In Serinhall, Lord Arteloth Beck worked in a study, a stack of letters and a leather-bound notebook beside him. His parents had gone away for a week, ostensibly for a change of scene, but Loth knew his mother was trying to prepare him for the future. To be Earl of Goldenbirch, with a seat on the Virtues Council, responsible for the largest province in Inys.
He had hoped that, as the years passed, something would shift in him, like clockwork into motion, and that he would be ready for it. Instead he longed to be at court.
One of his dearest friends was dead. As for Ead, he knew she would not stay in Inys forever. News that she had slain the Nameless One had spread, and she wanted none of the renown that would come with it. Sooner or later, her path would bend southward.
Court would never be the same without the two of them. And yet it was where he thrived. It was where Sabran would rule for many years. And he wanted to be there with her, at the heart of their country, to help usher in a new and golden age for Inys.
“Good evening.”
Margret walked into the study. “I do think one should knock,” Loth said, stifling a yawn.
“I did, brother. Several times.” She laid a hand on his shoulder. “Here. Hot wine.”
“Thank you.” He took a grateful sip. “What time is it?”
“Past the time we both ought to have been asleep.” Margret rubbed her eyes. “Strange to be on our own. Without Mama and Papa. What have you been doing up here for hours?”
“Everything.”
He felt her watching him as he closed the notebook. It was full of the household expenses.
“You would sooner be at the palace,” Margret said gently.
She knew him too well. Loth only drank the wine, letting it warm the hollow in his belly.
“I have always loved Serinhall. And you have always loved court. And yet I was born the second child, and you the first, so you must be Earl of Goldenbirch.” Margret sighed. “I suppose Mama thought you deserved a childhood away from Goldenbirch, since you would be rooted to it when you were older. In fact, she made us both fall in love with the wrong place.”
“Aye.” He had to smile at the absurdity of it. “Well. Nothing to be done about it.”
“I don’t know. Inys is changing,” Margret said, a sparkle in her eye. “These next few years will be difficult, but they will give this country a new face. We should allow ourselves to broaden our horizons.”
Loth looked up at her with a knitted brow. “You do say the strangest things, sister.”
“The wisest are seldom appreciated in their time.” She squeezed his shoulder before placing a letter in front of him. “This arrived this morning. Try to get some sleep, brother.”
She left. Loth turned the letter over and saw the wax seal. Impressed with the pear of the House of Vetalda.
His heart clenched like a fist. He broke the seal and unfolded the letter inside, swirled with an elegant hand.
As he read, a breeze rushed through the open window. It smelled of fresh-cut grass and hay and the life he had craved when he had been far from home. The scents of Goldenbirch.
Now something had changed. Other scents rushed like surf into his dreams. Salt and tar and cold sea wind. Mulled wine, spiced with ginger and nutmeg. And lavender. The flower that had perfumed his dream of Yscalin.
He picked up his quill and began to write.
The fire burned low in the Privy Chamber at Briar House. Frost trimmed every window as if with lace. In the gloom, Sabran lay on her back on a settle, wine-softened, looking as if she could fall asleep. Beside the hearth, long past the cusp of exhaustion, Ead drank her in.
Sometimes, when she looked at Sabran, she almost believed she was the Melancholy King, chasing a mirage across the dunes. Then Sabran would touch her lips to hers, or come to her bedside by moonlight, and she would know that it was real.
“I have something to tell you.”
Sabran looked at her.
“Sarsun came to me a few days ago,” Ead murmured. “With a letter from Chassar.”
The sand eagle had swept into Ascalon Palace and onto her arm, carrying a note. It had taken Ead a long time to work up the courage to read it, and still longer to unravel her feelings when she did.
Beloved—
I have no words to express my pride in what we have heard of your deeds on the Abyss, nor my relief that your heart beats as strong as it always has. When the Prioress sent your sister to silence you, I could do nothing. Craven as I am, I failed you, as I promised Zāla I never would.
And yet I am reminded—as I so often am—that you never needed my protection. You are your own shield.
I write to you with long-awaited tidings. The Red Damsels wish you to return to Lasia to take up the mantle of the Prioress. If you accept, I will meet you in Kumenga on the first day of winter. They could use your steady hand and level head. Most of all, they could use your heart.
I hope you can forgive me. Either way, the orange tree awaits.
“Word that I was the slayer has spread,” she said. “It is the greatest honor they could bestow.”
“I am happy for you.” She took Ead by the hand. “You slew the Nameless One. And this was your dream.” Their gazes met. “Will you accept?”
“If I go,” Ead said, “I would be able to shape the future of the Priory.” She interlocked their fingers. “Four of the High Westerns are dead. That means their wyverns, and any progeny they sired, have lost their fire—but even without it, they pose a danger to the world. They must be hunted and slain wherever they hide. And of course . . . a great enemy remains at large.”
“Fýredel.”
Ead nodded. “He must be hunted,” she said, “but as Prioress, I could also ensure that the Red Damsels work to protect the stability of this new world. A world outside the shadow of the Nameless One.”
Sabran poured them both another cup of perry.
“You would be in Lasia,” she said, her tone guarded.
“Yes.”
The air between them was suddenly taut.
Ead had never been naïve enough to think they could make a life together in Inys. As a viscountess, she was fit to marry a queen, but she could not be princess consort. She wanted no more titles or graces, no place beside the marble throne. Marriage to a queen required loyalty only to her realm, and Ead claimed no loyalty to anyone but the Mother.
Yet what was between them could not be denied. It was Sabran Berethnet who sang to her soul.
“I would visit,” Ead said. “Not . . . often, you understand. The Prioress belongs in the South. But I would find a way.” She took a cup. “I know I have said this to you once before, Sabran, but I would not blame you if you would prefer not to live that way.”
“I would live alone for fifty years to have one day with you.”
Ead unfolded herself and went to her. Sabran shifted up, and they sat with their legs intertwined.
“I have something to tell you, too,” Sabran said. “In a decade or so, I mean to abdicate the throne. I will use this period to ensure a smooth transition of power from the House of Berethnet to another ruler.”
Ead raised her eyebrows.
“Your people believe in the divinity of your house,” she said. “How will you explain this to them?”
“I will say that now the Nameless One is dead, the age-old vow of the House of Berethnet—to keep him at bay—is fulfilled. And then I will honor the promise I made to Kagudo,” she said. “I will tell my people the truth. About Galian. About Cleolind. There will be a Great Reformation of Virtudom.” A long breath escaped her. “It will be very difficult. There will be years of denial, of anger—but it must be done.”
Ead saw the steel in her gaze. “So be it.” She dropped her head onto Sabran’s shoulder. “But who will rule after you?”
Sabran rested her cheek against Ead’s brow. “I think at first it must be one of the next generation of Dukes Spiritual. The people will find it easier to embrace a new ruler from the nobility. But in truth . . . I do not think it well that the future of any country rests on the begetting of children. A woman is more than a womb to be seeded. Perhaps I can go further in this Great Reformation. Perhaps I can shake the very foundations of succession.”
“I believe you could.” Ead traced her collarbone. “You can be persuasive.”
“I suppose I inherited that gift from my ancestor.”
Ead knew how Kalyba haunted her. Kalyba and the prophecy she had made. Often Sabran would wake in the night, remembering the witch, whose face had been the mirror of hers.
After she was healed, Ead had taken Kalyba’s body to Nurtha. Finding someone who would row her to the island had been difficult, but eventually, when she had recognized Ead as Viscountess Nurtha, a young woman had sculled her across the Little Sea.
The few people who lived on Nurtha spoke only Morgish and hung wreaths of hawthorn on their doors. None had spoken to her as she made her way through the woods.
The hawthorn tree was felled, but not rotted. Ead could see that it had once been as magnificent as its sister in the South. She had stood among its branches and imagined a young Inysh girl plucking a red berry from its branches, a berry that had changed her forever.
She had laid the Witch of Inysca to rest beneath it. The only Firstblood that now remained was what lived in Sabran, and in Tané.
For a time, only the snap of the fire broke the silence. Finally, Sabran moved to sit on the footstool in front of Ead, so they could face each other, and laced their fingers.
“Don’t laugh at me.”
“Are you about to say something foolish?”
“Possibly.” Sabran paused as if to collect herself. “In the days before Virtudom, the people of Inysca would make a trothplight to the one they loved. A promise that they would make a home together.” She held her gaze. “You must do your duty as Prioress. I must do mine as Queen of Inys. For a time, we must go our separate ways . . . but ten years from now, I will meet you on the sand of Perchling. And we will find our somewhere.”
Ead looked down at their joined hands.
Ten years without being with her each day. Ten years of separation. The thought hollowed her.
But she knew how to ache for something far away. She knew how to endure.
Sabran watched her face. At last, Ead leaned close and kissed her.
“Ten years,” she said, “and not one sunrise more.”
