“You think.” Ead smiled. “And are you so much cleverer than the alchemists who have puzzled over it for centuries?”
“Perhaps not,” Truyde granted, “though history boasts many so-called scholars of only middling ability. No, not cleverer … but more disposed to take risks.”
“What risk did you take?”
“I went to Gulthaga.”
The city that had once lain in the shadow of the Dreadmount, now buried under ash.
“My grandsire told us he was going to visit Wilgastrōm,” Truyde said, “but he died of the Draconic plague, contracted in Gulthaga. My father told me the truth when I was fifteen. I rode to the Buried City myself. To see what had driven my grandsire there.”
The world believed that the late Duke of Zeedeur had died of the pox. Doubtless the family had been commanded to uphold the lie to avoid creating panic.
“Gulthaga has never been excavated, but there is a way through the tuff, to the ruins,” Truyde said. “Some ancient texts have survived. I found the ones my grandsire had been studying.”
“You went to Gulthaga knowing the Draconic plague was there. You are mad, child.”
“It is why I was sent to Inys. To learn temperance—but as you have seen, Mistress Duryan, Temperance is not my patron knight.” Truyde smiled. “Mine is Courage.”
Ead waited.
“My ancestor was Viceroy of Orisima. From her journals, I learned that the comet that ended the Grief of Ages—that came the hour the wyrms fell—also gave strength to the Eastern dragons.” Her eyes were bright. “My grandsire knew a little of the ancient language of Gulthaga. He had translated some of the astronomical writings. They revealed that this comet, the Long-Haired Star, causes a starfall each time it passes.”
“And what has this to do with anything else, pray tell?”
“I think it connects to the Tablet of Rumelabar. I think the comet is supposed to keep the fire beneath the world in check,” Truyde said. “The fire builds over time, and then a starfall cools it. Before it can grow too strong.”
“Yet it grows strong now. Where is your comet?”
“That is the problem. I believe that at some point in history, something upset the cycle. Now the fire grows too strong, too fast. Too fast for the comet to subdue it.”
“You believe,” Ead said, frustrated.
“As others believe in gods. Often with less proof,” Truyde pointed out. “We were lucky in the Grief of Ages. The coming of the Long-Haired Star coincided with the rise of the Draconic Army. It saved us then—but by the time it comes again, Fyredel will have conquered humankind.” She grabbed Ead by the wrist, eyes flashing. “The fire will rise as it did before, when the Nameless One was born into this world. Until it has consumed us all.”
Her face was wrought with conviction, her jaw tight with it.
“That,” she finished, with an air of triumph, “is why I believe he will return. And why I think the House of Berethnet has naught to do with it.”
They locked gazes for a long moment. Ead pulled her wrist free.
“I want to pity you, child,” she said, “but I find my heart cold. You have fished in the waters of history and arranged some fractured pieces into a picture that gives your grandsire’s death some meaning—but your determination to make it truth does not mean it is so.”
“It is my truth.”
“Many have died for your truth, Lady Truyde. I trust,” Ead said, “that you can live with that.”
A draft shivered through the arrow-slit. Truyde turned away from the chill, rubbing her arms.
“Go to Queen Sabran, Ead. Leave me to my beliefs, and I will leave you to yours,” she said. “We will see soon enough whose truth is correct.”
As she walked back to the Queen Tower, Ead winnowed her memories for the exact words that had been scored into the Tablet of Rumelabar. The first two lines eluded her, but she recalled the rest.
… Fire ascends from the earth, light descends from the sky.
Too much of one doth inflame the other,
and in this is the extinction of the universe.
A riddle. The sort of nonsense alchemists bickered over for want of anything more useful to do. Bored with her privileged existence, the girl had parsed her own meaning from the words.
And yet Ead found herself dwelling on it. After all, fire did ascend from the earth—through wyrms, and through the orange tree. Mages ate of its fruit, becoming vessels of the flame.
Had the Southerners of ancient times known some truth that had disappeared from history?
Uncertainty threw shadows on her mind. If there was some connection between the tree and the comet and the Nameless One, surely the Priory would know of it. But so much knowledge had been lost over the centuries, so many records destroyed …
Ead cast the thought aside as she entered the royal apartments. She would think on the girl in the tower no more.
In the Great Bedchamber, the Queen of Inys sat upright in her bed, nursing a cup of almond milk. As Ead sat beside the fire, braiding her hair, she felt Sabran’s gaze like the tip of a knife.
“You took their side.”
Ead stopped. “Madam?”
“You agreed with Ros and Kate about the name.”
Days had passed since that discussion. This must have been curdling inside her ever since.
“I wanted my child to carry some part of her father,” Sabran said bitterly. “Morose it might be, but it is the place where we were last together. Where he learned that we would have a daughter. Where he vowed that she would be beloved.”
Compunction waxed in Ead.
“I wanted to support you,” she said, “but I thought Lady Roslain was right, about not breaking with tradition. I still do.” She tied off her braid. “Forgive me, Majesty.”
With a sigh, Sabran patted the bed. “Come. The night is cold.”
Ead stood with a nod. Ascalon Palace did not hold in warmth so well as Briar House. She blew out all but two of the candles before she got under the coverlets.
“You are not yourself.” Sabran inferred. “What troubles you, Ead?”
A girl with a skullful of dangerous ideas.
“Only the talk of invasion,” Ead answered. “These are uncertain times.”
“Times of treachery. Sigoso has betrayed not only the Saint, but humankind.” Sabran exerted a stranglehold on her cup. “Inys survived the Grief of Ages, but barely. Villages were turned to ash, cities set afire. Our population was decimated, and even centuries later, any armies I can muster will not be as large as those we had before.” She put the cup aside. “I cannot think of this now. I must … deliver Glorian. Even if all three High Westerns lead their forces to my queendom, the Nameless One cannot join them.”
Her nightgown was drawn back to bare her belly, as if to let the child breathe. Blue veins traced her sides.
“I prayed to the Damsel, asking her to fill my womb.” Sabran released her breath. “I can be no good queen. No good mother. Today, for the first time, I … almost resented her.”
“The Damsel?”
“Never. The Damsel does what she must.” One pale hand came to rest on the bump. “I resent … my unborn child. An innocent.” Her voice strained. “The people already turn to her as their next queen, Ead. They speak of her beauty and her magnificence. I did not expect that. The suddenness of it. Once she is born, my purpose is served.”
“Madam,” Ead said gently, “that is not true.”
“Is it not?” Sabran circled a hand on her belly. “Glorian will soon come of age, and I will be expected, sooner or later, to abdicate in her favor. When the world considers me too old.”
“Not all Berethnet queens have abdicated. The throne is yours for as long as you desire.”
“It is considered an act of greed to hold it for too long. Even Glorian Shieldheart abdicated, despite her popularity.”
“Perhaps by the time your child is grown, you will be ready to relinquish the throne. To lead a quieter life.”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps not. Whether I live or die in childbed, I will be cast aside. Like an eggshell.”
“Sabran.”
Before she knew it, Ead had reached to touch her cheek. Sabran looked at her.
“There will be fools and flatterers,” Ead said, “who forsake your side to fawn over a newborn. Let them. See them for what they are.” She kept Sabran’s gaze prisoner. “I told you fear was natural, but you must not let it consume you. Not when there is so much at stake.”
The skin against her palm was cool and petal-soft. Warm breath caressed her wrist.
“Be at my side for the birth. And onward,” Sabran murmured. “You must always stay with me, Ead Duryan.”
Chassar would be back for her in half a year. “I will stay with you for as long as I can,” Ead said. It was all that she could promise.