“Kalyba,” she said.
“Mita,” the redhead answered.
They bandied words for a time, circling each other. Even if Tané could have understood their exchange, its content was of little consequence. All that mattered was which of them triumphed.
The Prioress moved toward the other woman. Her face was taut with hatred. The sun glinted off her sword as she swung it. Kalyba turned back into a hawk and swooped over her head. A heartbeat later, she wore a human shape again. Her laugh chilled Tané to the core. With a shout of frustration, the Prioress hurled a fistful of red fire.
Their battle brought them nearer and nearer to the roots. Tané withdrew into the shadows.
The women fought with fire and wind. They fought for an eternity. And when it seemed as if neither of them would ever best the other, Kalyba disappeared, as if she had never been there at all. The Prioress was so close now, Tané could hear her breathing.
It was then that the witch rose silently from the deep grass. She must have taken the form of something too small to see—an insect, perhaps. The Prioress turned a moment too late.
A sound like a foot crunching a shell, and she folded at the knees. Kalyba placed a hand on her head, as one might comfort a child. Mita Yedanya collapsed on to the grass.
Kalyba held up the heart of her enemy. Blood seeped from between her fingers. When she spoke, it was in a language Tané had never heard. Her voice rang through the valley.
Tané pulled her hand from her mouth. The body was close enough to touch. One last risk, and she could leave this madness behind her. She shifted back onto her belly and crawled toward the dead Prioress.
An arrow whistled from somewhere in the clearing, just missing Kalyba. Tané flinched back. Sweat ran down her cheek as she reached for the corpse, but her fingers were too clumsy. Hardly daring to breathe, she bent over the body, the crater where a heart had been. Her fingers shook as she pulled at the chain, passed it over her own head, and tucked the jewel underneath her tunic.
When Kalyba looked back, both she and Tané froze. Recognition sparked in her eyes.
“Neporo.”
Tané watched her expression flicker. Kalyba began to laugh.
“Neporo,” she exclaimed. “I wondered— all these centuries, I wondered so often if you had survived, my sister. How wonderfully strange that it should be here that I find my answer.” A smile twisted her mouth, beautiful and terrible. “Look upon my work. All this destruction is because of you. And now you come on your hands and knees to beg the orange tree for mercy.”
Tané scrambled back, boots sliding through mud. She had never been afraid to fight in her life, but this woman, this creature, made something ring in her blood like a sword out of a sheath.
“You’re too late. The Nameless One will rise, and no starfall will weaken him. He would welcome you, Neporo.” Kalyba walked toward her, blood dripping from the heart in her palm. “Flesh Queen of Komoridu.”
“I am not Neporo,” Tané found her voice in a dark hollow. “My name is Tané.”
Kalyba stopped.
She was wrong. Like a cockroach wrapped in amber, preserved in the wrong time.
Yet Tané felt irresistibly drawn to her. Her blood called to this woman even as her flesh recoiled.
“I almost forgot that she had a child,” Kalyba said. “How could it be possible that her descendants have not only lasted this long without my knowledge, but that you are here on the very same day as I am?” This little quirk of fate seemed to amuse her. “Know this, blood of the mulberry tree. Your ancestor is responsible for this. You are born of wicked seed.”
The rush of the river was closer now. Kalyba watched her go deeper into the roots.
“You look . . . so much like her.” The witch softened her voice. “A ghost of her.”
An arrow sailed across the clearing then and struck Kalyba in the back of her shoulder, making her turn in fury. A woman with golden eyes had emerged from the caves, a second arrow already nocked. She looked straight at Tané, and her gaze was a command.
Run.
Tané wavered. Honor told her to stand and fight, but instinct pulled harder. All that mattered now was that she reached Inys, and that Kalyba stayed ignorant of what she carried there.
She threw herself into the river, and the river took her back into its arms.
For a long time, all she knew was the fight to keep her head above water. As the river carried her from the valley, she crossed one arm over the fruit and used the other to swim. Smoke followed her all the way to the fork, where she hauled herself, dripping, from the rush, so bruised and tired and footsore that she could only lie and shudder.
Twilight turned to dusk, and dusk to moonless night.
Tané stood, her legs shaking, and walked.
Instinct made her take the jewel from its case, and it lit her way. Between the boughs of the canopy, she found the right star and followed its glimmer. Once, she saw the eyes of an animal watching her from the trees, but it kept its distance. Everything did.
At some point, her boots found a path of hard-packed earth, and she walked until the trees began to thin. When she was out of the forest, under the sky, she fell at last.
Her own hair was her pillow. She breathed through the clenched fist of her throat, and she wished on everything she loved that she was home in Seiiki, where the trees grew sweet.
An earth-shaking thump made her open her eyes. Wind unsettled her hair, and Tané looked up to see a bird looming over her. White as moonshine, with wings of bronze.
Ascalon Palace glistened in the first glow of sunrise. A ring of high towers at the crook of a river. Tané limped toward it, past the city-dwellers who had risen from their beds.
The great white bird had found a gap in the coastal defenses and taken her to a forest north of Ascalon. From there, she followed a well-trodden road until the horizon birthed a city.
The gates of the palace were threaded with flowers. When she got close, a throng of guards in silver plate blocked her way.
“Hold.” Spears pointed at her chest. “No farther, mistress. State your business here.”
She raised her head so they could see her face. The spears flinched higher as the guards stared at her.
“By the Saint,” one of them murmured. “An Easterner.”
“Who are you?” another asked her.
Tané tried to form words, but her mouth was dry, and her legs quaked.
Frowning, the second man loosened his grip on his sword. “Get the Resident Ambassador to Mentendon,” he said to the woman beside him.
Her armor rattled as she left. The others kept their spears trained on the stranger.
It was some time before another woman approached the gates. Her braided hair was a deep red, and she wore a black garment that flattened her breasts and waist, with skirts that belled out from her hips. Lace covered her brown skin to the throat.
“Who are you, honorable stranger?” she said in perfect Seiikinese. “Why have you come to Ascalon?”
Tané did not give her name. Instead, she held the ruby ring into the light.
“Take me to Lady Nurtha,” she said.
VI
The Keys to the Abyss
For whatsoever from one place doth fall,
is with the tide unto an other brought:
For there is nothing lost, that may be found, if sought.
—Edmund Spenser
66
West
Her world had become a night without stars. It was sleep, but not-sleep; a boundless darkness, settled by one soul. She had been chained here for a thousand years, but now, at last, she stirred.
A golden sun seared to life within her. As the fire sloughed off her skin, she remembered the bite of the cruel sister. She could see the outlines of faces all around her, but their features were unclear.
“Ead.”
She felt sculpted from marble. Her limbs cleaved to the bed, as an effigy was bound forever to the tomb. In the dark spots
in her vision, somebody was praying for her soul.
Ead, come back to us.
She knew that voice, the scent of cicely, but her lips were stone and would not part.
Ead.
New warmth fired deep in her bones, burning away the bounds that imprisoned them. The calyx that surrounded her cracked and, at last, the heat opened her throat.
“Meg,” she whispered, “I believe this is the second time I have found you nursing me.”
A choked laugh. “Then you should stop giving me cause to nurse you, silly goose.” Margret folded her into her arms. “Oh, Ead, I feared this wretched fruit might not work—” She turned to her servants. “Send word at once to Her Majesty that Lady Nurtha is awake. Doctor Bourn, too.”
“Her Majesty is in council, Lady Margret.”
“I assure you that Her Majesty will have you all gelded if this is kept from her. Go, now.”
Wretched fruit. Ead realized what Margret had said and looked over her shoulder. On the nightstand was an orange with a bite taken out of it. Drunken sweetness roiled her senses.
“Meg.” Her throat was so dry. “Meg, tell me you did not go to the Priory on my account.”
“I’m not fool enough to think I could fight my way through a house of dragonslayers.” Margret kissed the top of her head. “You might not believe in the Saint, but a higher power must have a care for you, Eadaz uq-Nāra.”
“Indeed. The higher power of Lady Margret Beck.” Ead grasped her hand. “Who brought the fruit?”
“That,” Margret said, “is a wondrous tale. And I will tell it to you as soon as you’ve had some caudle.”
“Is there anything you think that foul stuff doesn’t cure?”
“Cankers. Otherwise, no.”
It was Tallys who brought the caudle to her bed. Upon seeing Ead, she burst into tears.
“Oh, Mistress Duryan,” she sobbed. “I thought you were going to die, m’lady.”
“Not quite yet, Tallys, despite efforts to the contrary.” Ead smiled. “How lovely it is to see you again.”
Tallys curtsied several times before retreating. Margret closed the door behind her.
“Now,” Ead said to Margret, “I am drinking my caudle. Tell me everything.”
“Three more mouthfuls, if you please.”
Ead grimaced and obeyed. When she had forced it down, Margret made good on her word.
She told her how Loth had volunteered to be the Inysh ambassador in the East, and how he had gone across the Abyss to make the proposal to the Unceasing Emperor. How weeks had passed. How wyverns had burned the crops. How a Seiikinese girl had stumbled to the palace with bloody hands, carrying a golden fruit and the Inysh coronation ring, which Loth had last possessed.
“And that was not all she carried.” Margret glanced at the door. “Ead, she has the other jewel. The rising jewel.”
Ead almost dropped the cup.
“That cannot be,” she said hoarsely. “It is in the East.”
“No more.”
“Let me see it.” She tried to sit up, arms quavering with the effort. “Let me see the jewel.”
“Enough of that.” Margret wrestled her back into the pillows. “You have taken little but drops of honey for weeks.”
“Tell me exactly how she found it.”
“Would that I knew. As soon as she had handed me the fruit, she fell down with exhaustion.”
“Who knows she is here?”
“Myself, Doctor Bourn, and a few of the Knights of the Body. Tharian feared that if anyone saw an Easterner in Ascalon Palace, they would haul the poor child to the stake.”
“I understand his caution,” Ead said, “but, Meg, I must speak to her.”
“You can speak to whoever you like once I am satisfied that you will not fall on your face while doing so.”
Ead pursed her lips and drank.
“Dearest Meg,” she said, quieter, and touched her hand, “did I miss your wedding?”
“Of course not. I delayed it for you.” Margret took back the cup. “I had no idea what a tiring affair it would be. Mama wants me to wear white now. Who in the world wears white on their wedding day?”
Ead was about to remark that she would look very well in white when the door flew open—and then Sabran was in the bedchamber, dressed in crimson silk, breast heaving.
Margret stood.
“I will see to it that Doctor Bourn also received my message,” she said, with the slightest smile.
She closed the door softly behind her.
For a long time, neither of them spoke. Then Ead held out a hand, and Sabran came to the bed and embraced her, breathing as if she had run for leagues. Ead held her close.
“Damn you, Eadaz uq-Nāra.”
Ead released a breath, half sigh and half laugh. “How many times have we damned each other now?”
“Not nearly enough.”
Sabran remained by her side until a harassed-looking Tharian Lintley came to take her back to the Council Chamber. The Dukes Spiritual were poring over the letter from Loth, and her presence was required.
At noon, Margret let Aralaq into the bedchamber. He licked Ead’s face raw, told her that she should never walk into poisonous darts (“Yes, Aralaq, I wonder that I never thought of that before”), and spent the rest of the day draped across her like a fur coverlet.
Sabran had insisted that the Royal Physician examine her before she rose, but by sundown, Ead yearned to stretch her limbs. When Doctor Bourn finally came, he wisely judged that she was well enough to stand. She eased her legs from under Aralaq, who had lapsed into a doze, and dropped a kiss between his ears. His nose twitched.
Tomorrow, she would pay a visit to the stranger.
This night was for Sabran.
The highest room in the Queen Tower was taken up by an immense sunken bath. Water was drawn up from a spring and stove-heated in the Privy Kitchen so the queen might have hot baths all year round.
A slow-burning candle was the only light. The rest of the chamber was steam and shadow. Through its large windows, Ead could see the glittering stars above Ascalon.
Sabran sat on the edge of the bath in a petticoat, hair strung with pearls. Ead shed her robe and stepped into the steaming water. She savored its warmth as she poured from a jar of creamgrail, lathered it between her palms, and worked it into her hair.
She dipped her head under and washed the sweet foam away. Submerged to her shoulders, she floated to Sabran and laid her head on her lap. Cool fingers untangled her curls. The heat loosened her limbs, made her feel alive again.
“I feared you had left me for good this time,” Sabran said to her. The walls reflected her voice.
“The poison I was given comes from the fruit of the tree when it rots. It is meant to kill,” Ead said. “Nairuj must have given me a diluted measure on purpose. She spared me.”
“Not only that, but the other jewel has come to us. As if brought by the tide.” Sabran ghosted her fingers through the water. “Even you must see that as divine intervention.”
“Perhaps. I will speak to our Seiikinese guest in the morning.” Ead drifted backward and let her hair fan out across the water’s surface. “Is Loth well?”
“Apparently so. He has had yet more adventures, this time involving pirates,” Sabran said dryly, “but yes. The Unceasing Emperor has asked him to remain in the City of the Thousand Flowers. He says he is unharmed.”
No doubt Loth would be kept there until Sabran paid what she had promised. A common enough arrangement. He would manage; he had navigated far more devious courts.
“So the last stand of humanity will take place betwixt and between the two sides of the world,” Sabran murmured. “We will not last long on the Abyss. Not in wooden ships. The Lord Admiral assures me that there are ways to protect our vessels from flame, and we will have water aplenty to quench the fires, but I cannot think that these methods will buy more than minutes.” Sabran met her gaze. “Do you think the witch will come?”
It was almost a certainty.
“I wager she will try to end your life with the True Sword. The sword Galian revered will be used to end his bloodline. Their bloodline,” Ead said. “She would relish the poesy of it.”
“What a loving ancestor I have,” Sabran said calmly.
“You accept what I told you, then.” Ead studied her face. “That you have mage blood in you.”
“I have accepted many things.”
Ead saw in her eyes that it was the truth. There was a new and cold resolve about them.
It had been a year of hard realities. The walls they had built to protect their beliefs had crumbled at their feet, and Sabran had watched her faith begin to decay with them.
“I have spent my life believing that in my blood was the power to keep a monster chained. Now I must face it knowing otherwise.” Sabran closed her eyes. “I am afraid of what that day will bring. I am afraid that we will not see the first light of summer.”
Ead waded to her and framed her face between her hands.
“We have nothing to fear,” she said, with more conviction than she felt. “The Nameless One was defeated before. He can be defeated again.”
Sabran nodded. “I pray so.”
Her petticoat soaked up the water. Ead felt her every limb turn boneless as Sabran pulled her out of the bath, smiling.
Their lips came together in the darkness. Ead gathered Sabran to her, and Sabran kissed the droplets from her skin. They had been parted twice, and Ead knew, as she had always known, that they would be divided anew before long, whether by war or by fate.
She slipped her hands beneath the satin of the petticoat. When her palms found burning flesh, she drew back.
“Sabran,” she said, “you’re on fire.”
She had thought it was the heat from the bath, but Sabran was a splinter of kindling.
“It’s nothing, Ead, truly.” Sabran smoothed a thumb over her cheek. “Doctor Bourn says the inflammation will flare from time to time.”
“Then you need to rest.”
“I can hardly take to my bed at a time like this.”
The Priory of the Orange Tree Page 72
