“That will look suspicious.”
“We have no choice.” He looked at her. “You are Eadaz du Zāla uq-Nāra, a handmaiden of Cleolind. You should not stay any longer in this court of blasphemers.”
Her name. It had been so long. As she digested his words, his face grew taut with worry.
“Eadaz,” he said, “do not tell me now that you wish to stay. Have you become attached to Sabran?”
“Of course not,” Ead said flatly. “The woman is arrogant and overindulged—but, whatever she is, there is a chance, however small, that she is the Mother’s true descendant. Not only that: if she dies, the country with the greatest naval strength in the West will collapse—and that will not do any of us a whit of good. She needs protection.”
“And she will have it. The sister I have brought is gifted—but you have a different path to follow now.” He placed a hand on her back. “It is time to come home.”
A chance to be close to the orange tree again. She could speak her own tongue and pray to the true image of the Mother without being cooked in Marian Square.
Yet she had spent eight years learning about the Inysh—their customs, their religion, the intricacies of this snare of a court. She could not waste that knowledge.
“Chassar,” Ead said, “I want to leave this place with you, but you are calling me away just as Sabran is beginning to trust me. All my years here will have been for nothing. Do you think you could persuade the new Prioress to give me a little more time?”
“How long?”
“Until the royal succession is assured.” Ead turned to him. “Let me guard her until she bears a daughter. Then I will come home.”
He mulled this over for some time, his mouth a thin line in the thicket of his beard.
“I will try,” he concluded. “I will try, beloved. But if the Prioress refuses, you must submit.”
Ead kissed his cheek. “You are too good to me.”
“I can never be too good to you.” He took her by the shoulders. “But be mindful, Eadaz. Do not lose your focus. It is the Mother who compels you, not this Inysh queen.”
She looked back at the towers of the city. “Let the Mother compel us in all that we do.”
15
West
Cárscaro.
Capital of the Draconic Kingdom of Yscalin.
The city sat high in the mountains above a vast plain. It was scarped into a ridge in the Spindles, the snow-capped range that stood between Yscalin and the Ersyr.
Loth gazed through the window of the coach as it approached the mountain path. He had heard stories about Cárscaro all his life, but had never thought to lay eyes on it.
Yscalin had become the second link in the Chainmail of Virtudom when King Isalarico the Fourth had wed Queen Glorian the Second. For love of his bride, he had abjured the old gods of his country and pledged it to the Saint. In those days, Cárscaro had been famed for its masques, its music, and the red pear trees that grew along its streets.
No longer. Since Yscalin had renounced its age-old devotion to the Saint and taken the Nameless One as its god, it had been doing all it could to undermine Virtudom.
As dawn broke, bright threads of cloud appeared over the Great Yscali Plain. Once upon a time, this expanse of land had been carpeted with lavender, and when the wind blew, it had carried its scent up to the city.
Loth wished he could have seen it then. All that remained was a charred waste.
“How many souls live in Cárscaro?” he asked Lady Priessa, if only to distract himself.
“Fifty thousand, or thereabouts. Ours is a small capital,” she replied. “When you arrive, you will be shown to your chambers in the ambassadorial gallery. You will have an audience with Her Radiance at her earliest convenience to present your credentials.”
“Will we also meet King Sigoso?”
“His Majesty is indisposed.”
“I am sorry to hear it.”
Loth pressed his brow to the window and stared at the city in the mountains. Soon he would be at the heart of the mystery of what had happened to Yscalin.
A blur of movement caught his attention. He reached for the latch so that he might get a better look at the sky, but a gloved hand snapped it shut.
“What was that?” Loth asked, unnerved.
“A cockatrice.” Lady Priessa folded her hands in her lap. “You would do well not to wander far from the palace, Lord Arteloth. Many Draconic beings dwell in the mountains.”
Cockatrices. The spawn of bird and wyvern. “Do they harm the people in the city?”
“If they are hungry, they will harm anything that moves, except those who already have the plague. We keep them fed.”
“How?”
No reply.
The coach began its trundle up the mountain path. Across from Loth, Kit stirred from his doze and rubbed his eyes. He hitched up his smile at once, but Loth could tell he was afraid.
Night had fallen by the time the Gate of Niunda came into view. Colossal as the deity it was named after, carved from green and black granite and lit by torches, it was the sole entrance to Cárscaro. As they grew closer, Loth could make out shapes below its lintel.
“What is that, up there?”
Kit understood first.
“I would look away, Arteloth.” He sat back. “Unless you want this hour to haunt your nights forever.”
It was too late. He had seen the men and women chained by their wrists to the gate. Some looked dead or half-dead already, but others were alive and bloody, fighting their restraints.
“That is how we keep them fed, Lord Arteloth,” Lady Priessa said. “With our criminals and traitors.”
For a terrible moment, Loth thought he was going to cast up his last meal right here in the coach.
“I see.” His mouth flooded with saliva. “Good.”
He ached to make the sign of the sword, but here that would condemn him.
As the coach approached, the Gate of Niunda opened. No fewer than six wyverns guarded it. They were smaller than their High Western overlords and had only two legs, but their eyes scorched with the same fire. Loth looked away until they were past.
He was in a nightmare. The bestiaries, the stories of old, had come to life in Yscalin.
A tower of volcanic rock and glass rose from the middle of the city. That must be the Palace of Salvation, seat of the House of Vetalda. The mountain Cárscaro sat on was one of the lowest in the Spindles, but vast enough that its summit was hidden by the haze above the plateau.
The palace was a fearful thing, but it was the river of lava that unsettled Loth. It flowed in six forks around and through Cárscaro before merging into one pool and cascading onto the lower slopes of the mountain, where it cooled to volcanic glass.
The lava falls had appeared in Cárscaro a decade ago. It had taken the Yscals some time to build channels for the flaming river. In Ascalon, people now whispered that the Saint had sent it as a warning to the Yscals—a warning that the Nameless One would one day be the false god of their country.
Streets wound like rat tails around the buildings. Loth could see now that they were linked by high stone bridges. Stalls with red awnings were surrounded by people in heavy robes. Many wore veils over their faces. Fortifications against the plague could be seen everywhere, from charms in doorways to masks with glass eyes and long beaks, but some dwellings were still marked with red writing.
The coach brought them to the vast doors of the Palace of Salvation, where a line of servants waited. Lifelike carvings of Draconic creatures formed an arch around the entrance. It looked like the neck of the Womb of Fire.
Loth stepped from the coach and stiffly held out a hand to Lady Priessa, who declined it. It had been foolish to offer in the first place. Melaugo had told him to keep his distance.
The jaculi growled as their small party walked away from the coach. Loth fell into step beside Kit, and they followed the servants into a high-ceilinged vestibule, where a chandelier hung. He could have sworn its candles were burning with red flames.
Lady Priessa disappeared through a side door. Loth and Kit exchanged baffled glances.
Two braziers flanked a grand staircase. A servant lit a torch from one of them. He led Loth and Kit through deserted corridors and passages hid behind tapestries and trick walls, up cramped and tapering stairs that left Loth feeling even more nauseated, past oil paintings of former Vetalda monarchs, and finally into a gallery with a vaulted ceiling. The servant pointed first to one door, then another, and handed each of them a key.
“Perhaps we could have some—” Kit began, but the man had already vanished behind a tapestry. “Food.”
“We can eat tomorrow,” Loth said. Every word echoed in this corridor. “Who else do you think is here?”
“I am no expert on the subject of foreign ambassadors, but we must assume there are some Ments about.” Kit rubbed his grumbling stomach. “They have their fingers in every pie.”
That was true. It was said there was no place in the world the Ments refused to go.
“Meet me here at noonday,” Loth said. “We ought to discuss what to do.”