The reflection of water danced on an arched ceiling. The air was cool, but not so cool as to raise gooseflesh. Loth became aware of these things shortly after realising he was naked.
He lay on a woven rug. To his right was a four-sided pool, and to his left, a recess scooped into the rock, where an oil lamp shone.
Sudden pain clawed up his back. He turned on to his belly and vomited, and then it was upon him.
The bloodblaze.
It had been a far-off nightmare in Inys. A fireside story for dark nights. Now he knew what all the world had faced in the Grief of Ages. He knew why the East had locked its doors.
His very blood was boiling oil. He screamed into the darkness of his cauldron, and the darkness screamed back. A skep broke open somewhere inside him, and a swarm of enraged bees disgorged into his organs, setting them aflame. And as his bones cracked in the heat, as tears melted down his cheeks, all he desired in the world was to be dead.
A flash of memory. Through the crimson haze, he knew he must reach the pool he had seen and douse the fire within. He started to get up, moving as if on a bed of hot coals, but a cool hand graced his brow.
“No.”
A voice spoke, a voice like sunlight. “Who are you?”
His lips burned. “Lord Arteloth Beck,” he said. “Please, st-stay away. I have the plague.”
“Where did you find the iron box?”
“The Donmata Marosa.” He shuddered. “Please—”
Fear made him sob, but someone else was soon beside him, urging a jug to his lips. He drank.
When he woke next, he was in a bed, though still quite naked, in the same underground chamber as before.
It was a long time before he dared to move. There was no pain, and the red had vanished from his hands.
Loth made the sign of the sword over his chest. The Saint, in his mercy, had seen fit to spare him.
He lay still for a time, listening for footsteps or voices. At last, he stood on quaking legs, so weak his head swam. His bruises from the cockatrice were coated in ointment. Even the memory of the agony was draining, but some good soul had treated him and given him their hospitality, and he meant to be presentable when he greeted them.
He sank into the pool. The smooth floor was bliss against his weary soles.
He remembered nothing after his arrival in Rauca. A vague recollection of a market returned to him, and a sense of being on the move, and then the inn. After that, a void.
His beard had grown too thick for his liking, but there was no sign of a razor. When he was refreshed, he rose and drew on the bedgown that had been left on the nightstand.
He startled when he saw her. A woman in a green cloak, holding a lamp in her palm. Her skin was a deep brown, like her eyes, and her hair spiraled around her face.
“You must come with me.”
She spoke Inysh with a Lasian accent. Loth shook himself. “Who are you, mistress?”
“Chassar uq-Ispad invites you to his table.”
So the ambassador had found him, somehow. Loth wanted to ask more, but he had not the boldness in him to question this woman, who looked at him with a cool, unblinking gaze.
He followed her through a series of windowless passages, carved out of rosy stone and lit with oil lamps. This must be where the ambassador lived, though it was nothing like the place Ead had described growing up in. No open-air walkways or striking views of the Sarras Mountains. Just alcoves here and there, each framing a bronze statuette of a woman holding a sword and an orb.
His guide stopped outside an archway, which was hung with a translucent curtain.
“Through here,” she said.
She walked away, taking her light with her.
The chamber beyond the veil was small, with a low ceiling. A tall Ersyri man sat at a table. He wore a silver wrap around his head. When Loth entered, he glanced up.
Chassar uq-Ispad.
“Lord Arteloth.” The ambassador motioned to another seat. “Please, do sit down. You must be very tired.”
The table was piled with fruit. Loth sat in the opposite chair.
“Ambassador uq-Ispad,” he said a little hoarsely. “Is it you I should thank for saving my life?”
“I did vouch for you,” was the reply, “but no. This is not my estate, and the remedy you took was not mine. In the spirit of Ersyri hospitality, however, you may call me Chassar.”
His voice was not as Loth remembered it. The Chassar uq-Ispad he had known at court had been full of laughter, not this unnerving calm.
“You are very lucky to be at this table,” Chassar said. “Few men seek the Priory and live to see it.”
Another man poured Loth a cup of pale wine.
“The Priory, Your Excellency?” Loth asked, perplexed.
“You are in the Priory of the Orange Tree, Lord Arteloth. In Lasia.”
Lasia. Surely not. “I was in Rauca,” he said, still more perplexed. “How is that possible?”
“The ichneumon.” Chassar poured himself a drink. “They are old allies of the Priory.”
Loth was none the wiser.
“Aralaq found you in the mountains.” He put down his cup. “He summoned one of the sisters to collect you.”
The Priory. The sisters.
“Aralaq,” Loth repeated.
“The ichneumon.”
Chassar sipped his drink. Loth noticed for the first time that a sand eagle was perched nearby, its head cocked. Ead had praised these birds of prey for their intelligence.
“You look confused, Lord Arteloth,” Chassar said lightly. “I will explain. To do that, I must first tell you a tale.”
This was the strangest greeting in the world.
“You know the story of the Damsel and the Saint. You know how a knight rescued a princess from a dragon and took her away to a kingdom across the sea. You know that they founded a great city and lived happily ever after.” He smiled. “Everything you know is false.”
It was so quiet in the room that Loth heard the sand eagle ruffle its feathers.
“You are a follower of the Dawnsinger, Your Excellency,” he finally said, “but I ask that you not blaspheme in front of me.”
“The Berethnets are the blasphemers. They are the liars.”
Loth was stunned into silence. He had known Chassar uq-Ispad was an unbeliever, but this came as a shock.
“When the Nameless One came to the South, to the city of Yikala,” Chassar said, “High Ruler Selinu attempted to placate him by organizing a lottery of lives. Even children were sacrificed if their lot was drawn. His only daughter, Princess Cleolind, swore to her father that she could kill the beast, but Selinu forbade it. Cleolind was forced to watch as her people suffered. One day, though, she was chosen as the sacrifice.”
“This is as the Sanctarian tells it,” Loth said.
“Be silent and learn something.” Chassar selected a purple fruit from the bowl. “On the day that Cleolind was meant to die, a Western knight rode through the city. He carried a sword named Ascalon.”
“Hush, or I will cut out your tongue.”
Loth closed his mouth.
“This gallant knight,” Chassar said, voice soaked in disdain, “promised to kill the Nameless One with his enchanted sword. But he had two conditions. The first was that he would have Cleolind as his bride, and she would return to Inysca with him as his queen consort. The second was that her people would convert to the Six Virtues of Knighthood—a code of chivalry that he had decided to turn into a religion, with himself as its godhead. An invented faith.”
To hear the Saint described like some roaming madman was too much to bear. Invented faith, indeed. The Six Virtues had been the code all Inysh knights had lived by at that time. Loth opened his mouth, remembered the warning, and shut it again.
“Despite their fear,” Chassar continued, “the Lasian people did not want to convert to this new religion. Cleolind told the knight as much and refused both his terms. Yet Galian was so overcome with greed and lust that he fought the beast nonetheless.”
Loth almost choked. “There was no lust in his heart. His love for Princess Cleolind was chaste.”
“Try not to be irritating, my lord. Galian the Deceiver was a brute. A power-hungry, selfish brute. To him, Lasia was a field from which to reap a bride of royal blood and adoring devotees of a religion he had founded, all for his own gain. He would make himself a god and unite Inysca under his crown.” Chassar poured more wine while Loth seethed. “Of course, your beloved Saint fell almost instantly with a trifling injury and pissed himself. And Cleolind, a woman of courage, took up his sword.
“She followed the Nameless One deep into the Lasian Basin, where he had made his lair. Few had ever dared enter the forest, for its sea of trees was vast and uncharted. She tracked the beast until she found herself in a great valley. Growing in this valley was an orange tree of astonishing height and untold beauty.
“The Nameless One was wrapped like a snake about its trunk. They fought across the valley, and though Cleolind was a powerful warrior, the beast set her afire. In agony, she crawled to the tree. The Nameless One crowed in triumph, certain of his victory, and opened his mouth to burn her once more—but while she was beneath the branches, his fire could not touch her.
“Even as Cleolind wondered at the miracle, the orange tree yielded its fruit. When she ate of it, she was healed—not only healed, but changed. She could hear the whispers in the earth. The dance of the wind. She was reborn as a living flame. She fought the beast once more and plunged Ascalon beneath one of his scales. Grievously injured, the Nameless One slithered away. Cleolind returned in triumph to Yikala and banished Sir Galian Berethnet from her land, returning his sword to him so he would never come back for it. He fled to the Isles of Inysca, where he told a false version of events, and they crowned him King of—”
Loth slammed his fist down. The sand eagle shrieked in protest.
“I will not sit at your table and listen to you sully my faith,” Loth said quietly. “Cleolind went with him to Inys, and the Berethnet queens are their descendants.”
“Cleolind cast away her riches,” Chassar said, as if Loth had not spoken, “and journeyed back into the Lasian Basin with her handmaidens. There, she founded the Priory of the Orange Tree, a house of women blessed with the sacred flame. A house, Lord Arteloth, of mages.”
Sorcery.
“The Priory’s purpose is to slay wyrms, and to protect the South from Draconic power. Its leader is the Prioress—she who is most beloved of the Mother. And I’m afraid, Lord Arteloth, that this great lady believes you may have murdered one of her daughters.” When Loth looked blank, Chassar leaned forward, his eyes intent. “You were in possession of an iron box that was last held by a woman named Jondu.”
“I am no murderer. Jondu was captured by the Yscals,” Loth insisted. “Before she died, she entrusted the box to the Donmata of Yscalin, who gave it to me.” He groped for the back of the chair and stood up. “She begged me to bring it to you. You have it now,” he said, desperate. “I must leave this place.”
“So Jondu is dead. Sit down, Lord Arteloth,” Chassar said coolly. “You will stay.”
“So you can insult my faith still further?”
“Because whomsoever seeks the Priory can never leave its walls.”
Loth turned cold.
“This is a difficult thing to tell you, Lord Arteloth. I am acquainted with your lady mother, and it pains me to know that she will never see her son again . . . but you cannot leave. No outsider may. There is too great a risk that you could tell someone about the Priory.”
“You—” Loth shook his head. “You cannot— this is madness.”
“It is a comfortable life. Not as comfortable as your life in Inys,” Chassar admitted, “but you will be safe here, away from the eyes of the world.”
“I am the heir to Goldenbirch. I am a friend to Queen Sabran the Ninth. I will not be mocked like this!” His back hit the wall. “Ead always said you were a man of good humor. If this is some jest, Your Excellency, say it now.”
“Ah.” Chassar sighed. “Eadaz. She told me of your friendship.”
Something shifted inside Loth. And, slowly, he began to understand.
Not Ead, but Eadaz. The feeling of sunlight. Her secrets. Her obscure childhood. But no, it could not be true . . . Ead had converted to the Six Virtues. She prayed at sanctuary twice a day. She could not, could not be a heretic, a practitioner of the forbidden arts.
“The woman you knew as Ead Duryan is a lie, Arteloth. I devised that identity for her. Her true name is Eadaz du Zāla uq-Nāra, and she is a sister of the Priory. I planted her in Inys, on the orders of the last Prioress, to protect Sabran the Ninth.”
“No.”
Ead, who had shared his wine and danced with him at every Feast of Fellowship since he was two and twenty. Ead, the woman his father had told him he should marry.
Ead Duryan.
“She is a mage. One of the most gifted,” Chassar said. “She will return here as soon as Sabran births her child.”
Every word drove the knife of betrayal deeper. He could take no more. He pushed through the curtain and blundered into the passages, only to come face to face with the woman in green. And he saw, then, that she was not holding an oil lamp.
She was holding fire.
“The Mother is with you, Arteloth.” She smiled at him. “Sleep.”
