“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.”
“You can take to your bed or your bier. The choice is yours.”
Making a face, Sabran sat up. “Very well. But you are not to play nursemaid.” She watched Ead rise and dry herself. “You must speak with the Easterner on the morrow. Everything depends on our being able to coexist in peace.”
Ead pulled on her bedgown.
“I make no promises,” she said.
In her years of study at the South House, Tané had been taught only what were considered to be the necessary facts about the Queendom of Inys. She had learned about their monarchy and their religion of Six Virtues. She knew their capital was called Ascalon, and that they had the largest and best-armed navy in the world. Now she also knew that they lived in damp and cold, kept idols in their bedchambers, and forced their sick to drink a lumpy gruel that set her teeth on edge.
Fortunately, nobody had tried to coax it into her this morning. A servant had brought her a jug of ale, thick-cut slices of sweet bread, and a stew of brown meat. All of it had clotted in her stomach. She had only tried ale once before, when Susa had stolen a cup for her from Orisima, and she had thought it foul.
In the South House, there had been minimal furniture and sparing artwork. She had always liked that simplicity; it left her room to think. Castles were more ornate, of course, but the Inysh seemed to revel in things. In adornment. Even the curtains were dolorous. Then there was the bed, which was so laden with covers, it seemed to swallow her.
Still, it was good to be warm. After such a long journey, all she had been able to do for a day was sleep.
The Resident Ambassador to Mentendon returned when the sun was high.
“Lady Nurtha is here, honorable Tané,” she said in Seiikinese. “Should I let her in?”
At last.
“Yes.” Tané set the meal aside. “I will see her.”