The Prioress had welcomed her. Sisters had referred to her as the Hawthorn Sister or Rattletongue, depending on whether they believed her story. Most had kept their distance, for Kalyba had unsettling gifts. Gifts not granted to her by any tree.
Once, Kalyba had come across Ead and Jondu while they played under the sun, and she had smiled at them in a way that had made Ead trust her utterly. What would you become, little sisters, she had asked them, if you could become anything?
A bird, Jondu had answered, so I could go anywhere.
Me, too, Ead had said, because she had always done as Jondu did. I could strike the wyrms down for the Mother, even as they flew.
Watch, Kalyba had said.
That was where memory clouded, but Ead was sure that Kalyba had elongated her own fingers into feathers. Certainly she had done something that had charmed Ead and Jondu, enough for them to believe that Kalyba must be the most sacred of handmaidens.
The reasons for her banishment had never been clear, but it was rumored that it was she who had poisoned Zāla as she slept. Perhaps it was when the Prioress had realized that she was the Lady of the Woods, the terror of Inysh legend, famous for her bloodlust.
As Ead dried her sword, Aralaq came through the waterfall. He gave her a sour look.
“You are a fool to make this journey. The Witch of Inysca will make meat of you.”
“From what I hear, Kalyba likes to toy with her prey.” She polished the blade on her cloak. “Besides, the witch is nothing if not inquisitive. She’ll want to know why I’ve come to her.”
“She will tell you lies.”
“Or she will vaunt her knowledge. She has enough of it.” With a long-suffering sigh, she reached for her bow. “I suppose I must hunt myself some dinner.”
Aralaq growled before he went back through the waterfall, and Ead smiled. He would get her something. Ichneumons had a loyal streak, surly though they were.
She collected what little kindling she could find in the undergrowth and built a fire in the cavern. When Aralaq returned a second time, he threw down a speckled fish.
“This is only because you fed me as a pup,” he said, and curled up in the darkness.
“Thank you, Aralaq.”
He let out a disgruntled sound.
Ead wrapped the fish in plantain leaf and set it over the fire. As it cooked, her thoughts were drawn back to Inys, carried there as if by the south wind.
Sabran would be sleeping now, with Roslain or Katryen beside her. Fevered, perhaps. Or perhaps she had recovered. She might have already chosen another Lady of the Bedchamber—or rather, had one chosen for her. Now the Dukes Spiritual were circling the throne, it would almost certainly be another woman from one of their families, the better to spy on her.
What had they told the Queen of Inys about Ead? That she was a sorceress and a traitor, no doubt. Whether Sabran had believed it, in her heart, was a different matter. She would not want to accept it—but how could she challenge the Dukes Spiritual when they knew her secret; when they could destroy her with a word?
Did Sabran still trust her? She hardly deserved it. They had shared a bed, shared their bodies, but Ead had never told her the truth of who she was. Sabran had never even known her true name.
Aralaq would wake soon. She lay beside him, close enough to the waterfall that the spray cooled her skin, and tried to get some rest. Facing Kalyba would take all her wits. When Aralaq stirred, she gathered her weapons and hauled herself onto his back again.
They traveled through the forest until noon. When they came to the trunk of the Minara, Ead shielded her eyes against the sun. It was an unforgiving river, swift-flowing and deep. Aralaq bounded between rocks in the shallows, and when there was nothing else for it, he swam, Ead clinging to his fur.
Warm rain began to fall as they reached the other side of the river, plastering her curls to her face and neck. She ate some persimmon as Aralaq moved deeper into the forest. Only when the sun was beginning to sink again did he stop.
“The Bower is close.” He sniffed. “If you do not return after an hour, I will come after you.”
“Very well.”
Ead slid from his back.
“Remember, Eadaz,” Aralaq said, “whatever you see in this place is an illusion.”
“I know.” She sheathed her arm in a bracer. “See you soon.”
Aralaq growled his displeasure. Axe in hand, Ead stepped into the mist.
An archway twisted out of boughs, laced with flowers, formed the door. Flowers the color of stormclouds.
I dream of a shaded bower in a forest, where sunlight dapples the grass. The entrance is a gateway of purple flowers—sabra flowers, I think.
Ead raised a hand, and for the first time in years, she conjured magefire. It danced from her fingers and torched the flowers, revealing the thorns beneath the illusion.
She closed her hands. The blue flame of magefire would unknit an enchantment if it burned for long enough, but she would have to use it in moderation if she meant to conserve enough strength to defend herself. With a last glance at Aralaq, she hacked her way through the thorns with her axe and emerged unscathed in the clearing beyond.
She was in the Orchard of Divinities. As she took a step forward, a scent breathed from the greensward, so thick and cloying she could almost roll it on her tongue. Golden light speckled grass deep enough for her to sink to her ankles.
The trees pressed close together here. Voices echoed beyond them—near and far away at once, dancing to the purl of water.
Were they even there, or was this part of the enchantment?
“Min mayde of strore, I knut thu smal,
as lutil as mus in gul mede.
With thu in soyle, corn grewath tal.
In thu I hafde blowende sede.”
A great spring-fed pool came into view. Ead found herself walking toward it. With every step, the voices in the trees swelled and her head whirled like a round-wind. The language they sang in was steeped in the unfamiliar, but some of the words were unquestionably an old form of Inysh. Older than old. As ancient as the haithwood.
“In soyle I soweth mayde of strore
boute in belga bearn wil nat slepe.
Min wer is ut in wuda frore—
he huntath dama, nat for me.”
Her hand was slick on the axe. The voices spoke of ritual from the dawn of a long-dead age. While she took in the crisscross of branches above her, Ead forced herself to imagine them drenched in blood, and the voices luring her into a trap.
At the end of the path, I find a great rock, and I reach out to touch it with a hand I do not think is mine. Ead turned. There it was, a slab of stone almost as tall as she was, guarding the mouth of a cave. The rock breaks in two, and inside—
“Hello.”
Ead looked up. A small boy was sitting on a branch above her.
“Hello,” he said again in Selinyi. His voice was high and sweet. “Are you here to play with me?”
“I am here to see the Lady of the Woods,” Ead said. “Will you fetch her for me, child?”
The boy let out a musical laugh. One blink, and he was there. The next, he was nowhere.
Something made Ead look toward the pool. Sweat prickled on her nape as she watched for any ripple on its surface.
She drew in a breath when the water birthed a head. A woman emerged, sloe-eyed and naked.
“Eadaz du Zāla uq-Nāra.” Kalyba stepped into the clearing. “It has been a long time.”
The Witch of Inysca. The Lady of the Woods. Her voice was as deep and clear as her pool, with a strange inflection. Northern Inysh, but not quite.
“Kalyba,” Ead said.
“Last I saw you, you were no more than six. Now you are a woman,” Kalyba observed. “How the years pass. One forgets, when the years leave no indent on the flesh.”
Ead remembered her face well now, with its lofty cheekbones and full upper lip. Her skin was tanned, her limbs long and well turned. Auburn hair rolled in waves over her breasts. Anyone who looked at her would swear she was not a day past five and twenty. Beautiful, but clipped by the same hollowness that Ead had seen in her own reflection.
“My last visitor was one of your sisters, come to take my head to Mita Yedanya in punishment for a crime I never committed. I suppose you are here to do the same,” Kalyba ruminated. “I would warn you against trying, but the sisters of the Priory have grown arrogant in the years I have been away.”
“I am not here to hurt you.”
“Why do you come to me, then, sweet mage?”
“To learn.”
Kalyba remained still and expressionless. Water trickled down her belly and thighs.
“I have just returned from Inys,” Ead said. “The last Prioress sent me there to serve its queen. While I was in Ascalon, I heard tell of the great power of the Lady of the Woods.”
“Lady of the Woods.” Kalyba closed her eyes and breathed in, as if the name had a rich scent to it. “Oh, it has been a very long time since they called me by that name.”
“You are dreaded and revered in Inys, even now.”