Ead lowered her to the bed. Hungry lips came against hers, and Sabran breathed her name. It seemed as if centuries had passed since they had last been here.
They intertwined among the furs and sheets, breathless and fierce. Ead shivered with anticipation as she relearned every detail of the woman she had left behind. Her cheekbones and her tilted-up nose. Her smooth brow. The pillar of her throat and the little chalice at its base. The twin dents low down on her back, like the impressions of fingertips. Sabran unlocked her lips with her own, and Ead kissed her as if this were their last act on earth. As if this one embrace could keep the Nameless One at bay.
Their tongues danced the same pavane as their hips. Ead bent her head and touched her lips to each fine-cut collarbone, the rosebuds at the tips of her breasts. She kissed her belly, where the bruising had at last faded away. The only trace of the truth was a seam beneath her navel.
Sabran cradled her face. Ead looked into the eyes that had haunted her, and called to her still. Her fingers grazed over the scar that led along one thigh, found the dew where it met the other.
Then Sabran rolled her over, mischief in her smile. Her hair eclipsed the candlelight. Ead slid her hands around the cruet of her waist, interlocked her fingers at the small of her back, and dragged her between her legs.
Desire was a banked fire in her. Sabran smoothed a hand beneath her thigh and placed a light kiss on each breast.
Surely this was an unquiet dream. She would throw herself on the mercy of the desert if it meant that she could have this woman.
Sabran worked her way downward. Ead closed her eyes, breath netted in her chest. Her senses splintered to admit each luminous sensation. Fire-warmed skin. Creamgrail and clove. By the time a finger brushed her navel, she was drawn taut, shivering and glazed with sweat. As her hips rose in welcome, soft lips charted the crook of her thigh.
Each sinew of her was a string on a virginal, aching for the stroke of the musician. Her senses wound tight about ever-smaller centers, tensed to the pitch of Sabran Berethnet, and every touch vibrated through her bones.
“I am not your queen,” Sabran whispered over her skin, “but I am yours.” Ead raked her fingers through the dark of her hair. “And you will find that I can also be generous.”
They slept only when they were too heavy-limbed and sated to keep their exhaustion at bay. Sometime in the small hours, they woke to the patter of rain against the window, and they sought each other out again, bodies echoing the ember light.
After, they lay interlaced under the coverlets.
“You must remain as my Lady of the Bedchamber,” Sabran murmured. “For this. For us.”
Ead gazed at the ornate stonework on the ceiling.
“I can play the part of Lady Nurtha,” she said, “but it will always be a part.”
“I know.” Sabran looked into the darkness. “I fell in love with a part you played.”
Ead tried not to let the words find her heart, but Sabran had a way of always reaching it.
Chassar had fashioned Ead Duryan, and she had inhabited her so fully that everyone had fallen for the act. For the first time, she understood the depth of betrayal and confusion that Sabran must be feeling.
Sabran took Ead by the hand and traced the underside of her finger. The one that held her sunstone ring.
“You did not wear this before.”
Ead was close to falling asleep. “It is the symbol of the Priory,” she said. “The ring of a slayer.”
“You have slain a Draconic creature, then.”
“Long ago. With my sister, Jondu. We killed a wyvern that had woken in the Godsblades.”
“How old were you?”
“Fifteen.”
Sabran studied the ring for a time.
“I long not to believe your tale of Galian and Cleolind. I prayed to them both all my life,” she murmured. “If your version of events is correct, then I never knew either of them.”
Ead slid a hand to her back.
“Do you believe me?” she asked. “You know I have no proof of it.”
“I know,” Sabran said. Their noses touched. “It will take time for me to come to terms with this … but I will not close my mind to the notion that Galian Berethnet was only flesh.”
Her breathing grew softer. For a time, Ead thought she had drifted back to sleep. Then Sabran said, “I fear the war Fyredel craves.” She entwined their fingers. “And the shadow of the Nameless One.”
Ead only stroked her hair with one hand.
“I will address my people soon. They must know that I will stand against the Draconic Army, and that there is a plan in place to end the threat once and for all. If you can find the True Sword, I will show it to them. To lift their spirits.” Sabran looked up. “Your ambition is to defeat the Nameless One. If you succeed, what then will you do?”
Ead let her eyelids fall. It was a question she had tried her utmost not to ask herself.
“The Priory was founded to keep the Nameless One at bay,” she said. “If I bind him … I suppose I could do anything.”
A strange quiet grew between them. They lay in silence until Sabran shifted away and turned on to her other side.
“Sabran.” Ead kept her distance. “What is it?”
“I’m too warm.”
Her voice was armored. Faced with the back of her shoulder, Ead tried her best to sleep. She had no right to ask for truth.
It was not yet dawn when she woke. Sabran was asleep beside her, so still, she might have been dead.
Careful not to disturb her, Ead rose. Sabran stirred as she kissed the top of her head. She ought to let her know she was leaving, but even sleeping she looked tired. At least now she was safe, surrounded by people who loved her.
Ead left the Great Bedchamber and returned to her own rooms, where she washed and dressed. Margret was already in the stables in a riding habit and a hat festooned with an ostrich feather, saddling a sleepy-eyed palfrey. When she smiled, Ead embraced her.
“I am so happy for you, Meg Beck.” She kissed her cheek. “The soon-to-be Viscountess Morwe.”
“I wish he had not needed to be Viscount Morwe to be deemed worthy of me, but things are as they are.” Margret withdrew and grasped her hands. “Ead, will you be my giver?”
“It would be an honor. And now you can give your parents the good news.”
Margret sighed. Her father sometimes did not know his children. “Aye. Mama will be overjoyed.” She smoothed the front of her cream jacket. “Do you think I look all right?”
“I think you look like Lady Margret Beck. A paragon of fashion.”
Margret blew out a breath. “Good. I thought I might look like the village fool in this hat.”
They rode into the waking streets and crossed the Limber at the Bridge of Supplications, which was carved with the likenesses of every queen of the House of Berethnet. If they made good time, they could be in Summerport, which served the northern counties of Inys, by ten of the clock.
“Your dance with Sab last night set tongues wagging.” Margret glanced at her. “Rumor is that the two of you are lovers.”
“What would you say if that were true?”
“I would say you and she can do as you please.”
She could trust Margret. Mother knew, it would be good to have someone to talk to about her feelings for Sabran—yet something made her want to keep it secret, to keep their hours stolen.
“Rumors are nothing new at court,” was all she said. “Come, tell me your plans for the wedding. I think you would look very fine in yellow. What say you?”
The grounds of Ascalon Palace were draped in morning fog. A drench of rain had blown in and frozen overnight, turning the paths to frosted glass and dressing every windowsill with icicles.
Loth stood before the ruins of the Marble Gallery, where he and Sabran had often sat and talked for hours. There was a haunting beauty in the way the stone wept to the ground like wax.
No natural fire could have melted it. Only something retched up by the Dreadmount.
“This is where I lost my daughter.”
He looked over his shoulder. Sabran was close by, face cold-burned beneath a fur hat. Her Knights of the Body waited at a distance, all in the silver-plated armor of winter.
“I called her Glorian. The grandest name of my lineage. Each of its three bearers were great queens.” Her gaze was in the past. “I often wonder what she would have been like. If her name would have been a burden, or if she would have become even more illustrious than the others.”
“I think she would have been as fearless and virtuous as her mother.”
Sabran managed a tired smile.
“You would have liked Aubrecht.” She came to stand beside him. “He was kind and honorable. Like you.”
“I am sorry I never met him,” Loth said.
They watched the sun rise. Somewhere in the grounds, a lark began to chirrup.
“I prayed this morning for Lord Kitston.” Sabran rested her head on his shoulder, and he drew her in close. “Ead does not believe that Halgalant awaits us after death. Perhaps she is right—but I still trust, and always will, that there is a life beyond this one. And I trust that he has found it.”