He had given up hope of ever seeing his sister again. Now, perhaps, there was a chance.
The rise and fall of the sun. The pounding of paws against earth. When the ichneumon stopped, Loth finally woke.
He rubbed the sand from his eyes. A lake stretched across a dusty expanse of earth, a streak of sapphire under the sky. Water olyphants bathed in its shallows. Beyond the lake were the great rocky peaks that guarded Nzene, all the red-brown of baked clay. Mount Dinduru, the largest, was almost perfect in its symmetry.
By noon, they were in the foothills. Aralaq climbed a brant path up the nearest peak. When they were high enough to make his thighs quake, Loth risked a look down.
Nzene lay before them. The Lasian capital sat in the cradle of the Godsblades, surrounded by high sandstone walls. The mountains—taller and straighter than any in the known world—sliced its streets with shadow. An immense road stretched out beyond it, no doubt a trade route to the Ersyr.
Date-palms and juniper trees lined streets that glistered in the sunlight. Loth spied the Golden Library of Nzene, built of sandstone taken from the ruins of Yikala, connected by a walkway to the Temple of the Dreamer. Towering over it all was the Palace of the Great Onjenyu, where High Ruler Kagudo and her family resided, set high above the houses on a promontory. The River Lase forked around its sacred orchard.
Aralaq sniffed out a shelter beneath a jut of rock, deep enough to protect them from the elements.
“Why are we stopping?” Loth wiped sweat from his face. “Ead told us to keep riding for Córvugar.”
Aralaq bent his front legs so Loth could dismount. “The blade she was cut with was laced with a secretion from the ice leech. It stops the blood from clotting,” he said. “There will be a cure in Nzene.”
Loth lifted Ead from the saddle. “How long will you be?”
The ichneumon did not reply. He licked Ead once across the brow before he disappeared.
When Ead rose from her world of shadows, it was sundown. Her head was a thrice-stirred cauldron. She was dimly aware that she was in a cave, but had no memory of having got there.
Her hand flinched to her collarbones. Feeling the waning jewel between them, she breathed again.
Retrieving it had cost her. She remembered the steel of the blade, and the sting of whatever foulness was on it, as she grabbed the jewel from Mita. Fire had sparked from her fingers, setting the bed ablaze, before she had rolled over the balustrade and into open sky.
She had dropped like a cat and landed on a ledge outside the kitchen. Mercifully, it had been empty, leaving her escape route clear. Still, she had barely made it to Aralaq and Loth before her strength gave out.
Mita deserved a cruel death for what she had done to Zāla, but Ead would not deliver it to her. She would not debase herself by murdering a sister.
A hot tongue licked a curl back from her brow. She found herself almost nose to nose with Aralaq.
“Where?” she said hoarsely.
“The Godsblades.”
No. She sat up, biting back a groan when her midriff throbbed. “You stopped.” Her voice strained. “You damned fools. The Red Damsels—”
“It was this or let you bleed to death.” Aralaq nosed the poultice on her belly. “You did not tell us that the Prioress coated her blade in the glean.”
“I had no idea.”
She should have expected it. The Prioress wanted her dead, but she could not do it herself without drawing suspicion. Better to slow her with blood loss, then tell the Red Damsels their newly returned sister was a traitor and order them to kill her for it. Her own hands would be clean.
Ead lifted the poultice. The wound was painful, but the mash of sabra flowers had leached the poison from it.
“Aralaq,” she said, sliding into Inysh, “you know how quickly the Red Damsels hunt.” Having Loth there made the language spring to her tongue. “You were not supposed to stop for anything.”
“High Ruler Kagudo keeps a supply of the remedy. Ichneumons do not let little sisters die.”
Ead forced herself to breathe, to be calm. The Red Damsels were unlikely to be searching the Godsblades just yet.
“We must move on soon,” Aralaq said, with a glance at Loth. “I will check it is safe.”
Silence yawned after he left.
“Are you angry, Loth?” Ead finally asked.
He gazed at the capital. Torches had been lit in the streets of Nzene, making it glimmer like embers beneath them.
“I should be,” he murmured. “You lied about so much. Your name. Your reason for coming to Inys. Your conversion.”
“Our religions are intertwined. Both oppose the Nameless One.”
“You never believed in the Saint. Well,” he corrected himself, “you did. But you think he was a brute and a craven who tried to press a country into accepting his religion.”
“And demanded to marry Princess Cleolind before he would slay the monster, yes.”
“How can you say such a thing, Ead, when you stood in sanctuary and praised him?”
“I did it to survive.” When he still refused to look at her, she said, “I confess I am what you would call a sorceress, but no magic is evil. It is what the wielder makes it.”
He risked a surly glance at her. “What is it you can do?”
“I can drive away the fire of wyrms. I am immune to the Draconic plague. I can create barriers of protection. My wounds heal quickly. I can move among shadows. I can make metal sing of death like no knight ever could.”
“Can you make fire of your own?”
“Yes.” She opened her palm, and a flame shivered to life. “Natural fire.” Again, and the flame blossomed silver. “Magefire, to undo enchantments.” Once more, and it was red, so hot it made Loth sweat. “Wyrmfire.”
Loth made the sign of the sword. Ead closed her hand, extinguishing the heresy.
“Loth,” she said, “we must decide now whether we can be friends. We both need to be friends to Sabran if this world is to survive.”
“What do you mean?”
“There is much you don’t know.” An understatement indeed. “Sabran conceived a child with Aubrecht Lievelyn, the High Prince of Mentendon. He was killed. I will tell you all later,” she added, when he stared. “Not long after, a High Western came to Ascalon Palace. The White Wyrm, they called it.” She paused. “Sabran had a miscarriage.”
“Saint,” he said. “Sab—” His face was tight with sorrow. “I am sorry I was not there.”
“I wish you had been.” Ead watched his face. “There will be no other child, Loth. The Berethnet line is at an end. Wyrms are rising, Yscalin has all but declared war, and the Nameless One will rise again, soon. I am sure of it.”
Loth was beginning to look very sick. “The Nameless One.”
“Yes. He will come,” Ead said, “though not because of Sabran. It has naught to do with her. Whether there is a queen in Inys or a sun in the sky, he will rise.”
Sweat dotted his brow.
“I think I know a way to defeat the Nameless One, but first we must secure Virtudom. Should it fall to civil war, the Draconic Army and the Flesh King will make short work of it.” Ead pressed the poultice against her belly. “Certain members of the Dukes Spiritual have abused their power for years. Now they know she will have no heir, I believe they will try to control Sabran, or even to usurp her.”
“By the Saint,” Loth murmured.
“You warned Meg about the Cupbearer. Do you know who it is?”
“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?”