A caravan of forty souls was weaving through the desert. In the faint light of sundown, the sand glittered.
Bestriding a camel, Eadaz uq-Nāra watched the sky deepen to red. Her skin had tanned to a deep brown, and her hair, cut to the shoulders, was covered by a white pargh.
The caravan she had joined at the Place of Doves was now in the northern reaches of the Burlah—the stretch of desert that rolled toward Rumelabar. The Burlah was the domain of the Nuram tribes. The caravan had already crossed paths with some of their merchants, who had shared their supplies and warned that wyrms had been venturing beyond the mountains, doubtless emboldened by rumors that another High Western had been sighted in the East.
Ead had stopped at the Buried City on her way to Rauca. The Dreadmount, birthplace of wyrmkind, had been as terrible as she remembered it, jutting like a broken sword into the sky. Once or twice, as she walked between crumbled pillars, she had glimpsed the distant flicker of wings at its summit. Wyverns flocking to their cradle of life.
In the shadow of the mountain were the remains of the once-great city of Gulthaga. What little was left on the surface belied the structure beneath. Somewhere inside, Jannart utt Zeedeur had met his end in the pursuit of knowledge.
Ead had considered following him, to see if she could find out more about this Long-Haired Star, the comet that balanced the world. She had scoured the ruins for the route he had used to burrow under the petrified ash. After hours of searching, she had been close to giving up when she saw a tunnel, barely wide enough to crawl in. It was choked by a rockfall.
There would be little point in exploring. After all, she knew no Gulthaganian—but Truyde’s prophecy was a worm in her ear.
She had thought her return to the South would breathe life back into her. Indeed, her first step into the Desert of the Unquiet Dream had felt like a rebirth. Having left Valour safe in the Harmur Pass, she trekked alone through the sands to Rauca. Seeing the city again restored her strength, but it was soon lashed away by the winds that blazed off the Burlah.
Her skin had forgotten the touch of the desert. All she was now was another dusty traveler, and her memory was a mirage. Some days she almost believed that she had never worn fine silks and jewels in the court of the Western queen. That she had never been Ead Duryan.
A scorpion made a dash past her camel. The other travelers were singing to pass the time. Ead listened in silence. It had been a lifetime since she had heard anyone sing in Ersyri.
A songbird perched in a cypress tree,
And, lonesome, called out for a mate to wed.
“Dance, dance,” it sang, “on the dunes tonight.
“Come, come, my love, and we’ll both take flight.”
Rumelabar was still so far away. It would take weeks for the caravan to conquer the Burlah in winter, when the bitter nights could kill as swiftly as the sun. She wondered whether Chassar had received word of her departure from Inys, which would have diplomatic ramifications for the Ersyr.
“We will make for the Nuram camp,” the caravan-master called. “A storm is coming.”
The message was passed down the line. Ead held the reins tighter in frustration. She had no time to waste while a storm blew out of the Burlah.
“Eadaz.”
She turned in her saddle. Another camel had fallen into step with hers. Ragab was a grizzled postrider, headed south with a bag of mail.
“A sandstorm,” he said, his deep voice weary. “I think this journey will never end.”
Ead enjoyed riding with Ragab, who was full of interesting stories from his travels and claimed to have made the crossing nearly a hundred times. He had survived an attack by a basilisk on his village, which had killed his family, blinded him in one eye, and scarred him all over. The other travelers looked at him with pity.
They looked at Ead with pity, too. She had heard them whisper that she was a wandering spirit in the body of a woman, trapped between worlds. Only Ragab had dared to come close.
“I had forgotten how harsh the Burlah is,” Ead said. “How desolate.”
“Have you crossed it before?”
“Twice.”
“When you have made the crossing as many times as I have, you will see beauty in that desolation. Though of all our deserts in the Ersyr,” he said, “the one I like best will always be the Desert of the Unquiet Dream. My favorite story, as a child, was how it received its name.”
“That is a very sad tale.”
“To me, it is beautiful. A tale of love.”
Ead reached for her saddle flask. “It has been a long time since I heard it.” She removed the stopper. “Perhaps you might tell it to me?”
“If you wish,” Ragab said. “We have some way to go.”
She let Ragab sip from her flask before she drank herself. He cleared his throat.
“Once there was a king, beloved by his people. He ruled from a blueglass palace in Rauca. His bride, the Butterfly Queen, who he had loved more than anything in the world, had died young, and he grieved for her pitifully. His officials ruled in his stead while he fell into a prison of his own making, surrounded by wealth he despised. No jewels or coins could buy him the woman he had lost. And so he became known as the Melancholy King.
“One night, he rose from his bed for the first time in a year to behold the red moon. When he looked down from his window—why, he could not believe his eyes. There was his queen, in the palace gardens, dressed in the same clothes she had worn on the day he wed her, calling to him to join her on the sands. Her eyes were laughing, and she held the rose he had given her when they first met. Thinking himself in a dream, the king walked from the palace, through the city, and into the desert—without food or water, without a robe, without even his shoes. He walked and walked, following the shadow in the distance. Even as the cold snaked over his skin, even as he grew weak with thirst and ghouls stalked his footsteps, he told himself, I am only dreaming. I am only dreaming. He walked after his love, knowing he would reach her, and that he would spend one more night with her—just one more, in his dream, at least—before he woke in his bed alone.”
Ead remembered the next part of the story. A shiver coursed through her.
“Of course,” Ragab said, “the Melancholy King was not dreaming at all, but following a mirage. The desert had played a trick on him. He died there, and his bones were lost to the sand. And the desert had its name.” He patted his camel when it snorted. “Love and fear do strange things to our souls. The dreams they bring, those dreams that leave us drenched in salt water and gasping for breath as if we might die—those, we call unquiet dreams. And only the scent of a rose can avert them.”
Gooseflesh freckled Ead as she remembered another rose, tucked behind a pillow.
The caravan arrived at the camp just as the sandstorm crested the horizon. The travelers were hurried into a central tent, where Ead sat down with Ragab on the cushions, and the Nuram, who were fond of guests, shared their cheese and salted bread. They also passed around a water-pipe, which Ead turned down. Ragab, however, was all too pleased to take it.
“None of us will sleep well tonight.” He blew out a scented plume. “Once the storm is over, we should reach Gaudaya Oasis in three days, by my reckoning. Then the long road lies ahead of us.”
Ead gazed at the moon.
“How long do these storms last?” she asked Ragab.
Ragab shook his head. “Hard to say. It could be minutes or an hour, or more.”
Ead halved a round of flatbread with her fingers as a Nuram woman poured a sweet pink tea for them both. Even the desert conspired against her. She burned to leave the caravan and ride for as long as it took to reach Chassar—but she was not the Melancholy King. Fear would not make her take leave of her senses. She was not proud enough to think she could cross the Burlah alone.
While the other travelers listened to the story of the Blueglass Thief of Drayasta, she beat the sand from her clothes and chewed on a soft twig to cleanse her teeth, then found a place to sleep behind a drape.
The Nuram would often sleep under the stars, but now, with a sandstorm roaring overhead, they shut themselves into their tents. Gradually, the nomads and their guests began to retire, and the oil lamps were doused.
Ead covered herself with a woven blanket. Darkness enwrapped her, and she dreamed herself back to Sabran, flesh aching in remembrance of her touch. Then the Mother had mercy, and she slipped into a dreamless sleep.
A thump woke her.
Her eyes snapped open. The tent shuddered around her, but beneath the tumult, she could hear something outside. Something sure-footed. She slid a dagger from her pack and stepped into the desert night.
Sand raged through the camp. Ead held her pargh over her mouth. When she saw the silhouette, she flicked her dagger up, sure it was a wyverling—but then it stepped, in all its glory, through the dust of the Burlah.
She smiled.
Parspa was the last known hawiz. White but for their bronze-tipped wings, the birds could grow as large as wyverns, which had bred with them to create the cockatrice. Chassar, who had a fondness for birds, had found Parspa when she was still in her egg and brought her to the Priory. Now she answered only to him. Ead collected her belongings and climbed onto the bird, and soon they left the camp behind.
They were fleeing from the rising sun. Ead knew they were getting closer when salt cedar fingered through the sand, and then, all at once, they were over the Domain of Lasia.
Her birthplace was a land of red deserts and rugged peaks, of hidden caves and thundering waterfalls, of golden beaches foamed by surf from the Halassa Sea. For the most part, it was a dry country, like the Ersyr—but vast rivers flowed through Lasia, and greenery cleaved to them. Looking at the plains below her, Ead felt the homesickness fade at last. No matter how much of the world she saw, she would always believe this was its most beautiful place.
Soon Parspa was soaring over the ruins of Yikala. Ead and Jondu had gone scavenging there many times as children, eager for trinkets from the days of the Mother.
Parspa banked toward the Lasian Basin. It was this vast and ancient forest, blooded by the River Minara, that cloaked the Priory. By the time the sun had risen, Parspa was above its trees, her shadow coasting over the close-knit canopy.
The bird finally descended, touching down in one of the few clearings in the forest. Ead slid off her back.
“Thank you, my friend,” she said in Selinyi. “I know the way from here.”
Parspa took off without a sound.
Ead strode between the trees, feeling as small as one of their leaves. Strangler fig clambered up their trunks. Her exhausted feet recalled the way, even if her mind had mislaid it. The mouth of the cave was somewhere close, guarded by powerful wardings, hidden in the thickest foliage. It would take her deep into the ground, to the labyrinth of secret halls.
A whisper in her blood. She turned. A woman stood in a pool of sunlight, her belly great with child.
“Nairuj,” Ead said.
“Eadaz,” the woman answered. “Welcome home.”
Light splintered through arched lattice windows. Ead became aware that she was in bed, her head supported by silk cushions. The soles of her feet were on fire after so many days on the road.
A muffled roar made her sit up. Breathing hard, she groped for a weapon.
“Eadaz.” Callused hands cupped hers, startling her. “Eadaz, be still.”
She stared at the bearded face before her. Dark eyes that turned up at the corners, like hers.
“Chassar,” she whispered. “Chassar. Is this—?”
“Yes.” He smiled. “You’re home, beloved.”
She pressed her face against his chest. His robes soaked up the wet on her lashes.
“You came a long way.” His hand moved over her sand-crusted hair. “If you had written before you left Ascalon, I could have sent Parspa much sooner.”
Ead grasped his arm. “I had no time. Chassar,” she said, “I must tell you. Sabran is in danger—the Dukes Spiritual, I think they mean to fight for her throne—”
“Nothing in Inys matters now. The Prioress will speak with you soon.”
She slept again. When she woke, the sky was the red of dying embers. Lasia remained warm for most of the year, but a chill clung to the evening wind. She rose and wrapped herself in a brocaded robe before walking to the balcony. And she beheld it.
The orange tree.
It reached up from the heart of the Lasian Basin, larger and more beautiful than she had dreamed it in Inys. White flowers dotted its branches and the grass. Around it lay the Vale of Blood, where the Mother had vanquished the Nameless One. Ead released her breath.
She was home.
The underground chambers came to an end in this valley. Only these rooms—the sunrooms—had the privilege of looking over it. The Prioress had honored her by allowing her to rest in one. They were usually reserved for prayer and childbirth.
Three thousand feet of unbroken water thundered from high above. That was the roar she had heard. Siyāti uq-Nāra had named the falls the Wail of Galian to mock his cowardice. Far below her, the River Minara crashed through the valley, feeding the roots of the tree.
Her gaze flitted over its labyrinth of branches. Fruit was nestled here and there, rutilant upon the bough. The sight dried her mouth. No water could sate the thirst that throbbed inside her.
As she returned to her chamber, she stopped and pressed her brow against the cool, rose-colored stone of the doorway.
Home.
A low growl lifted the hairs on her nape. She turned to see a full-grown ichneumon in the doorway.
“Aralaq?”
“Eadaz.” His voice was low and stony. “You were a pup when I last saw you.”
She could not believe the size of him. Once he had been tiny enough to fit in her lap. Now he was massive and deep-chested, standing a head taller than she was. “So were you.” Her face softened into a smile. “Have you been guarding me all day?”
“Three days.”
The smile faded. “Three,” she murmured. “I must have been more exhausted than I thought.”
“You have dwelt for too long without the orange tree.”
Aralaq padded to her side and nosed her hand. Ead chuckled as he rasped his tongue over her face. She remembered him as a squeaking bundle of fur, all eyes and snuffles, tripping over his long tail.
One of the sisters had found him orphaned in the Ersyr and brought him to the Priory, where she and Jondu had been charged with his care. They had fed him on milk and scraps of snake meat.
“You should bathe.” Aralaq licked her fingers. “You smell like camel.”
Ead tutted. “Thank you. You have a certain pungent aroma of your own, you know.”
She took the oil lamp from her bedside and followed him.
He led her through the tunnels and up flights of steps. They passed two Lasian men—Sons of Siyāti, who attended on the sisters. Both dipped their heads as Ead passed.
When they reached the bathhouse, Aralaq nudged her hip.
“Go. A servant will take you to the Prioress after.” Golden eyes looked solemnly at her. “Tread lightly around her, daughter of Zāla.”
His tail swept in his wake as he left. She watched him go before stepping through the doorway, into a candlelit interior.
This bathhouse, like the sunrooms, was on the open side of the Priory. A breeze swirled the steam on the surface of the water, like spindrift on the sea. Ead set the oil lamp down and shrugged off her robe before descending into the pool. With each step, it carried away the sand and dirt and sweat, leaving her sleek and new.
She used ash soap to lave her skin. Once she had got the sand from her hair, she let the heat soothe her travel-weary bones.
Tread lightly.
Ichneumons did not give careless warnings. The Prioress would want to know why she had been so insistent upon staying in Inys.
You must always stay with me, Ead Duryan.
“Sister.”
She turned her head. One of the Sons of Siyāti was in the doorway.
“The Prioress bids you join her for the evening meal,” he said. “Your garments await you.”
“Thank you.”
In her chamber, she took her time dressing. The garments that had been left for her were not formal, but they befitted her new rank as a postulant. An initiate when she had left for Inys, she had now completed an assignment of consequence for the Priory, making her eligible to be named a Red Damsel. Only the Prioress could decide if she was worthy of this honor.
First was a mantelet of sea silk, which shone like spun gold and covered her to the navel. Next came an embroidered white skirt. A glass band encircled one wrist—the wrist of her sword hand—and strings of wooden beads hung about her neck. She left her hair loose and damp.
This new Prioress had not seen her since she was seventeen. As she poured some wine to nerve herself, she caught sight of her reflection in the flat of her eating knife.
Full lips. Eyes like oak honey, brows set low and straight above them. Her nose was slim at the bridge, broad toward the end. All this she recognized. Yet now she saw, for the first time, how womanhood had changed her. It had tempted out her cheekbones and pared away the rounds of youth. There was a gauntness about her, too, from the kind of starvation only warriors of the Priory understood.
She looked like the women she had longed to be when she was growing up. Like she was made of stone.
“Are you ready, sister?”
The man was back. Ead smoothed her skirt.
“Yes,” she said. “Take me to her.”
When Cleolind Onjenyu had founded the Priory of the Orange Tree, she had abandoned her life as a princess of the South and disappeared with her handmaidens into the Vale of Blood. They had named their haven in defiance of Galian. At the time of his coming, knights of the Isles of Inysca had said their vows in buildings called priories. Galian had planned to found the first Southern priory in Yikala.
I shall found a priory of a different sort, Cleolind had said, and no craven knight shall soil its garden.
The Mother herself had been the first Prioress. The second was Siyāti uq-Nāra, from whom many of the brothers and sisters of the Priory, Ead included, claimed descent. After the death of each Prioress, the next one would be chosen by the Red Damsels.
The Prioress was seated at a table with Chassar. Upon seeing Ead, she rose and took her by the hands.
“Beloved daughter.” She placed a kiss on her cheek. “Welcome back to Lasia.”
Ead returned the gesture. “May the flame of the Mother sustain you, Prioress.”
“And you.”
Hazel eyes took her in, noting the changes, before the older woman returned to her seat.
Mita Yedanya, formerly the munguna—the presumed heir—must now be in her fifth decade. She was built like a broadsword, wide in the shoulder and long in the body. Like Ead, she was of both Lasian and Ersyri descent, her skin like sand lapped by the sea. Black hair, now threaded with silver, was pierced with a wooden pin.
Sarsun chirruped a greeting from his perch. Chassar was midway through a concoction of yogush and braised lamb. He stopped to smile at her. Ead sat beside him, and a Son of Siyāti set a bowl of groundnut stew before her.
Platters of food circled the table. White cheese, honeyed dates, palm-apples and apricots, hot flatbread crowned with pounded chickpeas, rice tossed with onion and plum tomato, sun-dried fish, steaming clams, red plantain split and spiced. Tastes she had craved for nearly a decade.
“A girl left us, and a woman returns,” the Prioress said as the Son of Siyāti served Ead as much food as he could fit on her plate. “I am loath to hurry you, but we must know the circumstances under which you left Inys. Chassar tells me you were exiled.”
“I fled to escape arrest.”
“What happened, daughter?”
Ead poured from a jug of date-palm wine, giving herself a few moments to think.
She began with Truyde utt Zeedeur and her affair with the squire. She told them about Triam Sulyard and his crossing to the East. She told them about the Tablet of Rumelabar and the theory Truyde had drawn from it. A story of cosmic balance—of fire and stars.
“This may have weight, Prioress,” Chassar said thoughtfully. “There are times of plenty, when the tree gives freely—we are in one now—and periods where it offers less fruit. There have been two such times of scarcity, one of them directly after the Grief of Ages. This theory of a cosmic balance does something to explain it.”
The Prioress seemed to contemplate this, but did not voice her thoughts.
“Continue, Eadaz,” she said.
Ead did. She told them about the marriage, and the murder, and the child, and the loss of it. About the Dukes Spiritual and what Combe had implied about their intentions toward Sabran.
She left out some things, of course.
“Now she is unable to conceive, her legitimacy is under threat. At least one person in the palace, this Cupbearer, has been trying to murder her, or at least frighten her,” Ead finished. “We must send more sisters, or I believe the Dukes Spiritual will move toward the throne. Now they know her secret, she is at their mercy. They could use it to blackmail her. Or simply usurp her.”
“Civil war.” The Prioress pursed her lips. “I told our last Prioress that this would happen sooner or later, but she would not hear it.” She cut into a slice of muskmelon. “We will meddle no more in Inysh affairs.”
Ead was sure she must have misheard.
“Prioress,” she said, “may I ask what you mean?”
“I mean precisely what I said. That the Priory will no longer interfere in Inys.”
Confounded, Ead looked to Chassar, but suddenly he was deeply involved in his meal.
“Prioress—” She fought to keep her voice in hand. “You cannot intend to abandon Virtudom to this uncertain fate?”
No reply.
“If Sabran is revealed to be unable to bear a daughter, there will not only be civil war in Inys, but a dangerous schism will split Virtudom. Different factions will be for different members of the Dukes Spiritual. Even the Earls Provincial might try for the throne. Doomsingers will roam the cities. And amidst this chaos, Fýredel will seize power.”
The Prioress dipped her fingers into a dish of water, washing away the blood of the muskmelon.
“Eadaz,” she said, “the Priory of the Orange Tree is the vanguard against wyrmkind. It has been that for a thousand years.” She looked Ead in the eye. “It does not exist to hold up failing monarchies. Or to interfere in foreign wars. We are not politicians or bodyguards or mercenaries. We are vessels of the sacred flame.”
Ead waited.
“As Chassar said, there are records that indicate periods of scarcity in the Priory. If our scholars have it right, there will be another soon. We are likely to be at war with the Draconic Army up to and throughout that period. Perhaps with the Nameless One himself,” the Prioress continued. “We must be ready for the cruelest fight since the Grief of Ages. Consequently, we must concentrate our efforts on the South, and conserve resources wherever possible. We must weather the storm.”
“Of course, but—”
“Therefore,” the Prioress cut across her, “I will not be sending any sister into the jaws of a civil war in Virtudom, to save a queen who has all but fallen. Neither will I risk them being executed for heresy. Not when they could be hunting the High Westerns. Or supporting our old friends in the courts of the South.”
“Prioress,” Ead said, frustrated, “surely the purpose of the Priory is to protect humankind.”
“By defeating the Draconic evil in this world.”
“If we mean to defeat that evil, there must be stability in the world. The Priory is the first shield against wyrms, but we cannot win alone,” Ead stressed. “Virtudom has great military and naval strength. The only way to hold it together, and to prevent it from destroying itself from within, is to keep Sabran Berethnet alive and enthro—”
“Enough.”
Ead said no more. There was a stillness in the room that seemed to go on for hours.
“You are strong-willed, Eadaz. Like Zāla was,” the Prioress said, softer. “I respected our last Prioress in her decision to station you in Inys. She believed it was what the Mother wanted . . . but I believe otherwise. It is time to prepare. Time to look to our own, and make ready for war.” She shook her head. “I will not see you echoing repugnant prayers in Ascalon for another season.”
“Then it was all for nothing. Years of changing sheets,” Ead said tartly, “for nothing.”
The look the Prioress gave her chilled her to the soul. Chassar cleared his throat.
“More wine, Prioress?”
She gave a slight nod in return, and he poured.
“It was not for nothing.” The Prioress stopped him when her cup was almost full. “My predecessor believed the Berethnet claim might be true, and that the possibility made their queens worthy of protection—but whether they are or are not, you have told us that Sabran is now the last of the line. Virtudom will fall, whether now or in the near future, when her barrenness is exposed.”
“And the Priory will make no attempt to soften that fall.” Ead could not stomach this. “You mean to let us stand and watch as half the world descends into chaos.”
“It is not for us to change the natural course of history.” The Prioress picked up her glass. “We must look to the South now, Eadaz. To our purpose.”
Ead sat rigid in her chair.
She thought of Loth and Margret. Innocent children like Tallys. Sabran, alone and bereaved in her tower. All lost.
The last Prioress would not have brooked this indifference. She had always believed the Mother had meant for the Priory to protect and support humankind in all corners of the world.
“Fýredel is now awake,” the Prioress said, while Ead locked her jaw. “His siblings, Valeysa and Orsul, have also been sighted—the former in the East, the latter here in the South. You have told us of this White Wyrm, which we must assume is a new power, in league with the others. We must dispatch all four to quench the flame in the Draconic Army.”
Chassar nodded.
“Where in the South is Orsul?” Ead asked, when she could speak without an outburst.
“He was last seen close to the Gate of Ungulus.”
The Prioress dabbed the corner of her mouth with linen. A Son of Siyāti took her plate.
“Eadaz,” she said, “you have completed an assignment of import for the Priory. It is time, daughter, for you to take the cloak of a Red Damsel. I have no doubt that you will be one of our finest warriors.”
Mita Yedanya was a blunt woman, brisk in everything. She delivered Ead her dream as if it were a piece of fruit on a platter. Her years in Inys had only ever been meant to bring her closer to that cloak.
Yet the timing of this was purposeful, and it stuck in her craw. The Prioress was using this to conciliate her. As though she were a child to be distracted by a bauble.
“Thank you,” Ead said. “I am honored.”
Ead and Chassar ate in silence for a time, and Ead sipped the cloudy wine.
“Prioress,” she said at last, “I must ask what became of Jondu. Did she ever return to Lasia?”
When the Prioress looked away, her mouth a grim line, Chassar shook his head. “No, beloved.” He placed a hand over hers. “Jondu is with the Mother now.”
Something died inside Ead. She had been certain, certain, that Jondu would find her way back to the Priory. Sure-footed, fierce, dauntless Jondu. Mentor, sister, constant friend.
“Are you sure?” she asked quietly.
“Yes.”
Pain flowered sharply in her midriff. She closed her eyes, imagined that pain as a candle, and snuffed it.
Later. She would let the grief burn when there was room for it to breathe.
“She did not die in vain,” Chassar continued. “She set out to find the sword of Galian the Deceiver. She did not find Ascalon in Inys—but she did find something else.”
Sarsun tapped a talon on his perch. Numbed by the news, Ead looked dully at the object beside him.
A box.
“We do not know how to open it,” Chassar admitted as Ead stood. “A riddle stands between us and its secret.”
Slowly, Ead approached the box and ran a finger over the grooves on its surface. What the untaught eye would see as mere decoration, she knew to be Selinyi, that ancient language of the South, the letters wound and intertwined to make them hard to read.
a key without a lock or seam
to raise the sea in times of strife
it closed in clouds of salt and steam
it opens with a golden knife
“I assume you have tried all the knives in the Priory,” Ead said.
“Of course.”
“Perhaps it refers to Ascalon, then.”
“Ascalon was said to have a silver blade.” Chasser sighed. “The Sons of Siyāti are searching the archives for an answer.”
“We must pray they find it,” the Prioress said. “If Jondu was willing to die to put this box into our possession, she must have felt that we could open it. Devoted to the end.” She looked to Ead again. “For now, Eadaz, you must go forth and eat of the tree. After eight years, I know your fire is spent.” She paused. “Would you like one of your sisters to go with you?”
“No,” Ead said. “I will go alone.”
Evening turned to night. When the stars were burning over the Vale of Blood, Ead began the descent.
One thousand steps took her to the very foot of the valley. Her bare feet sank into grass and loam. She paused for a moment, to breathe in the night, before she let her robe fall.
White blossom strewed the valley. The orange tree loomed, its branches spread like open hands. Every step she took toward it seared her throat. She had crossed half the world to return here, to the wellspring of her power.
The night seemed to embrace her as she descended to her knees. As her fingers sank into the earth, the tears of relief overran, and each breath came like the drag of a knife up her throat. She forgot about everyone she had ever known. There was only the tree. The giver of fire. It was her one purpose, her reason to live. And it was calling to her, after eight years, promising the sacred flame.
Somewhere nearby, the Prioress, or one of the Red Damsels, would be watching. They needed to see that she was still worthy of this rank. Only the tree could decide who was worthy.
Ead turned up her palms and waited, as the crop waits for rain.
Fill me with your fire again. She held the prayer in her heart. Let me serve you.
The night grew too still. And then—slowly, as if it were sinking through water—a golden fruit dropped from on high.
She caught it in both hands. With a gasping sob, she sank her teeth into the flesh.
A feeling like dying and coming to life. The blood of the tree spreading over her tongue, soothing the blaze in her throat. Veins turning to gold. As quickly as it quenched one fire, it sparked another, a fire that torched through her whole being. And the heat cracked her open, like the clay she was, and made her body cry out to the world.
All around her, the world answered.
