West
Far away, beyond the Abyss, the shores of Seiiki called to her. She had dreamed for days of its plum rain, its black sand, the kiss of its sun-warmed sea on her skin. She missed the scent of sinking incense and the fog that crowned the mountains. She missed walks through the cedar forests in the depths of winter. More than any of that, she missed her gods.
It was the second day of spring, and Nayimathun had not come. Tané had known it would take time for her to fly again, but if she had reached the sea, it would have helped to knit the wound. That left the possibility that she had never got there. That the mages had hunted down and butchered her.
Let go of your guilt now, rider.
She wanted to obey, but her mind would not. It picked at her old wounds until they bled again.
A knock interrupted her pacing. She found Ead outside, hair sparkling with raindrops.
In the cabin, Tané lit what was left of the tallow candle. “How do you feel?” Ead asked, shutting the door behind her.
“Stronger.”
“Good. Your siden has settled.” Ead met her gaze. “I just wanted to check you were all right.”
“I am fine.”
“You don’t look it.”
Tané sat on her berth. She wanted to pretend otherwise, but she felt as if she could speak her mind around Ead.
“What if we fail?” she asked. “What if we cannot use the jewels as Cleolind and Neporo did?”
“You have the blood of Neporo, and weeks of practice to commend you.” The smile was brief. “Whatever happens, I think we will have Ascalon, Tané. I think we will be able to defeat him for good.”
“Why?”
“Because sterren calls to sterren. When we use the jewels, they will cry out to Kalyba. I imagine they have been calling to her ever since the two of us began to use them.” Her face was hard. “She will come.”
“I hope you are right.” Tané toyed with a tress of her own hair. “How are we to defeat her?”
“She is very powerful. Ideally, both of us will avoid single combat with her. But if it comes to that, I have a theory,” Ead said. “Kalyba draws her ability to change shape from star rot, and her stores of it must be low. Taking a form that is not her own drains it, and the more she changes forms, I suspect, the worse the drain. Forcing her to change shape many times may weaken her. Trap her in one shape.”
“You do not know this for sure.”
“No,” Ead admitted, “but it is all I have.”
“How comforting.”
With another smile, Ead sat on the chest at the end of the bed.
“One of us must wield Ascalon. Drive it into the Nameless One,” she said. “You were exposed to the sterren in the rising jewel for years. The sword may answer more willingly to your hands.”
It took Tané a moment to understand. Ead was offering an artefact she had fought to obtain, a keystone of her religion, to a dragonrider. Someone she should still, by rights, consider an enemy.
“Princess Cleolind used it first,” Tané said, after a hesitation. “One of her handmaidens should wield it now.”
“We cannot quarrel about this. He must die tomorrow, or he will destroy us all.”
Tané glanced down at her hands. Stained with the blood of her closest friend. Unworthy of Ascalon.
“If there is opportunity,” she said, “I will take it.”
“Very well.” Ead smiled a little. “Goodnight, rider.”
“Goodnight, slayer.”
The door shut out an icy gust of wind.
Outside, the stars were bright above the Abyss. The eyes of dragons fallen and unborn. Tané asked them now for one more boon. Let me do what I must, she prayed, then let me ask no more.
The Reconciliation was a colossal man-of-war. Except for the Rose Eternal, which had been lost in the East, it was the largest and best-armed ship in the Inysh navy.
In the royal staterooms, Ead lay beneath a pile of fur coverlets. Sabran drowsed beside her. It was the first time in days that she had looked peaceful.
Ead nestled into the bedding. The cruel sister had left an imprint somewhere inside her, and it chilled her to the bone.
Tomorrow night, they would be in sight of the other ships. The thought of seeing Loth again was not quite enough to stop the ache in her chest when she thought of his sister. Margret would be in Nzene by now.
Before they had left Ascalon, the Southern rulers had asked Sabran to send willing Inysh with healing skills to the Spindles. Though she was a Lady of the Bedchamber, Margret had asked Sabran for her leave to answer the call. I’ll only get in the way on the ship, she had told her. I cannot use a sword, but I can mend the wound it leaves.
Ead had expected Sabran to deny the request, but she had finally held Margret tightly and ordered her to be safe, and to return. In another break with protocol, she had commanded Sir Tharian Lintley to escort his betrothed and lead the Inysh soldiers. Even her Captain of the Knights of the Body could not protect his queen from the Nameless One. Lintley had not left her willingly, but he could not refuse an order.
Sabran stirred. She looked over her shoulder as Ead pressed a kiss to it.
“You said once that you would take me away,” Sabran said softly. “Somewhere.”
Ead traced the high slope of her cheekbone. Sabran turned to face her.
“I want you to,” she continued. “One day.”
Sabran slid a leg over hers. Ead drew her in, so they shared their warmth.
“We said our duties would be done,” Ead murmured, “but we both knew it was an airy hope.” She sought her gaze. “You are a beloved queen, Sabran. A queen Inys needs. You cannot give up your throne tomorrow, whether or not the Nameless One falls. And I cannot give up on the Priory.”
“I know.” Sabran shifted closer. “Even as we both whispered in the snow, I knew. We are both wed to our callings.”
“We will find a way,” promised Ead. “Somehow.”
“Let us not think of the future this night,” Sabran said softly. “It is not yet dawn.” She cupped Ead’s face with a faint smile. “We still have time for airy hopes.”
Ead touched their brows together. “Now it is you who speaks the comely words.”
It was a distraction, but Ead welcomed it. As the candle burned to nothing, she slid her fingers between their bodies, and Sabran kissed her with abandon and tenderness by turns.
Soon they would face the Nameless One. In the light-headed comfort of their joining, with Sabran in her arms and her flesh ablaze with desire, Ead let herself forget it. The arch in her back brought them closer together. Closer to that elusive somewhere. She quaked at the gentle touches on her skin, unable to foresee them in the darkness, and savored the shivers that coursed through Sabran as she gave them in return.
After, they both lay still, intertwined.
“You can light another candle,” Ead said to her. “Light does not keep me awake.”
“I do not need it.” Sabran slid a hand to Ead’s nape. “Not with you.”
Ead tucked her head under Sabran’s chin and listened to her heartbeat. She prayed that sound would never cease.
It was still pitch-black when she woke in the same position, to knocking on the cabin door.
“Your Majesty.”
Sabran reached for her bedgown. At the door, she conferred in a low voice with one of her Knights of the Body.
“The crew has rescued someone from the water,” she said to Ead when she returned.
“How could anyone possibly have swum this far into the Abyss?”
“He was in a rowing boat.” She lit a new candle. “Will you come with me?”
Ead nodded and rose to dress.
Six Knights of the Body led them across the Reconciliation to the captain’s cabin. At present, it was occupied by one man.
Someone had wrapped a coverlet around him. He was pallid and clammy, wearing a travel-soiled Lacustrine tunic, with a head of gray hair, matted with salt water. His left arm was missing below the elbow. From the smell, the loss was recent.
He looked up with bloodshot eyes. Ead recognized him at once, but it was Sabran who spoke first.
“Doctor Roos,” she said, and her voice was ice.
Sabran the Ninth. Thirty-sixth queen of the House of Berethnet. Close to a decade of despising her from afar, and now here she was.
Beside her was the person he had been sent here to kill.
During his days at court, she had been known as Ead Duryan. An Ersyri with a relatively minor position in the Upper Household. Clearly not so minor now. He remembered her eyes, dark and piercing, and the proud way that she held herself.
“Doctor Roos,” Sabran said.
She might have been addressing a rat.
“Your Majesty,” Niclays said, his own voice dripping with disdain. He bent his head in a bow. “What a very great pleasure to see you again.”
The Queen of Inys took the seat on the other side of the table.
“I am sure you remember Mistress Ead Duryan,” she said. “She is now known as Dame Eadaz uq-Nāra, Viscountess Nurtha.”
“Lady Nurtha,” Niclays said, inclining his head. He could not imagine what this young chamberer had done to acquire such high titles.