Kit grimaced and drank. “The Knight of Courage has lent you his sword, my friend.”
Somewhere in the mountains, a wyvern screamed a war cry. A deathly chill scraped through Loth.
“So,” Kit said, and cleared his throat, “Aubrecht Lievelyn. The former betrothed of our wyrm-headed Donmata.”
“Aye.” Loth gazed at the starless firmament. “Lievelyn seems a respectable choice. From what I’ve heard, he is kind and virtuous. He will make Sab a fine companion.”
“Doubtless, but now she will have to marry him without her dearest friend beside her.”
Loth nodded, lost in memory. He and Sabran had always promised that when they wed, they would give each other away. That he would miss the ceremony was the final twist of the knife.
Seeing his face, Kit let out a theatrical sigh. “Pity us both,” he said. “I made a solemn promise to myself that if Queen Sabran ever married, I would ask Kate Withy to dance with me and unmask myself as the man who has been sending her lovelorn poems these past three years. Now I shall never discover if I have the mettle.”
Loth allowed Kit to distract him while they finished their supper. Fortunate indeed that his friend had come with him on this journey, or he would have gone mad by now.
At midnight, the palace grew quiet as the Yscals began to retire. Kit returned to his chamber after exacting a promise that Loth would knock on his door on his return from meeting the lady.
A bell tolled somewhere in Cárscaro every hour. Close to three of the clock, Loth rose and slid his baselard into the sheath at his side. He took a red-flamed candle from one of the holders and left the colonnade.
The Library of Isalarico formed the heart of the Palace of Salvation. As Loth walked toward its doors, he almost missed the corridor on his left. He approached the door at its end, found the key in its lock, and stepped into the darkness of the Privy Sanctuary.
The glow from his candle flickered on a vaulted ceiling. Prayer books and broken statues were strewn across the floor. A portrait of Queen Rosarian was among the ruins, the face knifed almost beyond recognition. All evidence of Virtudom had been stashed in here and locked away.
A figure stood before the stained-glass window at the end of the sanctuary. She held a candle with a natural flame. When he was close enough to touch her, Loth broke the silence.
“Lady Priessa.”
“No, Lord Arteloth.” She lowered her hood. “You look upon a princess of the West.”
In the clean flame of her candle, her features were made plain to him. Brown skin and dark, heavy brows. An eagle nose. Her hair was black velvet, so long that it reached past her elbows, and her eyes were such a striking amber that they looked like topaz. The eyes of the House of Vetalda.
“Donmata,” Loth murmured.
She held his gaze.
The sole heir of King Sigoso and the late Queen Sahar. He had seen Marosa Vetalda once before, when she had come to Inys to celebrate the thousand-year anniversary of the Foundation of Ascalon. She had still been engaged to Aubrecht Lievelyn then.
“I don’t understand.” He tightened his grip on the candle. “Why are you dressed as your lady-in-waiting?”
“Priessa is the only person I trust. She lends me her livery so I can move about the palace undetected.”
“Were you the one who came to collect us from Perunta?”
“No. That was Priessa.” When Loth started to speak, she held a gloved finger to her lips. “Listen well, Lord Arteloth. Yscalin does not only worship the Nameless One. We are also under Draconic rule. Fyredel is the true king of Yscalin, and his spies lurk everywhere. It was why I had to act the way I did in the throne room. It is all a performance.”
“But—”
“You seek the Duke of Temperance. Fynch is dead, and has been for months. I sent him to carry out a task for me, in the name of Virtudom, but … he never returned.”
“Virtudom.” Loth stared at her. “What do you want from me?”
“I want your help, Lord Arteloth. I want you to do for me what Wilstan Fynch could not.”
Summer was on its way out. A chill was on the breeze, and the days were growing shorter. In the Privy Library, Margret had shown Ead a knot of ladybeetles nestled in the scrollwork of a bookshelf, and they had known it was almost time to travel downriver.
A day later, Sabran had decreed that the court would move to Briar House, one of the oldest royal palaces in Inys. Built during the reign of Marian the Second, it sprawled in the outskirts of Ascalon and backed onto the ancient hunting ground of Chesten Forest. The court usually journeyed to it in the autumn, but since Sabran had elected to marry Lievelyn in its sanctuary, it would take up residence there earlier than usual.
The moving of the court was always a chaos of folding and packing. Ead had departed with Margret and Linora in one of many coaches. Their possessions, locked in trunks, had followed.
Sabran had ridden with Lievelyn in a coach with gilded wheels. As the procession trundled down Berethnet Mile—the sweeping thoroughfare that divided the capital—the people of Ascalon had waved and cheered for their queen and their soon-to-be prince consort.
Briar House was cosier than Ascalon Palace. Its windows were forest glass, its corridors laid with honey-colored stone in a checkered pattern, and its walls blackbrick, which held in warmth like nothing else. Ead liked it well.
Two days after the court had arrived, she found herself at a dance in the candlelit Presence Chamber. Tonight, the queen had told her chamberers and maids of honor to go and enjoy themselves while she played cards with her Ladies of the Bedchamber.
A viol consort played gentle music. Ead sipped her mulled wine. It was strange, but she was almost sorry that she was here, and not with the queen. The Privy Chamber at Briar House was inviting, with its bookshelves and fireplace and Sabran playing the virginals. Her music had grown melancholy as the days went by, her laughter tapering into silence.
Ead looked to the other side of the room. Lord Seyton Combe, the Night Hawk, was watching her.
She turned away as if she had not seen him, only for him to approach. Like a shadow crossing a patch of sunlight.
“Mistress Duryan,” he said. He wore a livery collar with a pendant shaped like a book of manners. “Good evening.”
Ead dipped a small curtsy and spruced her face into a mask of indifference. She could bite down her loathing, but she would give him no smiles. “Good evening, Your Grace.”
There was a long silence. Combe studied her with his peculiar gray eyes.
“I have a sense,” he said, “that you do not think well of me, Mistress Duryan.”
“I do not think of you often enough to have formed any opinion of you, Your Grace.”
The corner of his mouth flinched. “A fine hit.”
She made no apology.
A page offered them wine, but Combe refused it with a gesture. “Do you not partake, my lord?” Ead asked civilly, even as she imagined stretching him on one of his own racks.
“Never. My ears and eyes must always be open for danger to the crown, and drink works hard to close them both.” Combe softened his voice. “Whether you think of me or not, I wanted to reassure you that you have a friend in me at court. Others may whisper about you, but I see that Her Majesty values your counsel. As she values mine.”
“That is kind of you to say.”
“Not kind. Merely truth.” He made a polite bow. “Excuse me.”
He walked away, parting the crowd, and Ead was left wondering. Combe did nothing without purpose. Perhaps he had talked to her because he needed a new intelligencer. Perhaps he thought she could wring knowledge about the Ersyr from Chassar and pass it on to him.
Over my dead body, bird of prey.
Aubrecht Lievelyn occupied one of the high seats. While Sabran hid in her apartments, her betrothed was always among her subjects, flattering the Inysh with his enthusiasm. At present, he was talking to his sisters, who were fresh off the ship from Zeedeur.
The twins, Princess Bedona and Princess Betriese, were twenty. They seemed to spend their days laughing at secrets known only to those who had grown together in the womb.
Princess Ermuna, the eldest sister and heir apparent, was half a year older than Sabran. She was the spit of her brother, tall and arresting, with the same pallid complexion. Thick crimson hair rippled to her hips. Her sleeves were slashed to reveal a lining of gold silk, then pulled in with six brocaded cuffs apiece, each cuff representing a virtue. The Inysh maids of honor were already tying ribbons around their own sleeves to imitate her.
“Mistress Duryan.”
Ead turned, then curtsied low. “Your Grace.”
Aleidine Teldan utt Kantmarkt, Dowager Duchess of Zeedeur and grandmother of Truyde, had come to stand beside her. Coin-sized rubies dripped from her ears.
“I was most curious to meet you.” Her voice was silvery and mellow. “Ambassador uq-Ispad says you are his pride and joy. A paragon of virtue.”