The Flower of Ascalon, a passenger ship that served the eastern coast of Inys, docked in the ancient trade city of Caliburn-on-Sea at noon. Ead and Margret began their ride across the Leas, following the frozen River Lissom.
Snow had fallen overnight in the north, and it lay across the fields like cream smoothed with a knife. As they rode, the commons doffed their hats and called out greetings to Margret, who smiled and waved at them. She would have made a fine Countess of Goldenbirch, had she been the elder child.
They pared away from the river and through the knee-deep snow. There were no laborers in the fields in high winter, when the land was too cold to till, but Ead kept her hood up nonetheless.
The Beck family had their seat in a great prodigy house named Serinhall. It stood around a mile from Goldenbirch, where Galian Berethnet had been born. The village itself was in ruins, but remained a site of pilgrimage in Virtudom. It lay in the shadow of the haithwood, which separated the Leas from the Lakes.
After hours of riding that left their faces windburned, Margret slowed her horse at the brow of a hill. Ead gazed across a white stretch of parkland. Serinhall towered before them, bleak and magnificent, boasting grand bay windows and high domed rooftops.
“Well, here we are,” Margret announced. “Do you want to go straight to Goldenbirch?”
“Not yet,” Ead said. “If Galian did hide Ascalon in this province, I think he would have told its keepers. It was his most valuable possession. The symbol of the House of Berethnet.”
“And you think my family has kept it secret from their queens all these centuries?”
“Possibly.”
Frowning, Margret said, “The Saint did come to Serinhall once, in the year Princess Sabran was born. If there was any evidence that he did leave the sword, then Papa would know it. He has made it his life’s work to know all there is to know about this estate.”
Lord Clarent Beck had been unwell for some time. Once a hale rider, he had taken a fall from his horse, and the injury to his head had left him with what the Inysh called mind fog.
“Come, then. No time to lose,” Margret said. A wicked glint came into her eye. “Care for a race, Lady Nurtha?”
Ead snapped the reins in answer. As her steed galloped down the hill and across the park, scattering a herd of red deer, Margret shouted something patently discourteous after her. Ead laughed as the wind blew down her hood.
She just beat Margret to the gatehouse. Servants wearing the badge of the Beck family were shoveling the snow.
“Lady Margret!” A reed of a man with a pointed beard bowed to her. “Welcome home, my lady.”
“Good day to you, Master Brooke.” Margret dismounted. “This is Eadaz uq-Nāra, Viscountess Nurtha. Would you kindly take us to the Countess?”
“Of course, of course.” Seeing Ead, the fellow bowed again. “Lady Nurtha. Welcome to Serinhall.”
Ead forced herself to nod, but this title would never sit easily on her.
She handed the reins of her horse to another servant. Margret walked with her through the open doors of the house.
In the entrance hall was a wall-length portrait. A man with ebon skin and grave eyes, wearing the tight doublet and hose that had been fashionable in Inys several centuries ago.
“Lord Rothurt Beck,” Margret said as they passed. “A figure in one of the tragedies of Inys. Carnelian the Third fell in love with Lord Rothurt, but he was already wed. And this”—Margret motioned to another portrait—“is Margret Ironside, my namesake. She led our forces during the Gorse Hill Rebellion.”
Ead raised her eyebrows. “Lord Morwe is marrying into a noble lineage indeed.”
“Aye. Pity the man,” Margret said wearily. “Mama will never let him forget it.”
Master Brooke led them through a veritable labyrinth of wood-paneled corridors and grand oak doors. All this space for two people and their servants.
Lady Annes Beck was reading in the great chamber when they entered. Already a tall woman, she wore an attifet that added several inches to her stature. Her brown skin was unlined, but threads of gray rippled through the spirals of her hair.
“What is it, Master Brooke?” She looked up and removed her eyeglasses. “Saint! Margret!”
Margret curtsied. “Not a saint just yet, Mama, but give me time.”
“Oh, my child.”
Lady Annes rushed open-armed to her daughter. Unlike her children, she had a southern accent. “I heard only this morning of your betrothal to Lord Morwe,” she said, embracing Margret. “I should shake you for accepting without asking our permission, but since Queen Sabran gave hers—” She beamed. “Oh, he has found a rare splendor in you, my darling.”
“Thank you, Mama—”
“Now, I’ve already ordered the finest satin for your gown. A nice rich blue would become you very well. My favorite mercer in Greensward is having the cloth shipped from Kantmarkt. You will wear an attifet, of course, with white pearls and sapphires, and you must marry in the Sanctuary of Caliburn-on-Sea, as I did. There is no place lovelier.”
“Well, Mama, it seems you have my wedding very much under control.” Margret kissed her on the cheek. “Mama, you remember Mistress Duryan. Now she is Dame Eadaz uq-Nāra, Viscountess Nurtha. And my dearest friend. Ead, may I present my mother, the Countess of Goldenbirch.”
Ead curtsied. She had met Lady Annes once or twice at court when the countess had come to see her children, but not for long enough for either of them to have left an impression.
“Dame Eadaz,” Lady Annes said a little stiffly. “Not four days ago, the heralds said you were wanted for heresy.”
“Those heralds were paid by traitors, my lady,” Ead said. “Her Majesty gives no credence to their words.”
“Hm.” Lady Annes looked her over. “Clarent always thought you would marry my son, you know. I do hope there was no improper conduct between you, though perhaps you are now a fit consort for the future Earl of Goldenbirch.” Before Ead could imagine an answer, the countess had clapped her hands. “Brooke! Ready the evening meal.”
“Yes, my lady,” came the distant reply.
“Mama,” Margret protested, “we can’t stay for supper. We need to talk to you about—”
“Don’t be silly, Margret. You’ll need a little padding if you want to give Lord Morwe an heir.”
Margret looked as if she might die of embarrassment. Lady Annes bustled away.
They were left alone in the great chamber. Ead walked to the bay window that looked over the deer park.
“This is a fine home,” she said.
“Yes. I miss it terribly.” Margret skirted her fingers over the virginals. “I’m sorry for Mama. She is . . . candid, but she means well.”
“Mothers mostly do.”
“Aye.” Margret smiled. “Come. We ought to change.”
She led Ead through yet more corridors and up a flight of stairs to a guest room in the east wing. Ead peeled off her riding clothes. As she washed her face in the basin, something caught her eye through the window. By the time she reached it, there was nothing there.
She was growing skittish. Her sisters would come for her sooner or later, whether to silence her or to force her back to Lasia.
Shaking herself, she checked that her blades were in reach and readied herself for supper. Margret met her outside, and they proceeded to the parlor, where Lady Annes was already seated. Her servants first filled their cups with perry—a speciality in this province—before they brought a rich game stew and bread with a thick crust.
“Now, tell me, both of you, how court is,” Lady Annes said. “I was so terribly sorry to hear that Queen Sabran lost her child.”
Her hand drifted to her own midriff. Ead knew that she had miscarried a girl before having Margret.
“Her Majesty is well now, Mama,” Margret said. “Now those who would have usurped her have been detained.”
“Usurp her,” the countess repeated. “Who was it?”
“Crest.”
Lady Annes stared. “Igrain.” Slowly, she laid down her eating knife. “Saint, I cannot believe it.”
“Mama,” Margret said gently, “she was also behind the death of Queen Rosarian. She conspired with Sigoso Vetalda.”
At this, Lady Annes drew in a breath. A gamut of emotion crossed her face.
“I knew Sigoso would hold a grudge against her. He was relentless in his pursuit.” Her voice was tinged with bitterness. “I also knew that Rosarian and Igrain did not get on, for reasons best left unsaid. But for Igrain to have her queen murdered, and in such a way—”
Ead wondered if Annes Beck, as a former Lady of the Bedchamber, had known about the affair between Rosarian and Harlowe. Known, perhaps, that the princess was a bastard.
“I am sorry, Mama.” Margret took her hand. “Crest will never hurt anyone again.”
Lady Annes managed a nod. “At least we can close the door on it now.” She dabbed her eyes. “I am only sorry that Arbella did not live to hear this. She always blamed herself.”
They ate in silence for a short while. “How is Lord Goldenbirch, my lady?” Ead enquired.
“I’m afraid Clarent is much the same. Sometimes he is in the present, sometimes in the past, and sometimes nowhere at all.”
“Is he still asking for me, Mama?” Margret said.
“Yes. Every day,” Lady Annes said, sounding tired. “Do go up and see him, won’t you?”
Margret looked at Ead across the table.
“Yes, Mama,” she said. “Of course I will.”
Lady Annes prided herself as a host. This meant that Ead and Margret found themselves still at the dinner table some two hours later.
An inglenook fireplace dried their clothes. Bone-warming food continued to pour from the kitchens. Conversation turned to the impending nuptials, and Lady Annes soon began to counsel her daughter about her wedding night (“You must expect to be disappointed, darling, for the act often falls woefully short of the promise”). Throughout, Margret wore the pained smile Ead had seen her wear many a time at court.
“Mama,” she said, when she could finally get a word in, “I was telling Ead the family legend. That the Saint visited Serinhall.”
Lady Annes washed down her mouthful. “A historian, are you, Dame Eadaz?”
“I have an interest, my lady.”
“Well,” the countess said, “according to records, Serinhall hosted the Saint for three days shortly after Queen Cleolind died in childbed. Our family were long-standing friends and allies to King Galian. Some say for a time he trusted only them, even above his Holy Retinue.”
While curd tart, baked apples and sweetmilk were seamlessly delivered, Ead exchanged a look with Margret.
When the meal was finally over, Lady Annes released them from her presence. Margret led Ead up the stairs, a candle in her hand.
“Saint,” she said. “I’m sorry, Ead. She’s been waiting for one of us to get married for years so she can plan it all, and Loth has rather disappointed her on that front.”
“No matter. She cares about you very much.”
When they reached the elaborately carved doors to the north wing, Margret stopped. “What if—” She twisted a ring on her middle finger. “What if Papa does not remember me?”
Ead placed a hand on her back. “He asked for you.”
At this, Margret took a deep breath. She handed Ead the candle and opened the doors.
The room beyond was stifling. Lord Clarent Beck was dozing in a wing chair, a coverlet around his shoulders. Only the white of his hair and a line or two set him apart from Loth, such was his likeness to his son. His legs had withered since Ead had last seen him.
“Who is that?” He stirred. “Annes?”
Margret went to him and took his face in her hands. “Papa,” she said. “Papa, it’s Margret.”
His eyes peeled open.
“Meg.” His hand came to her arm. “Margret. Is that really you?”
“Yes.” A thick laugh escaped her. “Yes, Papa, I’m here. I’m sorry to have left you for so long.” She kissed his hand. “Forgive me.”
He lifted her chin with one finger.
“Margret,” he said, “you are my child. I forgave you all your sins on the first day of your life.”
Margret wrapped her arms around him and pressed her face to the crook of his neck. Lord Clarent stroked her hair with a steady hand, his expression one of the utmost serenity. Ead had never known who her birthfather was, but suddenly she wished she had.
“Papa,” Margret said, drawing back, “do you remember Ead?”
Dark, heavy-lidded eyes took Ead in. They were just as kind as she remembered them.
“Ead,” he said a little hoarsely. “My word. Ead Duryan.” He held out a hand, and Ead kissed his signet ring. “How good to see you, child. Have you married my son yet?”
She wondered if he knew Loth had been exiled. “No, my lord,” she said gently. “Loth and I do not love each other that way.”
“I knew it was too good to be true.” Lord Clarent chuckled. “I hoped to see him wed, but I fear I never will.”
At this, his brow crimpled, and his face went slack. Margret framed it, keeping his attention fixed on her.
“Papa,” she said, “Mama says you have been calling for me.”
Lord Clarent blinked. “Calling for you—” Slowly, he nodded. “Yes. I have something important to tell you, Margret.”
“I am here now.”
“Then you must take the secret. Loth is dead,” he said, tremulous, “so now you are heir. Only the heir to Goldenbirch may know.” The creases in his brow deepened. “Loth is dead.”
He must keep forgetting that Loth had returned. Margret glanced at Ead before she looked back at him, her thumbs circling his cheekbones.
They needed him to believe Loth was dead. It was the only way they would learn where the sword was hidden.
“He is . . . presumed dead, Papa,” Margret said quietly. “I am heir.”
His face crumpled between her hands. Ead knew how much it must be hurting Margret to tell him such a painful lie, but summoning Loth from Ascalon would take days they might not have.
“If Loth is dead, then— then you must take it, Margret,” Clarent said, eyes wet. “Hildistérron.”
The word caught Ead in the gut. “Hildistérron,” Margret murmured. “Ascalon.”
“When I became Earl of Goldenbirch, your lady grandmother told me.” Clarent kept hold of her hand. “It must be passed down to my children, and to yours. In case she should ever return for it.”
“She,” Ead cut in. “Lord Clarent, who?”
“She. The Lady of the Woods.”
Kalyba.
I searched for Ascalon for centuries, but Galian hid it well.
Clarent seemed agitated now. He looked at them both with fear.
“I don’t know you,” he whispered. “Who are you?”
“Papa,” Margret said at once, “it’s Margret.” When confusion washed into his eyes, her voice quaked: “Papa, I pray you, stay with me. If you do not tell me now, it will be lost to the fog in your mind.” She squeezed his hands. “Please. Tell me where Ascalon is hidden.”
He clung to her as if she were the embodiment of his memory. Margret held still as he leaned toward her, and his cracked lips came against her ear. Ead watched with a pounding heart as they moved.
At that moment, the door opened, and Lady Annes came into the room.
“Time for your sleepwater, Clarent,” she said. “Margret, he must rest now.”
Clarent cradled his head in his hands. “My son.” His shoulders heaved with sobs. “My son is dead.”
Lady Annes took a step forward, her brow furrowing. “No, Clarent, it is good news. Loth is back—”
“My son is dead.”
Sobs racked him. Margret pressed a hand to her mouth, eyes brimming. Ead took her by the elbow and ushered her out, leaving Lady Annes to tend to her companion.
“What a thing to tell him,” Margret said thickly.
“You had to.”
Margret nodded. Dabbing the wet from her eyes, she pulled Ead straight into her own bedchamber, where she fumbled for a quill and parchment and scratched out the message.
“Before I forget what Papa said,” she murmured.
You know me from song. My truth is unsung.
I lie where starlight cannot see.
I was forged in fire, and from comet wrung.
I am over leaf and under tree,
my worshippers furred, their offerings dung.
Quench fire, break stone, and set me free.
“Another wretched riddle.” Perhaps it was the strain of the last few weeks, but Ead felt so threadbare with frustration that the thought pinched at the fraying edge of her sanity. “Mother curse these ancients and their riddles. We have no time to—”
“I know exactly what it means.” Margret was already stuffing the parchment into her bodice. “And I know where Ascalon is. Follow me.”
Margret left word with the steward that they were going for an evening ride, and that Lady Annes should not wait up for them. She also asked for a spade apiece. The ostler brought these, along with the two swiftest horses in the stables and a saddle lantern each.
Garbed in their heavy cloaks, they galloped away from Serinhall. All Margret would tell Ead was that they were bound for Goldenbirch. To get there, one had to take the old corpse road. It was heaped in snow, but Margret knew her way.
In the days of kings, bodies had been taken from Goldenbirch and other villages on this path to the now-destroyed city of Arondine for burial. During the spring, pilgrims would walk here by candlelight, barefoot and singing. At its end, they would lay offerings at the site where Berethnet Hearth had once stood.
They rode beneath crooked oaks, across grassland, past a standing circle from the dawn of Inys.
“Margret,” Ead called, “what does the riddle mean?”
Margret slowed her horse to a canter.
“It came to me as soon as Papa whispered the words. I was only six, but I remember.”
Ead dipped her head under a snow-heavy branch. “Pray enlighten me.”
“Loth and I grew up apart, as you know—he lived at court with Mama from a young age, and I lived here with Papa—but Loth would come home in the spring for pilgrimage. I hated it when he had to go back. One year, I was so cross with him for leaving me that I swore not to speak to him ever again. To appease me, he promised we would spend the whole last day of his stay together, and I made him promise we would do anything I wanted. Then,” she said, “I declared that we would pay a visit to the haithwood.”
“Brave indeed for a child of the north.”
Margret snorted. “Daft, more like. Still, Loth had made the vow, and even at twelve, he was too gallant to break it. At dawn, we slipped out of our beds and followed this very road to Goldenbirch. Then, for the first time in our lives, we kept walking, until we reached the haithwood, home of the Lady of the Woods.
“We stopped at the very edge of the trees. They were like faceless giants to a little girl, but I found it all thrilling. I held Loth by the hand, and we stood trembling in the shadow of the haithwood, wondering if the witch would come to steal us and skin us and chew on our bones the moment we set foot in it. Finally, I lost patience and gave Loth a rather firm push.”
Ead bit down a smile.
“Such a scream he let out,” Margret recalled. “Still, when he failed to be hauled away to a bloody end, the pair of us grew bold as peacocks, and soon we were picking berries and otherwise larking about. Finally, as dusk fell, we decided to go home. That was when Loth spotted a little hollow. He said it was naught but a coney-hole. I reckoned it must be a wyrm-hole, and that I could kill whatever wyverling was hid in it.
“Well, Loth had a hearty laugh at that, and it stung me into crawling in. It was very small,” Margret said. “I had to dig with my hands. Headfirst, I crawled inside it with a candle … and at first, it was just soil. But as I tried to turn around, I slipped and tumbled, and found myself in a tunnel large enough to stand in.
“Somehow my candle had stayed lit, so I dared venture a little farther. It was clear the tunnel had not been made by conies. I don’t remember how far I went. Only that my terror was growing by the moment. Finally, when I thought I would fairly wet myself, I ran back and scrambled out and told Loth there was nothing there.” Snow caught in her lashes. “I thought I had stumbled on the abode of the Lady of the Woods, and that if I ever told a soul, she would come to steal me back. For years, I had nightmares about that tunnel. Nightmares of being drained of my blood, or buried alive.”
It was rare that Margret looked afraid. Even now, eighteen years later, it touched her.
“I suppose I forgot about it, in the end,” she said, “but when Papa spoke to me . . . I remembered. I am over leaf and under tree, my worshippers furred, their offerings dung.”
“Conies,” Ead murmured. “Kalyba told me she seldom went to the haithwood, but Galian might have. Or perhaps it was your ancestors who told him about the tunnel.”
Margret nodded, her jaw tight.
They rode on.
Dark had fallen by the time the ruins of Goldenbirch came into view.
In this hallowed place, the cradle of Virtudom, the silence was absolute. Snow wafted like cinders. As their horses trotted past ruins that had lain untouched for centuries, Ead almost believed the world had ended, and she and Margret were the last people alive. They had gone back in time, to an age when Inys had been known as the Isles of Inysca.
Margret stopped her horse and dismounted.
“This is where Galian Berethnet was born.” She hunkered down to brush away some of the snow. “Where a young seamstress gave birth to a son, and his brow was marked with hawthorn ash.”
Her gloved hands revealed a slab of marble, set deep into the earth.
HERE STOOD BERETHNET HEARTH
BIRTHPLACE OF KING GALIAN OF INYS
HE WHO IS SAINT OVER ALL VIRTUDOM
“I heard tell that Galian had no earthly remains,” Ead recalled. “Is that unusual?”
“Yes,” Margret admitted. “Very. The Inyscans should have preserved the remains of a king. Unless—”
“Unless?”
“Unless he died in a way his retainers wanted to conceal.” Margret climbed back into her saddle. “No one knows how the Saint perished. The books say only that he joined Queen Cleolind in the heavens and built Halgalant there, as he had built Ascalon here.”
She made the sign of the sword over the slab before they spurred their horses on.
The haithwood was dread itself in the north. As it came into sight, Ead understood why. Before the Nameless One had taught the Inyscans to fear the light of fire, this forest had taught them to fear the dark. The bulk of its trees were ancient giantswoods, pressed close enough to form a black curtain wall. To look at it was suffocating.
They rode up to it at a trot and tethered their horses. “Can you find the coney-hole?” Ead kept her voice low. She knew they were alone, but this place unsettled her.
“I imagine so.” Margret detached the lantern and tools from her saddle. “Just stay close to me.”
The woods beyond consumed all light. Ead retrieved one of the saddle lanterns before she interlocked their fingers and, together, they took their first step into the haithwood.
Snow crunched beneath their riding boots. The canopy was dense—giantswoods never shed their fur of needles—but the snowfall had been heavy enough to leave a deep covering.
As they walked, Ead found herself filled with a profound sense of desolation. It might have been the cold as well as the all-consuming dark, but the fireplace at Serinhall now seemed as far away as the Burlah. She set her chin deep into the fur collar of her cloak. Margret stilled now and then, as if to listen. When a twig snapped, even Ead tensed. Beneath her shirt, the jewel was growing colder.
“There used to be wolves here,” Margret said, “but they were hunted to extinction.”
If only to keep Margret occupied, Ead asked, “Why is it called the haithwood?”
“We think haith was the word the Inyscans used for the old ways. The worship of nature. Hawthorns, especially.”
They trudged through the snow for an age without speaking. Loth and Margret had been brave children.
“This is it.” Margret approached a snowdrift at the foot of a knotted oak. “Lend me a hand, Ead.”
Ead crouched beside her with one of the spades, and they dug. For a time, it seemed Margret had misremembered—but suddenly, their spades broke through the snow, into a hollow.
Ead dislodged the snow from its edges. The coney-hole was by now too small even for a child. They scooped with the spades and their hands until it was big enough to admit them. Margret was eyeing the opening nervously. “I will go first,” Ead offered. She kicked loose soil from the hole and slid in, leaving the lantern at the entrance.
It was barely wide enough inside for a well-fed coney, let alone a woman. Ead lit her magefire and pushed herself forward on her belly. She crawled until the tunnel, just as Margret had promised, simply dropped away, into a well of darkness. Unable to turn around, Ead had no choice but to go into it headfirst.
The drop was short and bruising. As she straightened, her magefire flared, unveiling a tunnel with sandstone walls and an arched ceiling, just high enough to stand in.
Margret joined her. She held up her lantern in one hand and a tiny knife in the other.
The walls of the tunnel had alcoves chiseled into them, though only the stumps of candles remained. There was a chill in this secret burrow, but nothing close to the ice on the surface. Margret was still shivering in the swathes of her cloak.
Before long they reached a chamber with a low ceiling, where two iron vats flanked another slab, cut from blackstone. Margret bent to sniff one.
“Eachy oil. A vat this large would burn for a season,” she said. “Someone has been tending to this place.”
“Remind me how long ago your father took his fall,” Ead said.
“Three years.”
“Before that, did he ever go to the haithwood?”
“Aye, often. Since the haithwood is in our province, he would sometimes walk with his servants through it, to make sure all was well. Sometimes he would even go alone. I thought it made him the bravest man alive.”
By the light of her magefire, Ead read the inscription on the slab.
I AM THE LIGHT OF FIRE AND STAR
WHAT I DRINK WILL DROWN
“Meg,” she said, “Loth explained my magic to you, did he not?”
“If I have it right, yours is a magic of fire,” Margret said, “and is attracted, in some way, to the magic of starlight—but not as much as the magic of starlight attracts itself. Do I have it right?”
“Just so. Galian must have known the sword would be drawn to sterren, and that Kalyba had a supply of it. He did not want her to hear that call. Whoever buried Ascalon surrounded it with fire. I imagine that for the first few centuries, whoever was the Keeper of the Leas was charged with keeping the entrance open and the braziers lit.”
“You think Papa was doing that.” Margret nodded slowly. “But when he took his fall—”
“—the secret was almost lost.”
The two of them looked down at the slab. Too heavy to pry up with their hands.
“I’ll ride back to Serinhall and fetch a greathammer,” Margret said.
“Wait.”
Ead took the waning jewel from around her neck. It was cold as hoarfrost in her hand.
“It senses Ascalon,” she said, “but the pull is not enough to drag it from the stone.” She thought. “Ascalon is of starlight, but it was shaped with fire. A union of both.”
She held up her magefire.
“And it responds to what is most like itself,” Margret said, catching on.
The tongue of flame licked at the jewel. Ead feared her instinct was misplaced until a light glowed in it—white light, the kiss of the moon on water. It sang like a plucked string.
The slab of stone cracked down the middle with a sound like a thunderclap. Ead threw herself back and shielded her face as the blackstone ruptured into pieces. The jewel flew from her hand, and the broken slab vomited a streak of light across the chamber. Something clanged against the wall, loud enough to make her ears ring, and came to rest, steaming, beside the jewel, which quivered in response. Both were glowing silver-white.
When the light dimmed, Margret sank to her knees.
A magnificent sword lay before them. Every inch of it—hilt, crossguard, blade—was a clean, bright silver, with a mirror shine.
I was forged in fire, and from comet wrung.
Ascalon. Made of no earthly metal. Created by Kalyba, wielded by Cleolind Onjenyu, blooded on the Nameless One. A double-edged longsword. From pommel to tip, it was as tall as Loth.
“Ascalon,” Margret said hoarsely, her eyes wick with reverence. “The True Sword.”
Ead closed a hand around the hilt. Power thrummed within its blade. It shivered at her touch, silver drawn to her golden blood. As she stood, she lifted it with her, speechless with wonder. It was light as air, chill to the touch. A sliver of the Long-Haired Star.
Mother, make me worthy. She pressed her lips to the cold blade. I will finish all that you began.
They climbed out of the coney-hole and retraced their steps through the haithwood. By now, the sky was dredged with stars. Ascalon, scabbardless, seemed to drink their light. In the chamber, it had looked almost like steel, but now there was no mistaking its celestial origins.
No ships left during the night. They would have to rest at Serinhall and make for Caliburn-on-Sea at dawn. The thought of another journey weighed on Ead. Even with the sword in hand, the haithwood wound its creepers about her heart and squeezed the warmth from it.
“Hail, who goes there?”
Ead looked up. Margret had stopped beside her, and was holding up her lantern.
“I am Lady Margret Beck, daughter of the Earl and Countess of Goldenbirch, and these are Beck lands. I shall brook no mischief in the haithwood.” Margret sounded firm, but Ead knew her voice well enough to hear the fear in it. “Come forth and show yourself.”
Now Ead saw it. A figure stood between the trees, its features obscured by the oppressive darkness of the haithwood. A drumbeat later, it had melted into the shadow, as if it had never been there.
“Did you see that?”
“I saw it,” Ead said.
A whisper of wind unsettled the trees.
They returned to their horses, moving quickly now. Ead buckled Ascalon on to the saddle.
The wolf moon was high over Goldenbirch. Its light glistered on the snow as they rode back to the corpse road. They had just passed one of the coffin stones that marked it when Ead heard a sharp cry from Margret. She yanked the reins, turning her horse around.
“Meg!”
Her breath snared in her throat. The other horse was nowhere to be seen.
And Margret was standing, a blade at her throat, in the arms of the Witch of Inysca.
This kind of magic is cold and elusive, graceful and slippery. It allows the wielder to cast illusions, control water . . . even to change their shape . . .
“Kalyba,” said Ead.
The witch was barefoot. She wore a diaphanous gown, white as the snow, which gathered at her waist.
“Hello, Eadaz.”
Ead was tense as a bowstring. “Did you follow me from Lasia?”
“I did. I watched you flee the Priory, and I saw you leave with the Inysh lord on the ship from Córvugar,” Kalyba said, expressionless. “I knew then that you had no plans to return to my Bower. No plans to honor your oath.”
In her grip, Margret trembled.
“Are you afraid, sweeting?” Kalyba asked her. “Did your milk nurse tell you stories of the Lady of the Woods?” She slid the knife along the nut of Margret’s throat, and Margret shuddered. “It seems it was your family who concealed my sword from me.”
“Let go of her,” Ead said. Her horse stamped its hooves. “She has not to do with your grievance against me.”
“My grievance.” Despite the bitter cold, no gooseflesh had risen on the witch. “You swore to me that you would bring me what I desire. On this isle in ages past, you would have had your lifeblood spilled for breaking such a vow. How fortunate that you have something else I desire.”
Ascalon was aglow again. Hidden under shirt and cloak, so was the waning jewel.
“It was here all along. In the haithwood.” Kalyba watched Ascalon. “My sword, laid to rest in dirt and darkness. Even if it had not been buried too deep for me to hear it calling, I would have had to crawl to it on my belly like an adder. Galian mocks me even in death.”
Margret closed her eyes. Her lips moved in silent prayer.
“I suppose he did it just before he went to Nurtha. To his end.” Kalyba raised her gaze. “Hand it to me now, Eadaz, and your oath will be fulfilled. You will have given me what I desire.”
“Kalyba,” Ead said, “I know I broke my oath to you. I will pay for it. But I need Ascalon. I will use it to slay the Nameless One, as Cleolind did not. It will quench the fire within him.”
“Yes, it will,” Kalyba said, “but you will not wield it, Eadaz.”
The witch threw Margret into the snow. At once, Margret began to claw at her own arms, and she retched as if there was water in her chest.
“Ead—” she gasped out. “Ead, the thorns—”
“What are you doing to her?” Ead had dismounted in an instant. “Leave her be.”
“Only an illusion,” Kalyba said, pacing around Margret. “Still, I suppose mortals do tend to suffer in the grip of my enchantments. Sometimes their hearts give out through fear.” She held out a hand. “This is your last chance to give me the sword, Eadaz. Do not let Lady Margret Beck pay the price for your broken oath.”
Ead stood her ground. She would not give the sword up. She also had no intention of letting Margret die for it.
The orange tree had not gifted her its fruit for nothing.
She turned her palms outward. Magefire scorched from her hands and consumed both Margret and the witch, burning away the illusion.
Kalyba let out a soul-wrenching cry, and her body contorted. Every auburn tress was cooked from her scalp. Flesh melted from her limbs and cooled again into pale lines. Black hair rushed and rippled to her waist.
Aghast, Ead forced her hands to close. When the flames dwindled, Margret was on all fours, one hand at her throat, eyes bloodshot.
And Sabran Berethnet was standing beside her.
Ead stared at her palms, then back at Kalyba, who was also Sabran. Margret pushed herself away. “Sabran?” she coughed out.
Kalyba opened her eyes. Green as willow.
“How?” Ead gasped. “How do you have her face?” She drew one of her blades. “Answer me, witch.”
She could not tear her gaze away. Kalyba was Sabran, down to the tilt of her nose and the bow of her lips. No scar on the thigh or the belly, and there was a mark Sabran did not have on her right side, under her arm—but otherwise, they might have been twins.
“Their faces are their crowns. And mine is the truth.” The voice from those lips belonged to the witch. “You said you wanted to learn, Eadaz, that day in my Bower. You see before you the greatest secret in Virtudom.”
“You,” Ead whispered.
Who was the first Queen of Inys?
“This is no enchantment.” Heart drumming, Ead raised the blade. “This is your true form.”
Margret scrambled to her feet and hastened to stand behind Ead, her girdle knife thrust out again.
“Truth you desired. Truth you received,” Kalyba said, ignoring their blades. “Yes, Eadaz. This is my true form. My first shape. The shape I wore before I mastered sterren.” She clasped her hands at her midriff, making her look, if possible, even more like Sabran. “I never intended to reveal it. Since you have seen, however . . . I will tell you my tale.”
Ead kept her gaze fixed on her, the blade angled toward her throat. Kalyba turned her back, so she faced the moon.
“Galian was my child.”
It was not what Ead had expected to hear.
“Not a child born of my womb. I stole him from Goldenbirch when he was a nursling. At the time, I thought the blood of innocents might help me unlock a deeper magic, but he was such a charming baby, with his eyes like cornflower . . . I confess that I gave way to sentiment, and raised him as my own on Nurtha, in the hollow of the hawthorn tree.”
Margret was standing so close, Ead could feel her shivering.
“When he was five and twenty, he left my side to become a knight in the service of Edrig of Arondine. Nine years later, the Nameless One emerged from the Dreadmount.
“I had not seen Galian for many years. But when he heard of the plague and the Nameless One wreaking terror in Lasia, he sought me out again, pleading for my help. His dream, you see, was to unite the warring kings and princelings of Inys under one crown, and to rule a country according to the Six Virtues of Knighthood. To do that, he had to earn their respect with a great deed. He wanted to slay the Nameless One, and to do that, he would need my magic. Like a fool, I gave it him, for by this time I loved him not as a mother. I loved him as companions do. In return, he swore he would be mine alone.
“Blinded by love, I gave him Ascalon, the sword I had forged in starlight and in fire. To Lasia he rode, to the city of Yikala.” She let out a huff. “What I had not realized was what else Galian wanted. To unite the Inyscan rulers and strengthen his claim, he desired a queen of royal blood—and when he saw Cleolind Onjenyu, he wanted her. Not only was she unwed and beautiful, but in her veins ran the old blood of the South.
“You know a little of what happened next. Cleolind disdained my knight and took up his sword when he was injured. She wounded the Nameless One and disappeared with her handmaidens into the Lasian Basin, there to bind herself forever in marriage to the orange tree.
“I expected Galian to seek me out, but he broke his promise and my heart. I was sick in love, and oh, I raged.” She turned away. “Galian began his journey home without glory or a bride. I followed.”
“You do not seem the sort to resent being spurned,” Ead said.
“The heart is a cruel thing. His hold on mine was firm.” The witch paced around them. “Galian was crushed by his failure, lost to hatred and anger. I did not know then how to change my shape. What I did know well was dreams and trickery.” Her eyes closed. “I stepped out of the trees, in front of his horse. His eyes glazed over. He smiled . . . and called me Cleolind.”
Ead could not tear her gaze away. “How?”
“I cannot tell you the mysteries of starcraft, Eadaz. All you need know was that sterren gave me a foothold in his mind. Through an enchantment, I made him believe I was the princess who had rebuffed him. Half in dream, his memory blurred, he could not remember what Cleolind had looked like, or that she had banished him, or that I had ever existed. His desire made him malleable. He needed a queen, and there I was. I made him lust for me, as he had for Cleolind on the day he saw her.” A smile touched her lips. “He took me back to the Isles of Inysca. There he made me his queen, and I took him to my bed.”
“He was like your son,” Ead said. Disgust coiled in her belly. “You raised him.”
“Love is complex, Eadaz.”
Margret pressed a hand to her mouth.
“Soon I was with child,” Kalyba whispered. Her hands came to her belly. “Birthing my daughter took a great deal of my strength. I lost too much blood. Finally, as I lay racked with childbed fever, close to death, I could keep hold of Galian no longer. Clear-eyed at last, he threw me into the dungeons.” Her voice darkened. “He had the sword. I was weak. A friend helped me escape . . . but I had to leave my Sabran. My little princess.”
Sabran the First, the first queen regnant of Inys.
All the scattered fragments of the truth were aligning, explaining what the Priory had never understood.
The Deceiver had himself been deceived.
“Galian ripped down every likeness of me that had been painted or carved and forbade any more to be created for the rest of time. Then he went to Nurtha, where I had raised him, and hanged himself from my hawthorn tree. Or what was left of it.” At this, the witch grasped her own arms. “He ensured his shame would go with him to the grave.”
Ead was silent, sickened.
“I watched a house of queens rise in his place. Great queens, whose names were known throughout the world. All of them had so much of me, and nothing of him. One daughter for each, always with green eyes. An unexpected consequence of the sterren, I suppose.”
It was almost too strange a tale to believe. And yet magefire had not burned away that face.
Magefire never lied.
“You wonder why Sabran dreams of my Bower?” Kalyba asked Ead. “If you will not believe the truth from my lips, believe it from hers. My Firstblood lives within her.”
“You tormented her,” Ead said, voice hoarse. “If all of this is true—if all of the Berethnet queens are your direct descendants—why would you make her dream of blood?”
“I gave her dreams of the childbed so she would know how I suffered birthing her ancestor. And I gave her dreams of the Nameless One, and of me, so she would know her fate.”
“And what is her fate?”
“The one I made for her.”
The witch turned to face them then, and her face fractured. Her skin divided itself into scales, and her eyes became serpentine. The green bled into the whites and burned. A forked tongue lashed between her teeth.
When the last piece of the puzzle fell into place, the very foundations of the world seemed to tremble beneath Ead. She was in the palace again, cradling Sabran, blood slippery on her hands.
“The White Wyrm,” she whispered. “That night. It was you. You are the sixth High Western.”
Kalyba returned to her true, Sabran-shaped form once more, a faint smile on her lips.
“Why?” Ead asked, stunned. “Why would you destroy the House of Berethnet when you made it? Has this all been a game to you—some elaborate revenge on Galian?”
“I have not destroyed the House of Berethnet,” Kalyba said. “No. That night—the night I struck down Sabran and her unborn child—I saved it. In ending the line, I earned the trust of Fýredel, who will commend me to the Nameless One.” There was no amusement or joy in her now. “He will rise, Eadaz. None can stop him. Even if you were to plunge Ascalon into his heart, even if the Long-Haired Star returns, he will always rise anew. The imbalance in the universe—the imbalance that created him—will always exist. It can never be righted.”
Ead tightened her grip on her sword. The jewel was icy cold against her heart.
“The Nameless One will let me be his Flesh Queen in the days to come,” Kalyba said. “I shall give him Sabran as a gift and take her place on the throne of Inys. The throne Galian took from me. No one will know the difference. I will tell the people that I am Sabran, and that the Nameless One, in his mercy, has allowed me to keep my crown.”
“No,” Ead said quietly.
Kalyba held out a hand once more. Margret placed hers on Ascalon, still buckled into the saddle.
“Give me the sword,” Kalyba said, “and your oath will be fulfilled.” Her gaze flicked to Margret. “Or perhaps you will return it, child, to undo the wrong your family did me by hiding it.”
Margret faced the Lady of the Woods, her childhood fear, and kept her hand on Ascalon.
“My ancestors were brave to keep it from you,” she said, “and not for anything will I give it to you.”
Ead locked gazes with Kalyba. She who had tricked Galian the Deceiver. The White Wyrm. Ancestor of Sabran. If she took the sword, there would be no victory.
“Very well,” Kalyba said. “If we must do this the hard way, so be it.”
Before their eyes, she began to change.
Limb stretched and bent on itself. Her spine elongated with cracks like gunshots, and her skin was scrolled taut between new bones. In moments, she was as big as a house, and the White Wyrm was before them, towering and terrible. Ead grabbed Margret away just before razor teeth clamped around the horse, smothering the light of Ascalon.
Leathery wings slammed down, bringing with them a hot wind. Horse blood sprayed across the snow as Kalyba launched herself into the night.
As the wingbeats faded into the distance, Ead slid to her knees, shoulders heaving. Spattered with blood, Margret knelt beside her.
“There were thorns,” she said, shuddering. “In my— in my throat. In my mouth.”
“It was nothing real.” Ead leaned against her. “We lost the sword. The sword, Meg.”
Her hands burned, but she kept them closed. She would need all her siden for the fight that was to come.
“It can’t be true.” Margret swallowed. “All she said about the Saint. The face she wore was trickery.”
“I revealed it with magefire,” Ead murmured. “Magefire is revelation. It tells only the truth.”
Somewhere in the trees, an owl let out a chilling scream. When Margret flinched, dread in her gaze, Ead reached for her hand and squeezed it.
“Without the True Sword, we cannot kill the Nameless One. And unless we can find the second jewel, we cannot bind him,” she said. “But we might be able to raise enough of an army to drive him far away.”
“How?” Margret’s voice was desolate. “Who can help us now?”
Ead rose, pulling Margret with her, and they stood in the red-stained snow beneath the moon.
“I must speak to Sabran,” she said. “It is time to open a new door.”
