The Priory of the Orange Tree (The Roots of Chaos)
The Priory of the Orange Tree: Part 3 – Chapter 47

Aralaq ran hard through the forest. Loth thought he had known his swiftness in the Spindles, but it was all he could do to hold on as the ichneumon leaped over twisted roots and creeks and between trees, lithe as a stone glancing off water.

He dozed as Aralaq took them farther north, away from the thickness of the forest. His dreams took him first to that accursed tunnel in Yscalin, where Kit must still lie—then farther, back to the map room at the estate, where his tutor was telling him about the history of the Domain of Lasia, and Margret was sitting beside him. She had always been a diligent student, keen to learn about their ancient roots in the South.

He had given up hope of ever seeing his sister again. Now, perhaps, there was a chance.

The rise and fall of the sun. The pounding of paws against earth. When the ichneumon stopped, Loth finally woke.

He rubbed the sand from his eyes. A lake stretched across a dusty expanse of earth, a streak of sapphire under the sky. Water olyphants bathed in its shallows. Beyond the lake were the great rocky peaks that guarded Nzene, all the red-brown of baked clay. Mount Dinduru, the largest, was almost perfect in its symmetry.

By noon, they were in the foothills. Aralaq climbed a brant path up the nearest peak. When they were high enough to make his thighs quake, Loth risked a look down.

Nzene lay before them. The Lasian capital sat in the cradle of the Godsblades, surrounded by high sandstone walls. The mountains—taller and straighter than any in the known world—sliced its streets with shadow. An immense road stretched out beyond it, no doubt a trade route to the Ersyr.

Date-palms and juniper trees lined streets that glistered in the sunlight. Loth spied the Golden Library of Nzene, built of sandstone taken from the ruins of Yikala, connected by a walkway to the Temple of the Dreamer. Towering over it all was the Palace of the Great Onjenyu, where High Ruler Kagudo and her family resided, set high above the houses on a promontory. The River Lase forked around its sacred orchard.

Aralaq sniffed out a shelter beneath a jut of rock, deep enough to protect them from the elements.

“Why are we stopping?” Loth wiped sweat from his face. “Ead told us to keep riding for Córvugar.”

Aralaq bent his front legs so Loth could dismount. “The blade she was cut with was laced with a secretion from the ice leech. It stops the blood from clotting,” he said. “There will be a cure in Nzene.”

Loth lifted Ead from the saddle. “How long will you be?”

The ichneumon did not reply. He licked Ead once across the brow before he disappeared.

When Ead rose from her world of shadows, it was sundown. Her head was a thrice-stirred cauldron. She was dimly aware that she was in a cave, but had no memory of having got there.

Her hand flinched to her collarbones. Feeling the waning jewel between them, she breathed again.

Retrieving it had cost her. She remembered the steel of the blade, and the sting of whatever foulness was on it, as she grabbed the jewel from Mita. Fire had sparked from her fingers, setting the bed ablaze, before she had rolled over the balustrade and into open sky.

She had dropped like a cat and landed on a ledge outside the kitchen. Mercifully, it had been empty, leaving her escape route clear. Still, she had barely made it to Aralaq and Loth before her strength gave out.

Mita deserved a cruel death for what she had done to Zāla, but Ead would not deliver it to her. She would not debase herself by murdering a sister.

A hot tongue licked a curl back from her brow. She found herself almost nose to nose with Aralaq.

“Where?” she said hoarsely.

“The Godsblades.”

No. She sat up, biting back a groan when her midriff throbbed. “You stopped.” Her voice strained. “You damned fools. The Red Damsels—”

“It was this or let you bleed to death.” Aralaq nosed the poultice on her belly. “You did not tell us that the Prioress coated her blade in the glean.”

“I had no idea.”

She should have expected it. The Prioress wanted her dead, but she could not do it herself without drawing suspicion. Better to slow her with blood loss, then tell the Red Damsels their newly returned sister was a traitor and order them to kill her for it. Her own hands would be clean.

Ead lifted the poultice. The wound was painful, but the mash of sabra flowers had leached the poison from it.

“Aralaq,” she said, sliding into Inysh, “you know how quickly the Red Damsels hunt.” Having Loth there made the language spring to her tongue. “You were not supposed to stop for anything.”

“High Ruler Kagudo keeps a supply of the remedy. Ichneumons do not let little sisters die.”

Ead forced herself to breathe, to be calm. The Red Damsels were unlikely to be searching the Godsblades just yet.

“We must move on soon,” Aralaq said, with a glance at Loth. “I will check it is safe.”

Silence yawned after he left.

“Are you angry, Loth?” Ead finally asked.

He gazed at the capital. Torches had been lit in the streets of Nzene, making it glimmer like embers beneath them.

“I should be,” he murmured. “You lied about so much. Your name. Your reason for coming to Inys. Your conversion.”

“Our religions are intertwined. Both oppose the Nameless One.”

“You never believed in the Saint. Well,” he corrected himself, “you did. But you think he was a brute and a craven who tried to press a country into accepting his religion.”

“And demanded to marry Princess Cleolind before he would slay the monster, yes.”

“How can you say such a thing, Ead, when you stood in sanctuary and praised him?”

“I did it to survive.” When he still refused to look at her, she said, “I confess I am what you would call a sorceress, but no magic is evil. It is what the wielder makes it.”

He risked a surly glance at her. “What is it you can do?”

“I can drive away the fire of wyrms. I am immune to the Draconic plague. I can create barriers of protection. My wounds heal quickly. I can move among shadows. I can make metal sing of death like no knight ever could.”

“Can you make fire of your own?”

“Yes.” She opened her palm, and a flame shivered to life. “Natural fire.” Again, and the flame blossomed silver. “Magefire, to undo enchantments.” Once more, and it was red, so hot it made Loth sweat. “Wyrmfire.”

Loth made the sign of the sword. Ead closed her hand, extinguishing the heresy.

“Loth,” she said, “we must decide now whether we can be friends. We both need to be friends to Sabran if this world is to survive.”

“What do you mean?”

“There is much you don’t know.” An understatement indeed. “Sabran conceived a child with Aubrecht Lievelyn, the High Prince of Mentendon. He was killed. I will tell you all later,” she added, when he stared. “Not long after, a High Western came to Ascalon Palace. The White Wyrm, they called it.” She paused. “Sabran had a miscarriage.”

“Saint,” he said. “Sab—” His face was tight with sorrow. “I am sorry I was not there.”

“I wish you had been.” Ead watched his face. “There will be no other child, Loth. The Berethnet line is at an end. Wyrms are rising, Yscalin has all but declared war, and the Nameless One will rise again, soon. I am sure of it.”

Loth was beginning to look very sick. “The Nameless One.”

“Yes. He will come,” Ead said, “though not because of Sabran. It has naught to do with her. Whether there is a queen in Inys or a sun in the sky, he will rise.”

Sweat dotted his brow.

“I think I know a way to defeat the Nameless One, but first we must secure Virtudom. Should it fall to civil war, the Draconic Army and the Flesh King will make short work of it.” Ead pressed the poultice against her belly. “Certain members of the Dukes Spiritual have abused their power for years. Now they know she will have no heir, I believe they will try to control Sabran, or even to usurp her.”

“By the Saint,” Loth murmured.

“You warned Meg about the Cupbearer. Do you know who it is?”

“No. All I had from Sigoso was that phrase.”

“At first I thought it was the Night Hawk,” Ead admitted, “but now I am all but certain that it is Igrain Crest. The twin cups are her badge.”

“Lady Igrain. But Sab loves her,” Loth said, visibly stunned. “Besides, anyone who takes the Knight of Justice as their patron wears the goblets—and the Cupbearer conspired with King Sigoso to murder Queen Rosarian. Why would Crest do such a thing?”

“I don’t know,” Ead said frankly, “but she recommended Sabran marry the Chieftain of Askrdal. Sabran chose Lievelyn instead, and then Lievelyn was killed. As for the cutthroats …”

“It was you who killed them?”

“Yes,” Ead said, deep in thought, “but I have wondered if they ever meant to kill. Perhaps Crest always planned for them to be caught. Each invasion would have left Sabran more terrified. Her punishment for resisting the call of the childbed was the near-constant fear of death.”

“And the Queen Mother?”

“It has long been rumored at court that Queen Rosarian took Gian Harlowe to her bed while she was wed to Prince Wilstan,” Ead said. “Infidelity is against the teachings of the Knight of Fellowship. Perhaps Crest likes her queens to be . . . obedient.”

At this, Loth clenched his jaw.

“So you mean for us to take a stand against Crest,” he said. “To protect Sabran.”

“Yes. And then to take a stand against a far older enemy.” Ead glanced toward the mouth of the cave. “Ascalon may lie in Inys. If we can replace it, we can use it to weaken the Nameless One.”

A bird called out from somewhere above their shelter. Loth passed her a saddle flask.

“Ead,” he said, “you do not believe in the Six Virtues.” He looked her in the eye. “Why risk everything for Sabran?”

She drank.

It was a question she should have asked herself a long time ago. Her feelings had come like a flower on a tree. A bud, gently forming—and just like that, an undying blossom.

“I realized,” she said, after a period of silence, “that she had been spoon-fed a story from the day she was born. She had been taught no other way to be. And yet, I saw that despite everything, some part of her was self-made. This part, small as it appeared at first, was forged in the fire of her own strength, and resisted her cage. And I understood . . . that this part was made of steel. This part was who she truly was.” She held his gaze. “She will be the queen that Inys needs in the days that are to come.”

Loth moved to sit beside her. When he touched her elbow, she looked up at him.

“I am glad we found each other again, Ead Duryan.” He paused. “Eadaz uq-Nāra.”

Ead rested her head on his shoulder. With a sigh, he wrapped an arm around her.

Aralaq returned then, startling them both. “The great bird is on the wing,” he said. “The Red Damsels draw near.”

Loth got to his feet at once. A strange calm washed over Ead as she took up her bow and quiver.

“Aralaq, we cross the scorchlands to Yscalin. We do not stop,” she said, “until we reach Córvugar.”

Loth mounted. She handed him the cloak, and when she climbed on, he wrapped it around them both.

Aralaq slid and pawed his way to the foot of the mountain and crept out of its shadow to glimpse the lake. Parspa was circling in silence overhead.

It was dark enough to cover their escape. They moved behind the other Godsblades. When there was nowhere else to hide, Aralaq struck out from the mountains and ran.

The scorchlands of Lasia, where the city of Jotenya had once stood, stretched across the north of the country. During the Grief of Ages, the land had been stripped bare by fire, but new grasses had reclaimed it, and wing-leaved trees, spaced far apart, had risen from the ashes.

The terrain began to shift. Aralaq gathered speed, until his paws were flying over yellow grass. Ead clung to his fur. Her belly still ached, but she had to stay alert, to be ready. The other ichneumons would have picked up on their scent by now.

The stars spiraled and shimmered above them, embers in a sky like char. Different to the ones that peppered the night sky in Inys.

More trees sprang up from the earth. Her eyes were dry from the onslaught of wind. Behind her, Loth was shivering. Ead drew the cloak more tightly around them both, covering his hands, and allowed herself to imagine the ship that would carry them from Córvugar.

An arrow whipped past Aralaq, just missing him. Ead turned to see what they were facing.

There were six riders. Red flames, each astride an ichneumon. The white belonged to Nairuj.

Aralaq growled and pushed himself faster. This was it. Mustering her strength, Ead slipped free of the cloak, grasped Loth by the shoulder, and swung herself behind him, so her back was against his.

Her best chance was to wound the ichneumons. Aralaq was fast even among his own kind, but the white could outrun him. As she nocked an arrow, she remembered a younger Nairuj boasting about how swiftly her mount could cross the Lasian Basin.

First, she allowed herself to adjust to Aralaq. When she knew the cadence of his footfalls, she lifted the bow. Loth reached behind him and grasped her hips, as if he was afraid she would fall.

Her arrow sliced over the grass, straight and true. At the last moment, the white ichneumon jumped over it. Her second shot went awry when Aralaq cleared the carcass of a wild hound.

They could not outrun this. Neither could they stop and fight. Two mages she could take, perhaps three, but not six Red Damsels, not with her injury. Loth would be too slow, and the other ichneumons would make meat of Aralaq. As she drew back her bowstring for the third time, she sent a prayer to the Mother.

The arrow pierced the front paw of an ichneumon. It collapsed, taking its rider with it.

Five left. She was preparing to shoot again when an arrow punched into her leg. A strangled shout tore out of her.

“Ead!”

At any moment, another arrow could lame Aralaq. And that would be the end for all of them.

Nairuj was spurring on her ichneumon. She was close enough now for Ead to see her ochre eyes and the hard line of her mouth. Those eyes had no hatred in them. Just pure, cold resolve. The look of a hunter set on her quarry. She lifted her bow and leveled the arrow at Aralaq.

That was when fire ripped across the scorchlands.

The eruption of light almost blinded Ead. The nearest trees burst into flame. She looked up, searching for its origin, as Loth let out a wordless cry. Shadows were darting above them—winged shadows with whip-like tails.

Wyverlings. They must have strayed from the Little Mountains, hungry for meat after centuries of slumber. In moments, Ead had sent an arrow into the eye of the nearest. With a soul-chilling screech, it crashed headlong into the grass, just missing the Red Damsels, who parted around it.

Three of them rallied against the wyverlings, while Nairuj and another continued their pursuit. As a skeletal beast swooped low and snapped at them, Aralaq stumbled. Ead twisted, heart pitching hard into her throat, fearing a bite. An arrow had skimmed his flank.

“You can make it.” She spoke to him in Selinyi. “Aralaq, keep running. Keep going—”

Another wyverling tumbled from above and slammed into a fan tree in front of them. As it fell, the pulled-up roots groaning in protest, Aralaq weaved out of the way and charged past it. Ead smelled brimstone from the flesh of the creature as it let out a long death rattle.

One of the riders was getting closer. Her ichneumon was black, its teeth like knives.

They all saw the wyverling a moment too late. Fire rained from above and consumed the Red Damsel, setting her cloak aflame. She rolled to the ground to smother it. Fire churned the grass and reached for Aralaq. Ead threw out her hand.

Her warding deflected the heat as a shield did a mace. Loth cried out as the flames clawed for him. The wyverling swerved away with a shriek, swallowing its fire. The Red Damsels were in chaos, hunted and harrowed, circled by the creatures. Ead turned, looking for Nairuj.

The white ichneumon lay wounded. A wyvern was bearing down on Nairuj, its jaws flushed with the blood of her mount. Without hesitating, Ead fitted her last arrow to her bowstring.

She hit the wyvern in the heart.

Loth pulled her back down to the saddle. Ead glimpsed Nairuj staring after them, one arm over her belly, before Aralaq spirited them away from the trees, into the darkness.

A smell of burning. Loth wrapped the cloak around Ead again. Even when they were far away, she could still see the tongues of fire in the scorchlands, glowing like the eyes of the Nameless One. Her head rolled forward, and she knew no more.

She woke to Loth saying her name. The grass and fire and trees were gone. Instead, there were houses built from coral rag. Crows on the rooftops. And stillness. Utter stillness.

This was a town that had buried more than it still had living souls. A ship with discolored sails and a figurehead shaped like a seabird in flight was waiting in the harbor—a silent harbor on the edge of the West. Dawn stained the sky a delicate shadow of pink, and the black salt waters stretched before them.

Córvugar.