“And you have no sense of who in the Upper Household might want Sabran dead?”
“None. They all think she keeps the Nameless One chained.” Ead swilled her wine. “You always told me to trust my instinct.”
“Always.”
“Then I tell you now that something does not sit right with me about these attempts on Sabran. Not just the choice of weapon,” she said. “Only the last incursion seemed … serious. All the others have botched the thing. As if they wanted to be caught.”
“Most likely they are simply untrained. Desperate fools, bribed with a pittance.”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps it is deliberate,” she said. “Chassar, do you remember Lord Arteloth?”
“Of course,” he replied. “I was surprised that he was not with Sabran when I arrived.”
“He is not here. Combe exiled him to Yscalin for stepping too close to her, to clear the way for the marriage to Lievelyn.”
Chassar raised his eyebrows. “The rumors,” he murmured. “I heard them even in Rumelabar.”
Ead nodded. “Combe was willing to send Loth to his death. And now I fear the Night Hawk is moving the pieces once more. That by making Sabran fear for her life, he drove her to Lievelyn.”
“So she would beget an heir as soon as possible.” Chassar seemed to consider this. “In a way, this would be good news, were it true. Sabran is safe. She has done as he wants.”
“But what if she does not in future?”
“I do not think he would go any further than he has. His power dissolves without her.”
“I am not sure he believes that. And I do not think it well that Sabran remains unaware of his scheming.”
Chassar stilled at this. “You must not voice these suspicions to her, Eadaz. Not without evidence,” he said. “Combe is a powerful man, and he would find a way to hurt you.”
“I would not. All I can do is continue to watch.” She caught his gaze. “Chassar, my wardings are beginning to fail.”
“I know.” He kept his voice down. “When word reached us that Fyredel had shown himself, and that Sabran had banished him from Ascalon, we knew the truth at once. We also knew it would have burned through your siden. You have been away from the tree for too long. You are a root, beloved. You must drink, or you will wither.”
“It may not matter. I might have a chance, finally, to be a Lady of the Bedchamber,” Ead said. “To protect her with my own blade.”
“No, Eadaz.”
Chassar placed a big hand over hers. An orange blossom, cut from glass-like sunstone, was mounted on a silver ring on his forefinger. The symbol of their shared and true allegiance.
“Child,” he murmured, “the Prioress is dead. She was old, as you know, and passed in peace.”
The news pained Ead, but it was no surprise. The Prioress had always seemed ancient, her skin as gnarled and furrowed as an olive tree. “When?”
“Three months ago.”
“May her flame ascend to light the tree,” Ead said. “Who has taken up her mantle?”
“The Red Damsels elected Mita Yedanya, the munguna,” Chassar said. “Do you remember her?”
“Yes, of course.” From what little Ead could remember of her, Mita had been a quiet and serious woman. The munguna was the presumed heir to the Priory, though the Red Damsels would occasionally elect someone else if they deemed her unfit for the position. “I wish her well in her new role. Has she chosen her own munguna already?”
“Most of the sisters wager it will be Nairuj, but in truth, Mita has not yet decided.”
Chassar leaned closer. In the faint light that remained, Ead noticed lines around his mouth and eyes. He looked so much older than when she had last seen him.
“Something has changed, Eadaz,” he said. “You must feel it. Wyrms have been stirring from their slumber, and now a High Western has risen. The Prioress fears that these are the first steps toward the Nameless One himself awakening.”
Ead took a moment to let the words settle inside her. “You are not alone in fearing this,” she said. “A maid of honor, Truyde utt Zeedeur, sent a messenger to Seiiki.”
“The young heir to the Duchy of Zeedeur.” Chassar frowned. “Why would she want to parley with the East?”
“The girl has taken it into her head to call their wyrms to protect us from the Nameless One. She is convinced he will return—whether the House of Berethnet stands or not.”
Chassar let a soft hiss escape between his teeth. “What has led her to believe this?”
“The Draconic awakenings. And her own imaginings, I suppose.” Ead poured them both more wine. “Fyredel said something to Sabran. The thousand years are almost done. He also said his master stirred in the Abyss.”
The ocean that yawned between one side of the world and the other. Black water that sunlight could not penetrate. A vault of darkness that seafarers had always feared to cross.
“Ominous words indeed.” Chassar contemplated the horizon. “Fyredel must believe, as Lady Truyde does, and as the Prioress does, that the Nameless One is poised to return.”
“The Mother defeated him more than a thousand years ago,” Ead said. “Did she not? If that were the date the wyrm meant, the Nameless One should have risen already.”
Chassar took a thoughtful sip of wine. “I wonder,” he said, “if this threat has anything to do with the Mother’s lost years.”
All sisters knew about the lost years. Not long after vanquishing the Nameless One and founding the Priory, the Mother had left on unknown business and perished before she could make her way home. Her body had been returned to the Priory. No one knew who had sent it.
One small faction of sisters believed that the Mother had gone to join her suitor, Galian Berethnet, and had a child with him, establishing the House of Berethnet. This idea, unpopular in the Priory, was the founding legend of Virtudom—and what had landed Ead in Inys.
“How could it?” she asked.
“Well,” Chassar said, “most sisters believe that the Mother left to protect the Priory from some unnamed threat.” He pressed his lips together. “I will write to the Prioress and tell her what Fyredel said. She may be able to solve this riddle.”
They fell into a brief silence. Now twilight had drawn in, candles began to flicker to life in the windows of the palace.
“I must go soon,” Ead murmured. “To pray to the Deceiver.”
“Eat a little first.” Chassar moved the bowl of fruit toward her. “You look tired.”
“Well,” Ead said dryly, “banishing a High Western alone, as it turns out, is a tiring affair.”
She picked at the honey-sweet dates and cherries. Tastes of a life she had never forgotten.
“Beloved,” Chassar said, “forgive me, but before you go, there is something else I must tell you. About Jondu.”
Ead looked up.
“Jondu.” Her mentor, her beloved friend. Something twisted in her gut. “Chassar, what is it?”
“Last year, the Prioress decreed we must resume our efforts to find Ascalon. With Draconic stirrings on the rise, she believed we should do everything we could to find the sword the Mother used to vanquish the Nameless One. Jondu began her search in Inys.”
“Inys,” Ead said, chest tight. “Surely she would have come to see me.”
“She was ordered not to approach the court. To leave you to your task.”
Ead closed her eyes. Jondu was headstrong, but she would never have disobeyed a direct order from the Prioress.
“We last heard from her when she was in Perunta,” Chassar continued, “presumably making her way home.”
“When was this?”
“The end of winter. She did not find Ascalon, but she wrote to tell us she carried an object of importance from Inys and urgently required a guard. We sent sisters to find her, but there was no trace. I fear the worst.”
Ead stood abruptly and walked to the balustrade. Suddenly the sweetness of the fruit was cloying.
She remembered Jondu teaching her how to yoke the raw flame that scorched in her blood. How to hold a sword and string a bow. How to open a wyvern from gizzard to tail. Jondu, her dearest friend—who, along with Chassar, had made her all she was.
“She may still be alive.” Her voice was hoarse.
“The sisters are searching. We will not give up,” Chassar said, “but someone must take her place among the Red Damsels. That is the message I bring from Mita Yedanya, our new Prioress. She commands you to return, Eadaz. To wear the cloak of blood. We shall need you in the days to come.”
A shiver caressed Ead from her scalp to the base of her spine, chill and warm at once.
It was all she had ever wanted. To be a Red Damsel, a slayer-in-waiting, was the dream of every girl born into the Priory.
And yet.
“So,” Ead said, “the new Prioress does not care to protect Sabran.”
Chassar joined her at the balustrade. “The new Prioress is more skeptical of the Berethnet claim than the last,” he admitted, “but she will not leave Sabran undefended. I have brought one of your younger sisters with me to Inys, and I mean to present her to Queen Sabran in exchange for you. I will tell her one of your relatives is dying, that you must return to the Ersyr.”