“I thought the ceremony would not proceed. I thought the port would be closed, the gods kept out. That I would never ride.”
How craven it sounded. How selfish and senseless. When she had explained it to Nayimathun, her dragon had understood. Now the shame of it was crushing.
“He seemed like a message. Sent from the gods.” She could hardly speak. “I was too fortunate. All my life, the great Kwiriki was too good to me. Every day, I have waited for his favor to disappear. When the outsider came, I knew it was time. But I was not ready. I had to … sever his connection to me. Hide him away until I had what I wanted.”
All she could see was her hands, fingernails bitten raw, knurled with faint scars.
“The great Kwiriki has favored you, Lady Tané.” The Governor sounded almost pitying. “Had you made a different choice that night, that favor might still be yours.”
The bird outside, hic-hic-hic. A child that could never be soothed.
“Susa was innocent, honored Governor,” Tané said. “I forced her to help me.”
“No. We interrogated the sentinel she convinced to let her into Orisima. She was a willing participant. Loyal to you above Seiiki.” The Governor pressed her lips together. “I am aware that a dragon requested clemency for her. Unfortunately, the news reached me too late.”
“Nayimathun,” Tané whispered. “Where is she?”
“That brings me to the second, even more serious matter. Close to dawn, a group of hunters landed in Ginura Bay.”
“Hunters?”
“The Fleet of the Tiger Eye. The great Nayimathun of the Deep Snows was … taken.”
All sensation drained from Tané. Her hands clammed into fists.
“The High Sea Guard will do its utmost to retrieve her, but it is rare that our gods are spared the butchery that awaits them in Kawontay.” The Governor tightened her jaw for a moment. “It pains me to say it, but the great Nayimathun is most likely beyond our reach.”Tané trembled.
Her stomach was a poison in her. She tried not to imagine what Nayimathun must be suffering. The thought of it was so unbearable that her vision swam and her lips quaked.
She was doomed, and she had nothing and no one left to lose. Perhaps, in this final act, she could leach some of the corruption out of Seiiki with her.
“There is someone else involved,” she said quietly. “Roos. A surgeon from Orisima. He tried to blackmail me. Told me to bring him dragon scales and blood for his work. He has nothing moral or good in him.” Heat pricked her eyes. “He must have helped them take the great Nayimathun. Let him hurt no other dragons. Let him face justice.”
The Governor considered her for some time.
“Roos has been reported as missing,” she finally said. Tané stared. “He went to the beach last night, according to his friends. We think he may have escaped the island.”
If Roos was with the Fleet of the Tiger Eye, he was already dead. A man like him would soon cross the wrong person.
It brought Tané no comfort. Her enemy was gone, but so was her dragon. So was her friend. And so was the dream she had never deserved.
“I made a mistake.” It was all she had left. “A terrible mistake.”
“You did.”
Silence gaped between them.
“By rights, you should be executed,” the Governor told her. “Your self-interest and greed could have destroyed Seiiki. Out of respect for the great Nayimathun, however, and for what you could have been, I will show mercy on this day. You will live out your days on Feather Island. There, you may learn to serve the great Kwiriki well.”
Tané stood and bowed, and the soldiers took her back to the palanquin. She had thought she would beg or weep or ask forgiveness, but in the end, she felt nothing.
32
South
The reflection of water danced on an arched ceiling. The air was cool, but not so cool as to raise gooseflesh. Loth became aware of these things shortly after realising he was naked.
He lay on a woven rug. To his right was a four-sided pool, and to his left, a recess scooped into the rock, where an oil lamp shone.
Sudden pain clawed up his back. He turned on to his belly and vomited, and then it was upon him.
The bloodblaze.
It had been a far-off nightmare in Inys. A fireside story for dark nights. Now he knew what all the world had faced in the Grief of Ages. He knew why the East had locked its doors.
His very blood was boiling oil. He screamed into the darkness of his cauldron, and the darkness screamed back. A skep broke open somewhere inside him, and a swarm of enraged bees disgorged into his organs, setting them aflame. And as his bones cracked in the heat, as tears melted down his cheeks, all he desired in the world was to be dead.
A flash of memory. Through the crimson haze, he knew he must reach the pool he had seen and douse the fire within. He started to get up, moving as if on a bed of hot coals, but a cool hand graced his brow.
“No.”
A voice spoke, a voice like sunlight. “Who are you?”
His lips burned. “Lord Arteloth Beck,” he said. “Please, st-stay away. I have the plague.”
“Where did you find the iron box?”
“The Donmata Marosa.” He shuddered. “Please—”
Fear made him sob, but someone else was soon beside him, urging a jug to his lips. He drank.
When he woke next, he was in a bed, though still quite naked, in the same underground chamber as before.
It was a long time before he dared to move. There was no pain, and the red had vanished from his hands.
Loth made the sign of the sword over his chest. The Saint, in his mercy, had seen fit to spare him.
He lay still for a time, listening for footsteps or voices. At last, he stood on quaking legs, so weak his head swam. His bruises from the cockatrice were coated in ointment. Even the memory of the agony was draining, but some good soul had treated him and given him their hospitality, and he meant to be presentable when he greeted them.
He sank into the pool. The smooth floor was bliss against his weary soles.
He remembered nothing after his arrival in Rauca. A vague recollection of a market returned to him, and a sense of being on the move, and then the inn. After that, a void.
His beard had grown too thick for his liking, but there was no sign of a razor. When he was refreshed, he rose and drew on the bedgown that had been left on the nightstand.
He startled when he saw her. A woman in a green cloak, holding a lamp in her palm. Her skin was a deep brown, like her eyes, and her hair spiraled around her face.
“You must come with me.”
She spoke Inysh with a Lasian accent. Loth shook himself. “Who are you, mistress?”
“Chassar uq-Ispad invites you to his table.”
So the ambassador had found him, somehow. Loth wanted to ask more, but he had not the boldness in him to question this woman, who looked at him with a cool, unblinking gaze.
He followed her through a series of windowless passages, carved out of rosy stone and lit with oil lamps. This must be where the ambassador lived, though it was nothing like the place Ead had described growing up in. No open-air walkways or striking views of the Sarras Mountains. Just alcoves here and there, each framing a bronze statuette of a woman holding a sword and an orb.
His guide stopped outside an archway, which was hung with a translucent curtain.
“Through here,” she said.
She walked away, taking her light with her.
The chamber beyond the veil was small, with a low ceiling. A tall Ersyri man sat at a table. He wore a silver wrap around his head. When Loth entered, he glanced up.
Chassar uq-Ispad.
“Lord Arteloth.” The ambassador motioned to another seat. “Please, do sit down. You must be very tired.”
The table was piled with fruit. Loth sat in the opposite chair.
“Ambassador uq-Ispad,” he said a little hoarsely. “Is it you I should thank for saving my life?”
“I did vouch for you,” was the reply, “but no. This is not my estate, and the remedy you took was not mine. In the spirit of Ersyri hospitality, however, you may call me Chassar.”
His voice was not as Loth remembered it. The Chassar uq-Ispad he had known at court had been full of laughter, not this unnerving calm.
“You are very lucky to be at this table,” Chassar said. “Few men seek the Priory and live to see it.”
Another man poured Loth a cup of pale wine.
“The Priory, Your Excellency?” Loth asked, perplexed.
“You are in the Priory of the Orange Tree, Lord Arteloth. In Lasia.”
Lasia. Surely not. “I was in Rauca,” he said, still more perplexed. “How is that possible?”
“The ichneumon.” Chassar poured himself a drink. “They are old allies of the Priory.”
Loth was none the wiser.
“Aralaq found you in the mountains.” He put down his cup. “He summoned one of the sisters to collect you.”
The Priory. The sisters.
“Aralaq,” Loth repeated.
“The ichneumon.”
Chassar sipped his drink. Loth noticed for the first time that a sand eagle was perched nearby, its head cocked. Ead had praised these birds of prey for their intelligence.
“You look confused, Lord Arteloth,” Chassar said lightly. “I will explain. To do that, I must first tell you a tale.”