The Priory of the Orange Tree (The Roots of Chaos)

The armorer furnished Ead with a monbone bow, an iron sword, an axe etched with Selinyi prayers, and a slim wood-handled dagger. Instead of the olive cloak of her childhood, she now wore the white of a postulant, a sign of her blossoming into a woman. Chassar, who had come with Sarsun to see her off, set his hands on her shoulders.

“Zāla would be so proud to see you,” he said. “Soon the red cloak will be yours.”

“If I come back alive.”

“You will. Kalyba is a dread creature, but not as strong as she was. She has not eaten of the orange tree, for twenty years, and so will have no siden left.”

“She has other magic.”

“I trust you to conquer it, beloved. Or to turn back if the risk becomes too great.” He patted the ichneumon beside her. “Be sure to return her to me in one piece, Aralaq.”

“I am no stupid bird,” Aralaq said. “Ichneumons do not lead little sisters into danger.”

Sarsun cawed in indignation.

When she had been banished, Kalyba had fled to a part of the forest she had named the Bower of Eternity. It was said that she had put an enchantment on it that tricked the eyes. Nobody knew how she created her illusions.

It was sundown when Ead set out with Aralaq from the Vale of Blood, back into the forest. Ichneumons could run faster than horses, faster even than the hunting leopards that had once lived in Lasia. Ead kept her head low as he crashed through lianas, slithered under roots, and sprang over the many creeks that branched off the Minara.

He tired just before dawn, and they made camp in a cavern behind a waterfall. Aralaq disappeared to hunt, while Ead refreshed herself in the pool below. As she climbed back to the cavern, she recalled the time when Kalyba had been at the Priory.

Ead remembered Kalyba as a redhead with bottomless dark eyes. She had arrived at the Priory when Ead was two years old, claiming to have visited several times before in her many centuries of existence—for she also maintained that she was immortal. Her siden had been granted to her not by the orange tree, but by a hawthorn tree that had once stood on the Inysh island of Nurtha.

The Prioress had welcomed her. Sisters had referred to her as the Hawthorn Sister or Rattletongue, depending on whether they believed her story. Most had kept their distance, for Kalyba had unsettling gifts. Gifts not granted to her by any tree.

Once, Kalyba had come across Ead and Jondu while they played under the sun, and she had smiled at them in a way that had made Ead trust her utterly. What would you become, little sisters, she had asked them, if you could become anything?

A bird, Jondu had answered, so I could go anywhere.

Me, too, Ead had said, because she had always done as Jondu did. I could strike the wyrms down for the Mother, even as they flew.

Watch, Kalyba had said.

That was where memory clouded, but Ead was sure that Kalyba had elongated her own fingers into feathers. Certainly she had done something that had charmed Ead and Jondu, enough for them to believe that Kalyba must be the most sacred of handmaidens.

The reasons for her banishment had never been clear, but it was rumored that it was she who had poisoned Zāla as she slept. Perhaps it was when the Prioress had realized that she was the Lady of the Woods, the terror of Inysh legend, famous for her bloodlust.

As Ead dried her sword, Aralaq came through the waterfall. He gave her a sour look.

“You are a fool to make this journey. The Witch of Inysca will make meat of you.”

“From what I hear, Kalyba likes to toy with her prey.” She polished the blade on her cloak. “Besides, the witch is nothing if not inquisitive. She’ll want to know why I’ve come to her.”

“She will tell you lies.”

“Or she will vaunt her knowledge. She has enough of it.” With a long-suffering sigh, she reached for her bow. “I suppose I must hunt myself some dinner.”

Aralaq growled before he went back through the waterfall, and Ead smiled. He would get her something. Ichneumons had a loyal streak, surly though they were.

She collected what little kindling she could find in the undergrowth and built a fire in the cavern. When Aralaq returned a second time, he threw down a speckled fish.

“This is only because you fed me as a pup,” he said, and curled up in the darkness.

“Thank you, Aralaq.”

He let out a disgruntled sound.

Ead wrapped the fish in plantain leaf and set it over the fire. As it cooked, her thoughts were drawn back to Inys, carried there as if by the south wind.

Sabran would be sleeping now, with Roslain or Katryen beside her. Fevered, perhaps. Or perhaps she had recovered. She might have already chosen another Lady of the Bedchamber—or rather, had one chosen for her. Now the Dukes Spiritual were circling the throne, it would almost certainly be another woman from one of their families, the better to spy on her.

What had they told the Queen of Inys about Ead? That she was a sorceress and a traitor, no doubt. Whether Sabran had believed it, in her heart, was a different matter. She would not want to accept it—but how could she challenge the Dukes Spiritual when they knew her secret; when they could destroy her with a word?

Did Sabran still trust her? She hardly deserved it. They had shared a bed, shared their bodies, but Ead had never told her the truth of who she was. Sabran had never even known her true name.

Aralaq would wake soon. She lay beside him, close enough to the waterfall that the spray cooled her skin, and tried to get some rest. Facing Kalyba would take all her wits. When Aralaq stirred, she gathered her weapons and hauled herself onto his back again.

They traveled through the forest until noon. When they came to the trunk of the Minara, Ead shielded her eyes against the sun. It was an unforgiving river, swift-flowing and deep. Aralaq bounded between rocks in the shallows, and when there was nothing else for it, he swam, Ead clinging to his fur.

Warm rain began to fall as they reached the other side of the river, plastering her curls to her face and neck. She ate some persimmon as Aralaq moved deeper into the forest. Only when the sun was beginning to sink again did he stop.

“The Bower is close.” He sniffed. “If you do not return after an hour, I will come after you.”

“Very well.”

Ead slid from his back.

“Remember, Eadaz,” Aralaq said, “whatever you see in this place is an illusion.”

“I know.” She sheathed her arm in a bracer. “See you soon.”

Aralaq growled his displeasure. Axe in hand, Ead stepped into the mist.

An archway twisted out of boughs, laced with flowers, formed the door. Flowers the color of stormclouds.

I dream of a shaded bower in a forest, where sunlight dapples the grass. The entrance is a gateway of purple flowers—sabra flowers, I think.

Ead raised a hand, and for the first time in years, she conjured magefire. It danced from her fingers and torched the flowers, revealing the thorns beneath the illusion.

She closed her hands. The blue flame of magefire would unknit an enchantment if it burned for long enough, but she would have to use it in moderation if she meant to conserve enough strength to defend herself. With a last glance at Aralaq, she hacked her way through the thorns with her axe and emerged unscathed in the clearing beyond.

She was in the Orchard of Divinities. As she took a step forward, a scent breathed from the greensward, so thick and cloying she could almost roll it on her tongue. Golden light speckled grass deep enough for her to sink to her ankles.

The trees pressed close together here. Voices echoed beyond them—near and far away at once, dancing to the purl of water.

Were they even there, or was this part of the enchantment?

“Min mayde of strore, I knut thu smal,

as lutil as mus in gul mede.

With thu in soyle, corn grewath tal.

In thu I hafde blowende sede.”

A great spring-fed pool came into view. Ead found herself walking toward it. With every step, the voices in the trees swelled and her head whirled like a round-wind. The language they sang in was steeped in the unfamiliar, but some of the words were unquestionably an old form of Inysh. Older than old. As ancient as the haithwood.

“In soyle I soweth mayde of strore

boute in belga bearn wil nat slepe.

Min wer is ut in wuda frore—

he huntath dama, nat for me.”

Her hand was slick on the axe. The voices spoke of ritual from the dawn of a long-dead age. While she took in the crisscross of branches above her, Ead forced herself to imagine them drenched in blood, and the voices luring her into a trap.

At the end of the path, I find a great rock, and I reach out to touch it with a hand I do not think is mine. Ead turned. There it was, a slab of stone almost as tall as she was, guarding the mouth of a cave. The rock breaks in two, and inside—

“Hello.”

Ead looked up. A small boy was sitting on a branch above her.

“Hello,” he said again in Selinyi. His voice was high and sweet. “Are you here to play with me?”

“I am here to see the Lady of the Woods,” Ead said. “Will you fetch her for me, child?”

The boy let out a musical laugh. One blink, and he was there. The next, he was nowhere.

Something made Ead look toward the pool. Sweat prickled on her nape as she watched for any ripple on its surface.

She drew in a breath when the water birthed a head. A woman emerged, sloe-eyed and naked.

“Eadaz du Zāla uq-Nāra.” Kalyba stepped into the clearing. “It has been a long time.”

The Witch of Inysca. The Lady of the Woods. Her voice was as deep and clear as her pool, with a strange inflection. Northern Inysh, but not quite.

“Kalyba,” Ead said.

“Last I saw you, you were no more than six. Now you are a woman,” Kalyba observed. “How the years pass. One forgets, when the years leave no indent on the flesh.”

Ead remembered her face well now, with its lofty cheekbones and full upper lip. Her skin was tanned, her limbs long and well turned. Auburn hair rolled in waves over her breasts. Anyone who looked at her would swear she was not a day past five and twenty. Beautiful, but clipped by the same hollowness that Ead had seen in her own reflection.

“My last visitor was one of your sisters, come to take my head to Mita Yedanya in punishment for a crime I never committed. I suppose you are here to do the same,” Kalyba ruminated. “I would warn you against trying, but the sisters of the Priory have grown arrogant in the years I have been away.”

“I am not here to hurt you.”

“Why do you come to me, then, sweet mage?”

“To learn.”

Kalyba remained still and expressionless. Water trickled down her belly and thighs.

“I have just returned from Inys,” Ead said. “The last Prioress sent me there to serve its queen. While I was in Ascalon, I heard tell of the great power of the Lady of the Woods.”

“Lady of the Woods.” Kalyba closed her eyes and breathed in, as if the name had a rich scent to it. “Oh, it has been a very long time since they called me by that name.”

“You are dreaded and revered in Inys, even now.”

“Doubtless. Strange, as I seldom went to the haithwood, even as a child,” the witch said. “The villagers would not set foot in it for fear of me, but I spent most of my years away from my birthplace. It took them far too long to realize that my home was with the hawthorn.”

“People fear the haithwood because of you. Only one road leads through it, and those who walk on it speak of corpse candles and screams. Remnants of your magic, they say.”

Kalyba smiled faintly.

“Mita Yedanya has called me back to Lasia, but I would sooner pledge my blade to a greater mage.” Ead took a step toward her. “I come to offer myself as your student, Lady. To learn the whole truth of magic.”

Her voice sounded awestruck even to her own ears. If she could fool the Inysh court for almost a decade, she could also fool a witch.

“I am flattered,” Kalyba said, “but surely your Prioress can give you truth.”

“Mita Yedanya is not like her predecessors. She looks inward,” Ead said. “I do not.”

That part, at least, was true.

“A sister who sees beyond her own nose. Rare as silver honey, I should say,” Kalyba said. “Are you not frightened of the stories they tell of me in my native land, Eadaz uq-Nāra? There I am a child-stealer, a hag, a murderess. Monster of the tales of old.”

“Tales to frighten wayward children. I do not fear that which I do not understand.”

“And what makes you think you are worthy of the power I have wielded through the ages?”

“Lady, I am not,” Ead said, “but with your guidance, perhaps I could be. If you will honor me with your knowledge.”

Kalyba considered her for some time, like a wolf considering the lamb.

“Tell me,” she said, “how is Sabran?”

Ead almost shivered at the intimate way the witch said that name, as if she spoke of a close friend.

“The Queen of Inys fares well,” she replied.

“You ask for truth, yet your own lips lie.”

Ead met her gaze. Her face was a carving, its etchings too ancient to translate. “The Queen of Inys is imperiled,” she admitted.

“Better.” Kalyba tilted her head. “If your offer is sincere, you will do me the kindness of surrendering your weapons. When I lived in Inysca, it was considered a grave insult for guests to bring weapons to the threshold of a hall.” Her gaze drifted to the archway of thorns. “Let alone over it.”

“Forgive me. I have no wish to insult you.”

Kalyba watched her without expression. With the sense that she was signing her own death warrant, Ead divested herself of her weapons and set them on the grass.

“There. Now you have put your trust in me,” Kalyba said almost gently, “and in return, I will not harm you.”

“My thanks, Lady.”

They stood facing one another for a time, with half the clearing between them.

There was no reason for Kalyba to tell her anything. Ead knew that, and so would the witch.

“You say you desire truth, but truth is a weave with many threads,” Kalyba said. “You know I am a mage. A sidensmith, like you—or I was, before the old Prioress denied me the fruit of the orange tree. All because Mita Yedanya told her I had poisoned your birthmother.” She smiled. “As if I would ever stoop to poison.”

So Mita was personally responsible for the banishment. The last Prioress had been a kind woman, but easily influenced by those around her, including her munguna.

“I am Firstblood. I was first and last to eat of the hawthorn, and it granted me eternal life. But of course,” Kalyba said, “you have not come out of curiosity about my siden, for siden is familiar to you. You wish to know the source of my other power—the one no sister understands. The power of dream and illusion. The power of Ascalon, my hildistérron.”

War-star. A poetic term for the sword. Ead had seen it before, in prayer books—but now it plucked a string in her, and the realization came forth like a note of music.

Fire ascends from the earth, light descends from the sky.

Light from the sky.

Hildistérron.

And Ascalon. Another name from the ancient tongue of the Isles of Inysca. A corruption of astra—another word for star—and lun, for strength. Loth had told her that.

Strong star.

“When I was in Inys . . . I remembered the text of the Tablet of Rumelabar. It spoke of a balance between fire and starlight.” Even as Ead spoke, her mind spun out an explanation that seemed sounder by the moment. “The siden trees grant mages fire. I wondered if your power—your other power—comes from the sky. From the Long-Haired Star.”

Kalyba did not possess a face that lent itself to shock, but Ead saw it. A flicker in her gaze.

“Good. Oh, very good.” A little thrum of laughter escaped her. “I had thought its name was lost to time. How ever did a mage hear of the Long-Haired Star?”

“I went to Gulthaga.”

Truyde utt Zeedeur had spoken those words. The girl had acted like a fool, but her instinct had been right.

“Clever and brave, to venture to the Buried City.” Kalyba regarded her. “It would be pleasant to have company in my Bower, since I am denied the sisterhood of the Priory. And since you already have most of the truth . . . I see no harm in telling you the rest.”

“I would treasure the knowledge.”

“No doubt. Of course,” Kalyba mused, “to understand my power, you would have to know the whole truth of siden, and the two branches of magic, and Mita has so little understanding of such things. She keeps her daughters in the dark, draped in the comfort of well-worn books. All of you are soaked in ignorance. My knowledge—true knowledge—is a valuable thing.”

This was the next move in a game. “One might say it was priceless,” Ead agreed.

“I paid a price for it. As must you.”

At last, Kalyba approached. Water beaded from her hair as she walked around Ead.

“I will take a kiss,” she whispered at her ear. Ead stayed rooted in place. “I have been alone for so many years. A kiss from you, sweet Eadaz, and my knowledge is yours.”

A metallic scent hung on her skin. For a sudden, eldritch moment, Ead felt something in her blood—something vital—sing in answer to that scent. “Lady,” Ead murmured, “how will I know that what you say is the truth?”

“Do you ask the same of Mita Yedanya, or does she receive your unconditional trust?” Receiving no answer, Kalyba said, “I give you my word that I will speak true. When I was young, a word was a sworn oath. It has been many years since then, but I still respect the ancient ways.”

There was no choice but to risk it. Steeling herself, Ead leaned close to her and placed a kiss on her cheek.

“There,” Kalyba said. Her breath was icy. “The price is paid.”

Ead drew back as fast as she dared. She forced down a sudden thought of Sabran.

“There are two branches of magic,” Kalyba began. The sunlight picked out threads of gold in her hair and limned each drop of water. “The sisters of the Priory, as you know, are practitioners of siden—terrene magic. It comes from the core of the world, and is channeled through the tree. Those who eat of its fruit can wield its magic. Once there were at least three siden trees—the orange, the hawthorn, and the mulberry—but now, to my knowledge, only one remains.

“But siden, dear Eadaz, has a natural opposite. Sidereal magic, or sterren—the power of the stars. This kind of magic is cold and elusive, graceful and slippery. It allows the wielder to cast illusions, control water . . . even to change their shape. It is far harder to master.”

Ead no longer had to feign her look of curiosity.

“When the Long-Haired Star passes, it leaves behind a silver liquid. I named it star rot,” Kalyba said. “It is in star rot that sterren lives, just as it is in the fruit that siden lives.”

“It must be rare.”

“Unspeakably so. There has not been a meteor shower since the end of the Grief of Ages—and understand, Eadaz, that the shower was the end of the Grief of Ages. It was not coincidence that it came when the wyrms fell. The Easterners believe the comet was sent by their dragon god, Kwiriki.” Kalyba smiled. “The shower closed an era when siden was stronger, and forced the wyrms, who are made of it, into their slumber.”

“And then sterren was the stronger,” Ead said.

“For a time,” Kalyba confirmed. “There is a balance between the two branches of magic. They keep one another in check. When one waxes, the other wanes. An Age of Fire will be followed by an Age of Starlight. At present, siden is much stronger, and sterren is a shadow of itself. But when a meteor shower comes . . . then sterren will burn bright again.”

The world had ridiculed alchemists for their fascination with the Tablet of Rumelabar, but for centuries they had been circling the truth.

And truth it was. Ead felt it in the lining of her belly, in the strings of her heart. She would not have believed it from Kalyba alone, but her explanation formed the thread that held the beads together. The Long-Haired Star. The Tablet of Rumelabar. The fall of the wyrms in the Grief of Ages. The strange gifts of the woman who now stood before her.

All of it connected. All of it stemming to one truth: fire from beneath, light from above. A universe built on this duality.

“The Tablet of Rumelabar speaks of this balance,” Ead said, “but also what happens when the balance is unsettled.”

“Too much of one doth inflame the other, and in this is the extinction of the universe,” Kalyba recited. “A dire warning. Now, what—or who—is the extinction of the universe?”

Ead shook her head. She knew the answer well enough, but best to play the fool. It would keep the witch off her guard.

“Oh, Eadaz, you were doing so well. Still,” Kalyba said, “you are young. I must not be too hard a judge.”

She turned away. As she moved, her hand came to her right side. It was as smooth and unmarked as the rest of her, but her gait betrayed the pain in it.

“Are you hurt, Lady?” Ead asked.

Kalyba did not reply.

“Long ago, the cosmic duality was . . . upset,” was all she said. Ead thought she glimpsed something terrible in those eyes. A shadow of hatred. “Sterren grew too strong in the world and, in return, the fire beneath our feet forged an abomination. A miscreation of siden.”

The extinction of the universe.

“The Nameless One,” Ead said.

“And his followers. They are children of the imbalance. Of chaos.” Kalyba seated herself on a boulder. “Successive Prioresses have long seen the connection between the tree and the wyrms, but denied it to themselves and their daughters. Mages can even create Draconic flame during Ages of Fire, like this one . . . but of course, you are forbidden from using it.”

All sisters knew they had the potential to make wyrmfire, but it was not taught.

“Your illusions come from sterren,” Ead murmured, “so siden burns them away.”

“Siden and sterren can destroy each other in particular circumstances,” Kalyba conceded, “but they also attract one another. Both forms of magic are drawn to themselves most of all, but also to their opposites.” Her dark eyes were alight with interest. “Now, my puzzle-solver. If the orange tree is the natural channel of siden, what are the natural channels of sterren?”

Ead thought on it. “The dragons of the East, perhaps.”

From what little she knew about them, they were creatures of water. It was a guess, but Kalyba smiled.

“Very good. They were born of sterren. When the Long-Haired Star comes, they can give dreams and change their shapes and knit illusions.”

As if to demonstrate, the witch cast a hand down the length of her own body. All at once, she wore an Inysh gown of brown samite and a girdle studded with carnelians and pearls. Jewel lilies opened in her hair. Had the nakedness been the illusion, or was this?

“Long ago, I used my fire to reshape the star rot I had gathered.” Kalyba combed her fingers through her hair. “To create the most remarkable weapon ever made.”

“Ascalon.”

“A sword of sterren, forged with siden. A perfect union. It was when I beheld it—the sword I had made from the tears of a comet—that I knew I was not just a mage.” Her mouth flinched. “The Priory calls me witch for my gifts, but I prefer enchantress. It has a pretty ring to it.”

Ead had learned more than she had bargained for, but she had come to ask about the jewel.

“Lady,” she said, “your gifts are miraculous indeed. Did you ever forge anything else from sterren?”

“Never. I wanted Ascalon to be unlike anything in this world. A gift for the greatest knight of his time. Of course,” Kalyba said, “that is not to say that there are no other objects . . . but they were not cast by my hand. And if they exist, they are long since lost.”

It was tempting to tell her about the jewel, but it was best that Kalyba remained ignorant of it, or she would go out of her way to make it hers. “I would like nothing better than to lay eyes on the sword. All Inys talks of it,” Ead said. “Will you show it to me, Lady?”

Kalyba chuckled low. “If I had it, I would be happy indeed. I searched for Ascalon for centuries, but Galian hid it well.”

“He left no clue as to its whereabouts?”

“Only that he meant to leave it in the hands of those who would die to keep it from me.” Her smile faded. “The Queens of Inys have also sought it, given that it is sacred to them . . . but they will not find it. If I could not, then no one will.”

That Kalyba had forged Ascalon for Galian Berethnet was common knowledge in the Priory. It was part of the reason many sisters had distrusted her. The two of them had been born in the same era and had both lived in or around the village of Goldenbirch, but beyond those scant facts, no one understood the nature of their relationship.

“Queen Sabran dreamed of this Bower of Eternity,” Ead said. “While I was her lady-in-waiting, she told me so. Only you can weave dreams, Lady. Was it you who sent them to her?”

“That knowledge,” Kalyba said, “will require a higher price.”

With that, the witch slid from the boulder. Naked once more, she listed on to her side, and the rock beneath her transformed into a bed of flowers. They smelled of cream and honey.

“Come to me.” She smoothed a hand over her petals. “Come, lie with me in my Bower, and I will sing to you of dreaming.”

“Lady,” Ead said, “I desire nothing more than to please you, and to prove my loyalty, but my heart belongs to another.”

“The secret of dream-weaving must surely be worth the price of one night. It has been centuries since I felt the soft touch of a lover.” Kalyba drew a finger down her own abdomen, stopping just shy of where her thighs met. “But . . . I do admire loyalty. So I will accept another gift from you. In exchange for my knowledge of the stars, and their gifts.”

“Anything.”

“Twenty years they have kept me from the orange tree. Once a mage has tasted of the fire, she burns for it evermore. The hunger eats me from within. I would very much like my flame back.” Kalyba held her gaze. “Bring me the fruit, and you will be my heir. Swear it to me, Eadaz du Zāla uq-Nāra. Swear that you will bring me what I desire.”

“Lady,” Ead said, “I swear it by the Mother.”

“And she said nothing about the jewels,” the Prioress said. “Only that she did not make them.”

Ead stood in her sunroom, facing her.

“Yes, Prioress,” she said. “Ascalon is her only creation. I thought it best not to mention the jewels, for fear she would pursue them.”

“Good.”

Chassar was grim-faced. The Prioress placed her hands on the balustrade, and her ring glinted in the sun.

“Two strands of magic. I have never heard anything of the sort.” She breathed in. “I mislike this. The witch is a liar by nature. There is a reason they called her Rattletongue.”

“She might embellish the truth,” Chassar said, “but bloodthirsty and cold though she is, she never struck me as a liar. In her day in Inysca, there were brutal punishments for oath-breaking.”

“You forget, Chassar, that she lied about Zāla. She claimed she never poisoned her, but only an outsider would have murdered a sister.”

Chassar dropped his gaze.

“The jewels must be sterren,” Ead said. “Even if Kalyba did not make them. If they are not our kind of magic, they must be the other.” The Prioress nodded slowly. “I vowed to her that I would bring her the fruit. Is she like to pursue me when I do not?”

“I doubt she will squander her magic on a hunt. In any case, you are protected here.” The Prioress watched the sun descend. “Say nothing of this to your sisters. Our next line of enquiry is this . . . Neporo.”

“An Easterner,” Ead said quietly. “Surely that tells you that the Mother was interested in the world beyond the South.”

“I tire of this subject, Eadaz.”

Ead bit her tongue. Chassar shot her a cautionary look.

“If Neporo spoke true, then to defeat our enemy, we will need both Ascalon and the jewels.” The Prioress rubbed her temple. “Leave me, Eadaz. I must . . . consider our course.”

Ead inclined her head and left.

In her sunroom, Ead found Aralaq snoozing at the foot of her bed, weary from their journey. She sat on the bed beside him and stroked his silken ears. They twitched in his sleep.

Her mind was a crucible of stars and fire. The Nameless One would return, and the Priory had only one of the three instruments needed to destroy him. With every hour that passed, the danger grew in Virtudom, and Sabran was at greater risk. Meanwhile, Sigoso Vetalda was building his invasion fleet in Quarl Bay. A divided West would not be ready for the Flesh King.

Ead pressed close to Aralaq and closed her eyes. Somehow, she had to find a way to help her.

“Eadaz.”

She looked up.

A woman stood in the doorway. Tight curls wreathed her brown face and tumbled into tawny eyes.

“Nairuj,” Ead said, rising.

They had been rivals when they were children. Nairuj had always been vying with Jondu for the attention of the Prioress, which Ead, loving Jondu as her elder sister, had taken very much to heart. Now, however, Ead took Nairuj by the hands and kissed her on the cheek.

“It is good to see you,” Ead said. “You honor the cloak.”

“And you have honored all of us by shielding Sabran for so long. I confess I laughed to see you shipped off to that ludicrous court when I was young and foolish,” Nairuj said, with a wry smile, “but I understand now that we all work in different ways for the Mother.”

“I see you are serving her as we speak.” Ead returned her smile. “You must be close to your time.”

“Any day now.” Nairuj placed a hand on her belly. “I’ve come to prepare you for your initiation into the Red Damsels.”

Ead felt her smile growing. “Tonight?”

“Yes. Tonight.” Nairuj chuckled. “Did you think that after you banished Fýredel, you would not be raised at once when you returned?”

She guided Ead to a chair. A boy came in and set down a tray before retreating.

Ead folded her hands in her lap. Her heart had the wings of a flock of birds.

For one night, she would put aside what she had learned from Kalyba. She would forget everything that had happened outside these walls. Since she was old enough to understand who she was, she had known that she was destined to be a Red Damsel.

Her dream was here. She meant to savor it.

“For you.” Nairuj handed her a cup. “From the Prioress.”

Ead sipped. “Mother.” A weave of sweet flavors unspooled on her tongue. “What is this?”

“Sun wine. From Kumenga. The Prioress keeps a supply,” Nairuj whispered. “Tulgus in the kitchen sometimes lets me have a taste. He’ll let you have one, too, if you say I sent you. Just don’t tell the Prioress.”

“Never.”

Ead drank again. It tasted exquisite. Nairuj took a wooden comb from the tray.

“Eadaz,” she said, “I wanted to give you my condolences. For Jondu. We had our differences, but I respected her very much.”

“Thank you,” Ead said softly. She shook her head to clear the sadness. “Come, then, Nairuj. Tell me everything that has happened these past eight years.”

“I will,” Nairuj said, tapping the comb against her palm, “if you promise to me all the secrets of the Inysh court.” She reached for a bowl of oil. “I hear life there is like walking on coals. That the courtiers climb over one another to get close to the queen. That there is more intrigue in the court of Sabran the Ninth than there is skystone in Rumelabar.”

Ead looked toward the window. The stars were coming out.

“Truly,” she said, “you have no idea.”

As Nairuj worked on Ead, she told her about the steady waking of wyrms in the South, and how the Red Damsels were working harder by the day to deal with the threat. King Jantar and High Ruler Kagudo—the only sovereigns who knew of the Priory—had asked for more sisters to be posted in their cities and courts. Meanwhile, the menfolk of the Priory, who dealt with domestic matters, might soon have to be trained as slayers.

In return, Ead told her the more preposterous facets of Inys. The petty enmities between courtiers and lovers and poets. Her time as a maid of honor under Oliva Marchyn. The quacks who gave out dung for a fever and leeches for a headache. The eighteen dishes presented to Sabran every morning, of which she ate one.

“And Sabran. Is she as capricious as they say?” Nairuj asked. “I hear that in one morning, she can be as jubilant as a parade, as sad as a lament, and as angry as a wildcat.”

Ead did not reply for a long time.

“That is true,” she finally said.

A rose behind a pillow. Hands on the virginals. Her laugh as they had raced after the hunt.

“I suppose a little caprice is to be expected of a woman born to sit on such a throne, at such a price.” Nairuj patted her belly. “This is heavy enough without the fate of nations perched on top of it.”

The hour of the ceremony drew near. Ead let Nairuj and three other sisters help her into her vestures. Once her hair was arranged, they adorned it with a circlet of orange blossoms. They slid bracelets of glass and gold up her arms. Finally, Nairuj took her by the shoulders.

“Ready?”

Ead nodded. She had been ready all her life.

“I envy you,” Nairuj said. “The task the Prioress will give you next sounds—”

“Task.” Ead looked at her. “What task?”

Nairuj fluttered a hand. “I must not say any more. You will know soon enough.” She took Ead by the arm. “Come.”

They led her to the tomb of the Mother. The burial chamber had been lit with one hundred and twenty candles, the number of people who had been sacrificed by lottery to the Nameless One before Cleolind had ended the rule of blood at last.

The Prioress was waiting in front of the statue. Every sister not posted elsewhere was here to see the daughter of Zāla take her place as a Red Damsel.

Ceremonies were succinct affairs in the Priory. Cleolind had not wanted the pomp and circumstance of courts for her handmaidens. Intimacy was what mattered. The coming together of sisters in support and praise of one another. In the womb-like darkness of the chamber, with the Mother gazing down at them all, Ead felt closer to her than she ever had.

Chassar stood to the left of the Prioress. He looked as proud as if he were her birthfather.

Ead knelt.

“Eadaz du Zāla uq-Nāra,” the Prioress said. Her voice echoed. “You have served the Mother faithfully and without question. We welcome you, as our sister and friend, to the ranks of the Red Damsels.”

“I am Eadaz du Zāla uq-Nāra,” Ead said. “I pledge myself anew to the Mother, as I did once as a child.”

“May she keep your blade sharp and your cloak red with blood,” the sisters said together, “and may the Nameless One fear your light.”

It was traditional for the birthmother to present a sister with her cloak. In the absence of Zāla, it was Chassar who hung it around her shoulders. He fastened it with a brooch at the hollow of her throat, and when he cupped her cheek, Ead returned his smile.

She held out her right hand. The Prioress slid on her silver ring, topped with the five-petalled flower of sunstone. The ring she had imagined herself wearing all her life.

“May you go forth into the world,” the Prioress said, “and stand against the ruthless fire. Now and always.”

Ead drew the brocade close to her skin. The richness of the red was impossible to fabricate. Only Draconic blood could stain it so.

The Prioress held out both her hands, palms up, and smiled. Ead took them and rose, and applause rang through the burial chamber. As the Prioress turned her to face her sisters, presenting her to them as a Red Damsel, Ead happened to look toward the Sons of Siyāti. And there, standing among them, was a man whose face was familiar.

He was taller than she was. Long, powerful limbs. Deep black skin. When he lifted his head, his features were bared to the candlelight.

She could not be seeing this. Kalyba had addled her senses. He was dead. He was lost. He could not be here.

And yet— and yet, he was.

Loth.