“No. All I had from Sigoso was that phrase.”
“At first I thought it was the Night Hawk,” Ead admitted, “but now I am all but certain that it is Igrain Crest. The twin cups are her badge.”
“Lady Igrain. But Sab loves her,” Loth said, visibly stunned. “Besides, anyone who takes the Knight of Justice as their patron wears the goblets—and the Cupbearer conspired with King Sigoso to murder Queen Rosarian. Why would Crest do such a thing?”
“I don’t know,” Ead said frankly, “but she recommended Sabran marry the Chieftain of Askrdal. Sabran chose Lievelyn instead, and then Lievelyn was killed. As for the cutthroats …”
“It was you who killed them?”
“Yes,” Ead said, deep in thought, “but I have wondered if they ever meant to kill. Perhaps Crest always planned for them to be caught. Each invasion would have left Sabran more terrified. Her punishment for resisting the call of the childbed was the near-constant fear of death.”
“And the Queen Mother?”
“It has long been rumored at court that Queen Rosarian took Gian Harlowe to her bed while she was wed to Prince Wilstan,” Ead said. “Infidelity is against the teachings of the Knight of Fellowship. Perhaps Crest likes her queens to be . . . obedient.”
At this, Loth clenched his jaw.
“So you mean for us to take a stand against Crest,” he said. “To protect Sabran.”
“Yes. And then to take a stand against a far older enemy.” Ead glanced toward the mouth of the cave. “Ascalon may lie in Inys. If we can find it, we can use it to weaken the Nameless One.”
A bird called out from somewhere above their shelter. Loth passed her a saddle flask.
“Ead,” he said, “you do not believe in the Six Virtues.” He looked her in the eye. “Why risk everything for Sabran?”
She drank.
It was a question she should have asked herself a long time ago. Her feelings had come like a flower on a tree. A bud, gently forming—and just like that, an undying blossom.
“I realized,” she said, after a period of silence, “that she had been spoon-fed a story from the day she was born. She had been taught no other way to be. And yet, I saw that despite everything, some part of her was self-made. This part, small as it appeared at first, was forged in the fire of her own strength, and resisted her cage. And I understood . . . that this part was made of steel. This part was who she truly was.” She held his gaze. “She will be the queen that Inys needs in the days that are to come.”
Loth moved to sit beside her. When he touched her elbow, she looked up at him.
“I am glad we found each other again, Ead Duryan.” He paused. “Eadaz uq-Nāra.”
Ead rested her head on his shoulder. With a sigh, he wrapped an arm around her.
Aralaq returned then, startling them both. “The great bird is on the wing,” he said. “The Red Damsels draw near.”
Loth got to his feet at once. A strange calm washed over Ead as she took up her bow and quiver.
“Aralaq, we cross the scorchlands to Yscalin. We do not stop,” she said, “until we reach Córvugar.”
Loth mounted. She handed him the cloak, and when she climbed on, he wrapped it around them both.
Aralaq slid and pawed his way to the foot of the mountain and crept out of its shadow to glimpse the lake. Parspa was circling in silence overhead.
It was dark enough to cover their escape. They moved behind the other Godsblades. When there was nowhere else to hide, Aralaq struck out from the mountains and ran.
The scorchlands of Lasia, where the city of Jotenya had once stood, stretched across the north of the country. During the Grief of Ages, the land had been stripped bare by fire, but new grasses had reclaimed it, and wing-leaved trees, spaced far apart, had risen from the ashes.
The terrain began to shift. Aralaq gathered speed, until his paws were flying over yellow grass. Ead clung to his fur. Her belly still ached, but she had to stay alert, to be ready. The other ichneumons would have picked up on their scent by now.
The stars spiraled and shimmered above them, embers in a sky like char. Different to the ones that peppered the night sky in Inys.
More trees sprang up from the earth. Her eyes were dry from the onslaught of wind. Behind her, Loth was shivering. Ead drew the cloak more tightly around them both, covering his hands, and allowed herself to imagine the ship that would carry them from Córvugar.
An arrow whipped past Aralaq, just missing him. Ead turned to see what they were facing.
There were six riders. Red flames, each astride an ichneumon. The white belonged to Nairuj.
Aralaq growled and pushed himself faster. This was it. Mustering her strength, Ead slipped free of the cloak, grasped Loth by the shoulder, and swung herself behind him, so her back was against his.
Her best chance was to wound the ichneumons. Aralaq was fast even among his own kind, but the white could outrun him. As she nocked an arrow, she remembered a younger Nairuj boasting about how swiftly her mount could cross the Lasian Basin.
First, she allowed herself to adjust to Aralaq. When she knew the cadence of his footfalls, she lifted the bow. Loth reached behind him and grasped her hips, as if he was afraid she would fall.
Her arrow sliced over the grass, straight and true. At the last moment, the white ichneumon jumped over it. Her second shot went awry when Aralaq cleared the carcass of a wild hound.
They could not outrun this. Neither could they stop and fight. Two mages she could take, perhaps three, but not six Red Damsels, not with her injury. Loth would be too slow, and the other ichneumons would make meat of Aralaq. As she drew back her bowstring for the third time, she sent a prayer to the Mother.
The arrow pierced the front paw of an ichneumon. It collapsed, taking its rider with it.
Five left. She was preparing to shoot again when an arrow punched into her leg. A strangled shout tore out of her.
“Ead!”
At any moment, another arrow could lame Aralaq. And that would be the end for all of them.
Nairuj was spurring on her ichneumon. She was close enough now for Ead to see her ochre eyes and the hard line of her mouth. Those eyes had no hatred in them. Just pure, cold resolve. The look of a hunter set on her quarry. She lifted her bow and leveled the arrow at Aralaq.
That was when fire ripped across the scorchlands.
The eruption of light almost blinded Ead. The nearest trees burst into flame. She looked up, searching for its origin, as Loth let out a wordless cry. Shadows were darting above them—winged shadows with whip-like tails.
Wyverlings. They must have strayed from the Little Mountains, hungry for meat after centuries of slumber. In moments, Ead had sent an arrow into the eye of the nearest. With a soul-chilling screech, it crashed headlong into the grass, just missing the Red Damsels, who parted around it.
Three of them rallied against the wyverlings, while Nairuj and another continued their pursuit. As a skeletal beast swooped low and snapped at them, Aralaq stumbled. Ead twisted, heart pitching hard into her throat, fearing a bite. An arrow had skimmed his flank.
“You can make it.” She spoke to him in Selinyi. “Aralaq, keep running. Keep going—”
Another wyverling tumbled from above and slammed into a fan tree in front of them. As it fell, the pulled-up roots groaning in protest, Aralaq weaved out of the way and charged past it. Ead smelled brimstone from the flesh of the creature as it let out a long death rattle.
One of the riders was getting closer. Her ichneumon was black, its teeth like knives.
They all saw the wyverling a moment too late. Fire rained from above and consumed the Red Damsel, setting her cloak aflame. She rolled to the ground to smother it. Fire churned the grass and reached for Aralaq. Ead threw out her hand.
Her warding deflected the heat as a shield did a mace. Loth cried out as the flames clawed for him. The wyverling swerved away with a shriek, swallowing its fire. The Red Damsels were in chaos, hunted and harrowed, circled by the cr
eatures. Ead turned, looking for Nairuj.
The white ichneumon lay wounded. A wyvern was bearing down on Nairuj, its jaws flushed with the blood of her mount. Without hesitating, Ead fitted her last arrow to her bowstring.
She hit the wyvern in the heart.
Loth pulled her back down to the saddle. Ead glimpsed Nairuj staring after them, one arm over her belly, before Aralaq spirited them away from the trees, into the darkness.
A smell of burning. Loth wrapped the cloak around Ead again. Even when they were far away, she could still see the tongues of fire in the scorchlands, glowing like the eyes of the Nameless One. Her head rolled forward, and she knew no more.
She woke to Loth saying her name. The grass and fire and trees were gone. Instead, there were houses built from coral rag. Crows on the rooftops. And stillness. Utter stillness.
This was a town that had buried more than it still had living souls. A ship with discolored sails and a figurehead shaped like a seabird in flight was waiting in the harbor—a silent harbor on the edge of the West. Dawn stained the sky a delicate shadow of pink, and the black salt waters stretched before them.
Córvugar.
48
East
The trees of Feather Island had finally stopped burning. Rain fell in fat drops to quench their branches, which hacked a sickly yellow smoke. The Little Shadow-girl walked from her place of exile and sank her hands into the earth.
The comet ended the Great Sorrow, but it has come to this world many times before. Once, many moons ago, it left behind two celestial jewels, each infused with its power. Solid fragments of itself.
She held up the jewel that had been in her side, the jewel she had protected and nurtured with her body, and the rain washed it clean. Mud and water dripped on to her feet.
With them, our ancestors could control the waves. Their presence allowed us to hold on to our strength for longer than we could before.
The jewel shone in the cup of her hands. It was as dark a blue as the Abyss, as her heart.
They have been lost for almost a thousand years.
Not lost. Hidden.
Tané held the jewel to her breast. In the eye of the storm, where unbreakable promises had been sealed before the gods in times long past, she made a vow.
That even if it took her until her dying day, she would find Nayimathun, free her from captivity, and make her a gift of this jewel. Even if it took her a lifetime, she would reunite the dragon with what had been stolen.
IV
Thine is the Queendom
Why do you not inhale
essences of moon and stars,
Con your spirit texts of gold?
—Lu Qingzi
49
West
Loth stood on the deck of the Bird of Truth. His heart was leaden as he watched Inys draw closer.
Melancholy. That was the first word that came to mind when he beheld its dowly coast. It looked as if it had never seen the touch of the sun, or heard a joyful song. They were sailing toward Albatross Roost, the westernmost settlement in Inys, which had once been the heart of trade with Yscalin. If they rode hard, rested as little as possible, and met with no brigands, they might make it from here to Ascalon in a week.
Ead kept watch beside him. Already she looked a little less alive than she had in Lasia.
The Bird of Truth had sailed past Quarl Bay on its way to Inys. Anchored ships guarded it but, through a spyglass, they glimpsed the fledgling naval arm of the Draconic Army.
King Sigoso would soon be ready to invade. And Inys would need to be ready to repel him.
Ead had said nothing at the sight. Only turned an open hand toward the five ships at anchor—and fire, born of nothing, had roared up their masts. She had watched it devour them all with no expression, orange light flickering in her eyes.
Loth was shaken back to the present as a bitter gust of wind made him huddle deeper into his cloak.
“Inys.” His breath steamed white and thick. “I never thought to see it again.”
Ead laid a hand on his arm. “Meg never gave up on you,” she said. “Neither did Sabran.”
After a moment, he covered her hand with his.
A wall had stood between them at the start of their journey. Loth had been ill at ease around her, and Ead had left him to brood. Slowly, though, their old warmth had crept back. In their miserable cabin on the Bird of Truth, they had shared their stories of the past few months.
They had avoided any more conversation about religion. Likely they would never agree on the matter. For now, however, they had the same desire to see Virtudom survive.
Loth scratched at his chin with his free hand. He misliked his beard, but Ead had said they ought to disguise themselves when they reached Ascalon, since they were both barred from court.
“Would that I could have burned every one of those ships.” Ead folded her arms. “I must be cautious with my siden. It might be years before I taste of the tree again.”
“You burned five,” Loth said. “Five fewer for Sigoso.”
“You look less afraid of me now than you did then.”
The blossom ring glinted on her finger. He had seen other sisters of the Priory wearing one.
“All of us have shadows in us,” he said. “I accept yours.” He placed a hand over her ring. “And I hope you will also accept mine.”
With a tired smile, she threaded her fingers between his. “Gladly.”
The smell of fish and rotting seaweed soon rode on the wind. The Bird of Truth docked with some trouble in the harbor, and its tired passengers decanted on to the quay. Loth held out an arm to help Ead. She had sported a limp for only a few days, even though the arrow had gone clean through her thigh. Loth had seen knights-errant weep for lesser hurts.
Aralaq would leave the ship once everyone had departed. Ead would call for him when the time was right.
They walked down the jetty toward the houses. When Loth saw the sweet-bags swaying in their doorways, he stopped. Ead was looking at them, too.
“What do you suppose is in those?” she asked.
“Dried hawthorn flowers and berries. A tradition from long before the Foundation of Ascalon. To ward away any evil that might taint the house.” Loth wet his lips. “I have never seen them hanging in my lifetime.”
Clag stuck to their boots as they pressed on. Soon every dwelling they passed had a sweet-bag outside.
“You said these were ancient ways,” Ead mused. “What was the religion of Inys before the Six Virtues?”
“There was no official religion, but from what little the records tell us, the commons saw the hawthorn as a sacred tree.”
Ead withdrew into a brooding silence. They clambered over a drystone wall, on to the cobblestones of the main street.
The only stable in the settlement yielded two sickly horses. They rode side by side. Rain battered their backs as they passed half-frozen fields and sodden flocks of sheep. While they were still in the province of the Marshes, where brigands were rare, they made the decision to keep riding through the night. By dawn, Loth was saddle-sore, but awake.
Ahead of him, Ead held her horse at a canter. Her body seemed wrought with impatience.
Loth wondered if she was right. If Igrain Crest had been manipulating the Inysh court from behind the throne. Whittling Sabran down to her last nerve. Making her afraid to sleep in the dark. Taking a loved one for each of her sins. The thought stoked a fire in his belly. Sabran had always looked to Crest first during her minority, and trusted her.
He spurred his horse to catch up with Ead. They passed a village razed by fire, where a sanctuary coughed gouts of smoke. The poor fools had built their houses with thatched roofs.
“Wyrms,” Loth murmured.
Ead brushed at her wind-torn hair. “Doubtless the High Westerns are commanding their servants to intimidate Sabran. They must be waiting for their master before they attack in earnest. This time, the Nameless One will lead his armies himself.”
At
sunfall, they came upon a dank little inn beside the River Catkin. By now Loth was so tired, he could scarce keep upright in the saddle. They stabled the horses and made their way into the hall, shivering and drenched to the bone.
Ead kept her hood up and went to see the innkeeper. Loth was tempted to stay in the hall by the crackling fire, but there was too great a risk that they would be recognized.
When Ead had secured a candle and a key, Loth took them and went upstairs. The room they were assigned was cramped and drafty, but it was better than the squalid cabin on the Bird of Truth.
Ead entered with their supper. Her brow was pinched.
“What is it?” Loth asked.
“I listened to some conversations downstairs. Sabran has not been seen since her public appearance with Lievelyn,” she said. “As far as the people know, she is still with child . . . but the dearth of news, coupled with the Draconic incursions, has left her subjects uneasy.”
“You said she was some way into her pregnancy when she miscarried. Were she still with child, she might have taken her chamber for the lying-in by now,” Loth pointed out. “A perfect excuse for her absence.”
“Yes. Perhaps she even colluded with it—but I do not think the traitors within the Dukes Spiritual intend to let her continue to rule.” Ead set down their supper and hung her cloak to dry over a chair. “Sabran foresaw this. She is in mortal danger, Loth.”
“She is still the living descendant of the Saint. The people will not rally behind any of the Dukes Spiritual while she lives.”
“Oh, I think they would. If they knew she cannot give them an heir, the commons would believe that Sabran is responsible for the coming of the Nameless One.” Ead sat at the table. “That scar on her belly, and what it represents, would strip her of legitimacy in many of their eyes.”
“She is still a Berethnet.”
“And the last of her line.”
The innkeeper had provided them with two bowls of gristly pottage and a hunk of stale bread. Loth forced down his share and chased it with the ale.
The Priory of the Orange Tree Page 51
