sphere, a Lacustrine candle clock, and a host of other curiosities. There had been many beautiful tomes in the collection—illuminated manuscripts, rare tracts, miniature prayer books—but nothing had obsessed Niclays more than this tiny scrap of silk. Not because it was brushed with a language he could not decipher, and not because it was clearly very old—but because in attempting to unlock its secret, Jannart had lost his life.
Aleidine, his widow, had given it to Truyde, who had mourned for her grandfather by fixating on his possessions. The child had kept the fragment in a locket for a year.
Just before Niclays had left for Inys, Truyde had come to his house in Brygstad. She had worn a little ruff, and her hair—Jannart’s hair—had curled around her shoulders.
Uncle Niclays, she had said gravely, I know you are leaving soon. My lord grandsire was holding this piece of paper when he died. I have tried to work out what it says, but the petty school has not taught me enough. She had offered it with a gloved hand. Papa says you are very clever. I think you will be able to work out what the writing means.
This belongs to you, child, he had said, even as he had ached to take it. Your lady grandmother gave it to you.
I think it was supposed to be for you. I would like you to have it. Only write to me and tell me if you work out what it means.
He had never been able to send her good news. Based on the script and material, the fragment was certainly from the ancient East, but that was all Jannart had gleaned from it at the time of his death. Years had passed, and still Niclays did not know why he had been clutching it on his deathbed.
He rolled it now, carefully, and slotted it into the ornate case Eizaru had gifted him. He dried his eyes, breathed in deeply, and opened The Price of Gold once again.
That evening, Niclays supped with Eizaru and Purumé before feigning sleep. As night fell, he crept from his room and put on a hat that belonged to Eizaru. Then he stole into the dark.
He knew his way to the beach. Evading the sentinels, he hurried past the night markets, head down and cane in hand.
There were no lantems to betray his arrival on the beach. It was empty of everyone but her.
Tané Miduchi waited beside a rock pool. The brim of a helm cast her face into shadow. Niclays sat at a distance.
“You honor me with your presence, Lady Tané.”
It was some time before she answered. “You speak Seiikinese.”
“Of course.”
“What do you want?”
“A favor.”
“I owe you no favors.” Her voice was cold and soft. “I could kill you here.”
“I suspected you might threaten me, which is why I left a note about your crime with the learnèd Doctor Moyaka.” A lie, but she had no way of knowing that. “His household is asleep now—but if I do not return to burned that note, all of them will know what you have done. I doubt the Sea General will allow you to keep your place among the riders—you, who might have let the red sickness into Seiiki.”
“You misjudge what I would do to keep that place.”
Niclays chuckled. “You left an innocent man and a young woman to die in the shit and piss of a jailhouse, all so your special ceremony would go just as you wanted,” he reminded her. “No, Lady Tané. I have not misjudged you. I feel as if I know you very well.”
She was quiet for some time. Then: “You said young woman.”
Of course, she could have no idea. “I doubt you care for poor Sulyard,” Niclays said, “but your friend from the theatre was arrested, too. I shudder to think of what they might have done to try to draw your name from her.”
“You are lying.”
Niclays watched her lips press together. They were all he could see of her face.
“I offer you a fair bargain,” he said. “I will leave here tonight and say nothing of your involvement with Sulyard. In exchange for my silence, you will bring me blood and scale from your dragon.”
She moved like a bird taking wing. Suddenly a keen-edged blade was pressed against his throat.
“Blood,” she whispered, “and scale.”
Her hand was shaking. Instinct screamed at Niclays to recoil, but he found himself anchored in place.
“You would have me mutilate a dragon. Defile the flesh of a god,” the dragonrider said. He could see her eyes now, and they cut deeper than her blade. “The authorities will do worse to you than beheading. You will be burned alive. The water in you is too polluted to cleanse.”
“I wonder if they will burn you for your crimes. Abetting a trespasse
r. Contempt of the sea ban. Putting the whole of Seiiki at risk.” Niclays gritted his teeth when her knife bit into his neck. “Sulyard will confirm what I say. He remembered your face in great detail, I’m afraid, down to that scar of yours. No one listened, of course, but if I join my voice to his . . .”
She was shivering now.
“So,” she said, “you are threatening me.” She withdrew the knife. “But not to save Sulyard. You use the suffering of others for your own gain. You are a servant of the Nameless One.”
“Oh, nothing as exciting as that, Lady Tané. Just a lonely old man, trying to get off this island so I can die in my own country.” Warmth dampened his collar. “I understand you may need some time to obtain what I need. I will be on this beach four days from now, at dusk. If you do not come, I advise you to leave Ginura with all speed.”
He bowed deeply and left her there, alone beneath the stars.
The sun welled up like blood from a wound. Tané sat on the cliff that overlooked Ginura Bay, watching the waves shatter into white crystal on the rocks below.
Her shoulder throbbed where Turosa had sliced into it. She drank the wine she had taken from the kitchens, and it burned her from the roof of her mouth to her chest.
These were her last hours as Lady Tané of Clan Miduchi. Only a few days after receiving her new name, she would be stripped of it.
Tané traced the scar on her cheek, the scar that had made her memorable to Sulyard. The scar from saving Susa. It was not her only scar—she had another, deeper mark on her side. She had no memory of receiving that one.
She thought of Susa, languishing in jail. And then she thought of what Roos wanted her to do, and her stomach flopped like a fish on dry land.
Even disfiguring an image of a dragon was forbidden on pain of death. To steal the blood and armor of a god was more than criminal. There were pirates who used firecloud to put dragons to sleep, haul them into stolen treasure ships, and strip them of everything they could sell on the shadow market in Kawontay, from their teeth to the blubber under their scales. It was the gravest of all crimes in the East, and past Warlords had been known to punish those involved with brutal public executions.
The Priory of the Orange Tree Page 31
