A servant came to pour them all more wine. Ead declined. She needed a clear head.
“You should know, Sabran,” Kagudo continued, “that I would not affix my seal to this siege were it not crucial to Lasia. Frankly, the idea that we should sacrifice our soldiers to a grand diversion while you face the Nameless One is questionable. You have decided that we will fight the kittens, and you the cat, though he would come for me just as quickly as you.”
“The diversion was my suggestion, Majesty,” Ead said.
It was at this point that the High Ruler of Lasia looked at her for the first time. Ead felt a tingle at her nape.
“Lady Nurtha,” Kagudo said.
“Queen Sabran was the one who proposed an assault on Cárscaro, but I suggested that she meet the Nameless One on the Abyss.”
“I see.”
“Of course,” Ead said, “you are blood and heir of the House of Onjenyu, whose land the Nameless One threatened before any other. If you wish to avenge his cruelty toward your people, leave one of your generals to oversee the siege of Cárscaro. Join us on the sea.”
“I would be grateful for your sword, Kagudo,” Sabran said. “If you chose my battle front.”
“Indeed.” Kagudo sipped her wine. “I imagine you would enjoy the company of a heretic very much.”
“We call you heretics no more. As I promised in my letter, those days are at an end.”
“I see it only took the House of Berethnet a thousand years and a crisis of this magnitude to follow its own teachings on courtesy.”
Sabran had the wisdom to let her consider. Kagudo looked for some time at Ead.
“No,” she finally said. “Let Raunus go with you. He is a seafarer, and my people take precedence over an ancient grudge. They will want to see their ruler on the battlefield closest to home. In any case, Cárscaro has threatened our domain for too long.”
From there, all talk was of strategy. Ead tried to listen, but her mind was elsewhere. The Council Chamber seemed to press in on her, and at last she said, “If Your Majesties will excuse me.”
They all stopped talking.
“Of course, Lady Nurtha,” Jantar said, with a brief smile.
Sabran watched her go. So did Kagudo.
Outside, night was on the turn. Ead used her key to enter the Privy Garden, where she sat on the stone bench and gripped its edge.
It must have been hours that she sat there, lost in thought. For the first time, she could feel the weight of her responsibility like a boulder on her back.
Everything now depended on her ability to use the jewels with Tané. Thousands of lives and the very survival of humankind hung on that requisite. There was no other plan. Only the hope that two fragments of a legend would be able to bind the Beast of the Mountain. Every moment he remained alive would be another moment of soldiers dying on the foothills of Cárscaro. Every moment would be another ship burned.
“Lady Nurtha.”
Ead looked up. The sky held its first light, and Kagudo Onjenyu stood before her.
“Your Majesty,” she said, and rose.
“Please,” Kagudo said. She wore a fur-lined cloak now, fastened with a brooch over one shoulder. “I know the sisters of the Priory know no sovereign but the Mother.”
Ead gave her obeisance nonetheless. It was true that the Priory answered to no ruler but its Prioress, but Kagudo was the blood of the Onjenyu, the dynasty of the Mother.
Kagudo regarded her with apparent interest. The High Ruler was beautiful in a way that stopped the heart for an instant. Her eyes were long and narrow, slicing upward at the corners, set deep above broad cheekbones. Now she was standing, Ead could see the rich orange barkcloth of her skirt. The cap of a royal warrior had been placed over her hair.
“You seemed to be deep in thought,” she said.
“I have a great deal to consider, Majesty.”
“As do we all.” Kagudo glanced back at the Alabastrine Tower. “Our council of war is over, for now. Perhaps you would care to walk with me. I find myself in need of air.”
“I should be honored.”
They took to the gravel path that snaked through the Privy Garden. Kagudo’s guards, who wore circlets of gold on their upper arms and carried deadly looking spears, walked a short way behind them.
“I know who you are, Eadaz uq-Nāra.” Kagudo spoke in Selinyi. “Chassar uq-Ispad told me years ago about the young woman whose duty was to guard the Queen of Inys.”
Ead hoped she looked less surprised than she felt.
“I suspect you know by now that the Prioress is dead. As for the Priory, it appears that it has been occupied by a witch.”
“I prayed it was not true,” Ead said.
“Our prayers do not always bear fruit,” Kagudo said. “Your people and mine have long had an understanding. Cleolind of Lasia was of my house. Like my ancestors, I have honored our relationship with her handmaidens.”
“Your support has been instrumental to our success.”
Kagudo stopped and turned to face her. “I will speak plainly,” she said. “I asked you to walk with me because I wanted to make myself known to you. To meet you in person. After all, the time will soon come for the Red Damsels to choose another Prioress.”
A weight dropped into her belly. “I will have no say in that. The Priory considers me a traitor.”
“That may be, but it is possible that you are about to face its oldest enemy. And if you could slay the Nameless One … your crimes would surely be forgiven.” If only that were true. “Mita Yedanya, unlike her predecessor, looked inward. Now, a little inwardness is reasonable, even necessary—but if your climb to this position at the Inysh court is anything to go by, Eadaz, you also look outward. A ruler should know how to do both.”
Ead let these words take root inside her. They might never grow into anything, but there the seed lay.
“Did you never dream of being Prioress?” Kagudo asked. “You are a descendant of Siyāti uq-Nāra, after all. The woman Cleolind deemed worthy to succeed her.”
Of course she had dreamed of it. Every girl in the Priory wanted to be a Red Damsel, and every Red Damsel hoped that she would one day be the representative of the Mother.
“I do not know that looking outward has served me well,” Ead said quietly. “I have been banished, named a witch. One of my own sisters was sent to dispatch me. I gave eight years to protect Queen Sabran, believing she might be the blood of the Mother, only to find that she never was.” Kagudo smiled thinly at that. “You never believed it?”
“Oh, not for a moment. You and I both know that Cleolind Onjenyu, who was willing to die for her people, would never have abandoned them for Galian Berethnet. You knew it, too, even if you had no proof … but the truth has a way of always surfacing.”
The High Ruler raised her face. The moon was fading from the sky.
“Sabran has promised me that after our battles, she will ensure the world knows who really vanquished the Nameless One a thousand years ago. She will restore the Mother to prominence.”
The truth would shake Virtudom to its foundations. It would ring out like a bell across the continents.
“You look just as surprised as I was,” Kagudo said, with a not-quite-smile. “Centuries of lies will not be undone in a day, of course. The children of the past died believing that Galian Berethnet wielded the sword, and that Cleolind Onjenyu was no more than his adoring bride. That can never be undone, nor mended … but the children of tomorrow will know the truth.”
Ead knew what pain this would cause Sabran. To finally, publicly sever her ties to the woman she had known as the Damsel. The woman whose truth she had never known.
But she would do it. Because it was the right thing—the only thing—to do.
“I trust in the Priory. As I always have,” Kagudo said, and placed a hand on her shoulder. “The gods walk with you, Eadaz uq-Nāra. I hope very much that we meet again.”
“I hope the same.”
Ead bowed to the blood of the Onjenyu. She was surprised when Kagudo returned the gesture.
They parted at the gates to the Privy Garden. Ead pressed her back to its wall as dawn blanched the horizon. Her head was a spinning top of new and uncertain possibilities.
Prioress. If she could defeat the Nameless One, the High Ruler would support any claim she made to the position. That was no small thing. Few Prioresses of the past had been honored with the backing of the Onjenyu.
She returned with a start to the present when a voice called her name. Margret was running to her as fast as her skirts would allow.
“Ead,” she said, taking her by the hands, “King Jantar received my letter. He brought Valour.”
Ead winched up a smile. “I am glad of it.”
Margret frowned. “Are you well?”
“Perfectly.”
They both turned to face the palace gates, where courtiers were flocking to hear Sabran make her speech. Margret linked their arms.