“Eadaz.”
She turned her head to look at him, raw and sleepless. His tongue sanded her cheek. “My friend,” she said, “I need your help.” She took his face between her hands. “Do you remember how I fed you, when you were a pup? How I cared for you?”
His amber eyes seemed to catch the sunlight.
“Yes,” he said.
Of course he remembered. Ichneumons did not forget the first hand to feed them.
“There is a man here, among the Sons of Siyāti. His name is Arteloth.”
“Yes. I brought him here.”
“You were right to save him.” She swallowed the thickness in her throat. “I need you to get him out of the Priory, to the mouth of the cave in the forest, after sundown.”
He studied her. “You are leaving.”
“I must.”
His slit nostrils flared. “They will follow.”
“Which is why I need your help.” She stroked his ears. “You must discover where the Prioress keeps the white jewel from my chamber.”
“You are a fool.” He nudged her brow with his nose. “Without the tree, you will wither. All sisters do.”
“Then wither I will. Better to do that than to do nothing.”
A huff escaped him. “Mita has the jewel on her person,” he rumbled. “She smells of it. Of the sea.”
Ead closed her eyes.
“I will find a way,” she said.
45
East
The beaches of Feather Island were overrun by seawater. Tané had spent hours with Elder Vara while the island shivered, making it impossible to read.
Elder Vara had managed, of course. The world could end and he would find a way to keep on reading.
After the waters, a terrible hush had fallen. Every bird in the forest had lost its voice. That was when the scholars began to examine the damage wrought by the quake. Most of their number were unscathed, but two men had been tossed from the cliffs. The sea had not returned their bodies—but another body had washed up a day later.
The body of a dragon.
Tané had gone with Elder Vara at sunset to look upon the lifeless god. The steps were hard on his iron leg, and it had taken them a long time to reach the beach, but he had been resolved to go, and Tané had not left his side.
They had found a young Seiikinese dragon twisted across the sand, her jaw slack in death. Birds had already pecked the gleam from her scales, and mist clung to her bones. Tané had shuddered at the sight, and eventually, when she could bear it no more, she had turned away in grief.
She had never seen the carcass of a dragon. It was the most terrible thing she had ever beheld. They had thought at first that the little female had been butchered in Kawontay, and the remains abandoned to the sea—Tané had thought of Nayimathun and sickened—but the body had been whole, with all its scales and teeth and claws.
Gods could not drown. They were one with water. Finally, the elders had concluded that this dragon had been boiled.
Boiled alive by the sea itself.
Nothing was more unnatural. No omen could be more sinister.
Even if all the scholars had combined their strength, they would not have been able to move the dragon. She would be left to thaw out of existence. Eventually, all that remained would be iridescent bone.
The surgeon arrived while Tané was sweeping leaves with three other scholars, who worked in silence. Some shook with tears. The dead dragon had left everyone in a state of shock.
“Scholar Tané,” Elder Vara called.
She walked behind him like a shadow, into the corridors.
“The surgeon has come at last. I thought she might examine your side,” he said. “The learnèd Doctor Moyaka is a practitioner of Seiikinese and Mentish medicine.”
Tané stopped dead.
Moyaka. She knew that name.
Elder Vara turned to face her with a cockled brow. “Scholar Tané, you look distressed.”
“I don’t want to see this doctor. Please, learnèd Elder Vara. Doctor Moyaka has—” She felt sick. “He knows someone who threatened me. Who threatened my dragon.”
She could see Roos again, on the beach. His callous smile as he told her she must mutilate her dragon or lose everything. Moyaka had let that monster stay in his house.
“I know your last days in Seiiki were unhappy, Tané.” Elder Vara spoke gently. “I also know how hard it is to let go of the past. But on Feather Island, you must let go.”
Tané stared at his lined face. “What do you know?” she whispered.
“Everything.”
“Who else knows?”
“Only myself and the honored High Elder.”
His words made her feel as if she had been stripped naked. Deep down, she had hoped the Governor of Ginura would tell no one why she had been sent away from Seiiki.
“If you are certain you do not want to see learnèd Doctor Moyaka,” Elder Vara said, “say it once more, and I will take you to your room.”
She had no desire whatsoever to see Doctor Moyaka, but she also had no wish to embarrass Elder Vara by acting like a child.
“I will see him,” she said.
“Her,” Elder Vara corrected.
A stout Seiikinese woman awaited them in the healing room, where a water fountain burbled. Tané had never seen her before, but she was plainly a relative of the Doctor Moyaka she had met in Ginura.
“Good day, honorable scholar.” The woman bowed. “I understand you have an injury to your side.”
“An old one,” Elder Vara explained, when Tané only bowed in return. “It is a swelling she has had since childhood.”
“I see.” The learnèd Moyaka patted the mats, where a blanket and a headrest had been placed. “Open your tunic, please, honorable scholar, and lie down.”
Tané did as instructed.
“Tell me, Purumé,” Elder Vara said to the doctor, “have there been any more attacks in Seiiki by the Fleet of the Tiger Eye?”
“Not since the night they came to Ginura, to my knowledge,” Moyaka replied heavily. “But they will soon return. The Golden Empress is emboldened.”
It took Tané all her willpower not to shrink from her touch. The lump was still tender.
“Ah, here it is.” Moyaka traced the shape of the lump. “How many years have you taken, honorable scholar?”
“Twenty,” Tané said softly.
“And you have had this all your life?”
“Since I was a child. My learnèd teacher said my rib was broken once.”
“Does it ever hurt?”
“Sometimes.”
“Hm.” Moyaka probed it with two fingertips. “From the feel of it, it is most likely a bone spur—nothing to be concerned about—but I would like to make a small incision. Just to be sure.” She opened a leather case. “Will you need something for the pain?”
The old Tané would have refused, but all she had wanted since arriving here was to feel nothing. To forget herself.
One of the younger scholars brought ice from the caves, wrapped in wool to keep it cold. Moyaka prepared the drug, and Tané drank it in through a pipe. The smoke rubbed her throat raw. When it reached her chest, it blew a dark, sweet comfort through her blood, and her body was half feather and half stone, sinking as her thoughts grew light.
The weight of her shame evaporated. For the first time in weeks, she breathed easy.
Moyaka held the ice to her side. Once Tané could no longer feel much there, the doctor selected an instrument, washed it in boiled water, and glided its edge beneath the lump.
A far-off pain registered. The shadow of pain. Tané pressed her palms to the floor.
“Are you well, child?” Elder Vara asked.
There were three of him. Tané nodded, and the world seemed to nod with her. Moyaka peeled the incision open.
“This is—” She blinked. “Strange. Very strange.”
Tané tried to raise her head, but her neck was weak as a blade of grass. Elder Vara placed a hand on her shoulder. “What is it, Purumé?”
“I can’t be sure until I remove it,” was the puzzled reply, “but … well, it almost looks like a—”
Her finding was cut off by a shattering crash from outside.
“Another earthshake,” Elder Vara said. His voice sounded so far away.
“That did not feel like an earthshake.” Moyaka stiffened. “Great Kwiriki save us—”
A glow burst through the window. The floor trembled, and someone shouted fire. Moments later, the same voice let out a spine-chilling scream before it cut off sharply.
“Fire-breathers.” Elder Vara was already on his feet. “Tané, quickly. We must take shelter in the ravine.”
Fire-breathers. But no fire-breathers had been seen in the East for centuries …
He pulled her arm around his bony shoulders and lifted her from the mats. Tané swayed. Her mind was spindrift, but she had kept enough sense to move. Shoeless and numbed, she went with Elder Vara and Doctor Moyaka through the corridors and into the dining hall, where he slid open the door to the courtyard. Other scholars were making for the forest.
The smells of rain and fire mingled around her. Elder Vara pointed to the bridge.
“Go across. There is a cave on the other side—wait for me inside it, and we will climb down together,” Elder Vara said. “Doctor Moyaka and I must see that no one has been left behind.” He gave her a push. “Go, Tané. Hurry!”