Niclays woke with a dry mouth and a fearsome headache, as he had a thousand times before. He blinked and rubbed a knuckle in the corner of his eye.
Bells.
That was what had woken him. He had been on this island for years, but never heard a single bell. Niclays grasped his cane and stood, his arm trembling with the effort.
It must be an alarm. They were coming for Sulyard, coming to arrest them both.
Niclays turned on the spot, desperate. His only chance was to pretend the man had hidden in the house without his knowledge.
He peered past the screen. Sulyard was sound asleep, facing the wall. Well, at least he would die in peace.
The sun was sweating too much light. Close to the little house where Niclays lived, his assistant, Muste, was sitting under the plum tree with his Seiikinese companion, Panaya.
“Muste,” Niclays shouted. “What in the world is that sound?”
Muste just waved. Cursing, Niclays jammed on his sandals and picked his way toward Muste and Panaya, trying to ignore the sense that he was walking to his doom.
“Good day to you, honorable Panaya,” he said in Seiikinese, bowing.
“Learnèd Niclays.” The corners of her eyes crinkled. She wore a light robe, white flowers on blue, the sleeves and collar embroidered in silver. “Did the bells wake you?”
“Yes. May I ask what they mean?”
“They are ringing for Choosing Day,” she said. “The eldest apprentices at the Houses of Learning have completed their studies, and have been placed into the ranks of the scholars or the High Sea Guard.”
Nothing to do with intruders, then. Niclays took out his handkerchief and mopped at his face.
“Are you well, Roos?” Muste asked, shading his eyes.
“You know how I loathe the summer here.” Niclays stuffed the handkerchief back into his jerkin. “Choosing Day takes place once a year, does it not?” he said to Panaya. “I have never once heard bells.”
Not bells, but he had heard the drums. The inebriating sounds of joy and revelry.
“Ah,” Panaya said, her smile growing, “but this is a very special Choosing Day.”
“It is?”
“Do you not know, Roos?” Muste chuckled. “You have been here longer than I have.”
“This is not something Niclays would have been told,” Panaya said gently. “You see, Niclays, it was agreed after the Great Sorrow that every fifty years, a number of Seiikinese dragons would take human riders, so we might always be prepared to fight together once again. Those who were chosen for the High Sea Guard this morning have been given this chance, and will now endure the water trials to decide which of them will be dragonriders.”
“I see,” Niclays said, interested enough to forget his terror about Sulyard for a moment. “And then they fly their steeds off to fight off pirates and smugglers, I presume.”
“Not steeds, Niclays. Dragons are not horses.”
“Apologies, honorable lady. A poor choice of word.”
Panaya nodded. Her hand strayed to the pendant around her neck, carved into the shape of a dragon.
Such a thing would be destroyed in Virtudom, where there was no longer any distinction between the ancient dragons of the East and the younger, fire-breathing wyrms that had once terrorized the world. Both were deemed malevolent. The door to the East had been closed for so long that misunderstanding about its customs had flourished.
Niclays had believed it before he had arrived in Orisima. He had been half-convinced, on the eve of his departure from Mentendon, that he was being exiled to a land where people were in thrall to creatures just as wicked as the Nameless One.
How frightened he had been that day. All Mentish children knew the story of the Nameless One from the moment they could fathom language. His own dear mother had relished scaring him to tears with her descriptions of the father and overking of all fire-breathing creatures—he who had emerged from the Dreadmount bent on chaos and destruction, only to be grievously wounded by Sir Galian Berethnet before he could subjugate humankind. A thousand years later, the specter of him still lived in all nightmares.
Just then, hooves thundered across the bridge into Orisima, jolting Niclays from his musings.
Soldiers.
His bowels turned to water. They were coming for him—and now the moment was at hand, he found himself light-headed rather than afraid. If today was the day, so be it. It was either this, or death at the hands of the sentinels for his gambling debts.
Saint, he prayed, let me not piss myself at the end.
The soldiers wore green tunics beneath their coats. Leading them, of course, was the Chief Officer—handsome, ever-so-good-natured Chief Officer, who refused to tell anyone in Orisima his name. He was a foot taller than Niclays and always wore full armor.
The Chief Officer dismounted and strode toward the house where Niclays lived. He was surrounded by his sentinels, and one hand rested on the hilt of his sword.
“Roos!” A gauntlet-covered fist rapped on the door. “Roos, open this door, or I will break it down!”
“There is no need to break anything, honored Chief Officer,” Muste called. “The learnèd Doctor Roos is here.”
The Chief Officer turned on his heel. His dark eyes flashed, and he walked toward them.
“Roos.”
Niclays liked to pretend that nobody had ever addressed him with such contempt, but that would be a lie. “You’re very welcome to call me Niclays, honored Chief Officer,” he said, with all the false cheer he could muster. “We’ve known each other long en—”
“Be quiet,” the Chief Officer snapped. Niclays shut his mouth. “My sentinels found the door to the landing gate open last night. A pirate ship was seen nearby. If any of you are hiding trespassers or smuggled goods, speak now, and the dragon may show mercy.”
Panaya and Muste said nothing. Niclays, meanwhile, did brief and violent battle with himself. There was nowhere for Sulyard to hide. Was it better to declare what he had done?
Before he could decide, the Chief Officer motioned to his sentinels. “Search the houses.”
Niclays held his breath.
There was a certain bird in Seiiki with a call like a babe beginning to wail. To Niclays, it had become a torturous symbol of his life in Orisima. The whimper that never quite turned into a scream. The wait for a blow that never came. As the sentinels rummaged through his house, that wretched bird took up its cry, and it was all Niclays could hear.
When they returned, the sentinels were empty-handed. “Nobody there,” one of them called.
It was all Niclays could do to stop himself sinking to his knees. The Chief Officer looked at him for a long time, his face a mask, before he marched to the next street.
And the bird kept calling. Hic-hic-hic.
4
West
Somewhere in Ascalon Palace, the black hands of a milk-glass clock were creeping toward noon.
The Presence Chamber was full for the Mentish visit, as it always was when foreign ambassadors came to Inys. The windows had been thrown open to let in a honeysuckle-scented breeze. It did little to flush out the heat. Brows were glazed with sweat and feather fans waved everywhere, so that it seemed as if the room were full of fluttering birds.
Ead stood in the crowd with the other Ladies of the Privy Chamber, Margret Beck on her right. The maids of honor faced them across the carpet. Truyde utt Zeedeur adjusted her carcanet. Why Westerners could not divest themselves of a few layers of clothing in the summer, Ead would never know.
Murmurs echoed through the cavernous hall. High above her subjects, Sabran the Ninth watched from her marble throne.
The Queen of Inys was the portrait of her mother, and her mother before that, and so on for generations. The resemblance was uncanny. Like her ancestors, she was possessed of black hair and eyes of a lucent green that seemed to fracture in the sunlight. It was said that while her bloodline endured, the Nameless One could never wake from his sleep.
Sabran took in her subjects with a detached gaze, lingering on nobody. She was eight and twenty, but her eyes held the wisdom of a much older woman.
Today she embodied the wealth of the Queendom of Inys. Her gown was black satin in deference to the Mentish fashion, laid open to the waist to show a stomacher, pale as her skin, glistering with silverwork and seed pearls. A crown of diamonds affirmed her royal blood.
Trumpets heralded the coming of the Mentish party. Sabran whispered something to Lady Arbella Glenn, Viscountess Suth, who smiled and laid a liver-spotted hand on hers.
The standard-bearers came first. They showed the Silver Swan of Mentendon displayed on a black field, with the True Sword pointed down, between its wings.