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July 7 - July 12, 2021
There is courage, I think, in open-mindedness, and thinking for oneself. If you are a witch, then perhaps witches are not so wicked after all.”
He had believed for too long in the delicate artifice of court. Now the artfully placed leaves had blown away, revealing the shining jaws of the trap.
“Piety can turn the power-hungry into monsters,” Ead said. “They can twist any teaching to justify their actions.”
Ead had never seen her look so splendidly alone.
She recognized the look on her face. Fragility with a front of strength.
Each of her words was the skip of a stone across a lake, forming ripples of emotion. The Queen of Inys could not cast illusions, but her voice and bearing on this night had turned her into an enchantress.
She had led them from the depths of terror to the height of adoration. Sabran was golden-tongued.
For his courage, Sir Tharian Lintley, who was as much a commoner by blood as Ead, also received a new title. He was made Viscount Morwe.
“Your Majesty,” Lintley said, “I ask your permission, and that of the Knight of Fellowship, to take this woman as my companion in the coming days.” The way he gazed at her, she might have been a sunrise after years of night. “So that I might love her as she has always deserved.”
Im not crying youre crying.
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“I hope you did not keep it from me because you thought I would judge you,” Loth murmured. They both turned on the spot. “You are my dearest friend. I want you to be happy.” “Even though it shames the Knight of Fellowship.” Ead raised her eyebrows. “We are not wed.” “I would have believed that before,” he admitted. “Now I see that there are more important things.” Ead smiled. “You really have changed.” They joined hands again as the pavane grew faster. “I did not want to burden you with worry for us both. You care too much.” “It is my way,” he said, “but it would be a greater burden to know
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The queen had not danced in public once while Ead had lived at court. Loth had confided to her, long ago, that Sabran had stopped dancing the day her mother died.
“Make no mistake,” she said, “I am wroth with you.” Ead stood on the threshold. “I shared all my secrets with you, Ead.” Her voice was hardly there. “You saw me as the night does. As my truest self.”
“Answer me,” Sabran said, voice straining. “I am your queen.” “You may be a queen, but you are not my queen. I am not your subject, Sabran.” Ead stepped inside and shut the doors. “And that is why you can be certain that what was between us was real.”
“Do you think me a tyrant?” “I think you a self-righteous fool whose head is harder than a rock. And I would not change you for the world.” Sabran finally looked at her. “Tell me, Eadaz uq-Nāra,” she said softly, “am I a greater fool to want you still?” Ead crossed the space between them. “No more a fool than I,” she said, “to love you as I do.”
Surely this was an unquiet dream. She would throw herself on the mercy of the desert if it meant that she could have this woman.
“I know.” Sabran looked into the darkness. “I fell in love with a part you played.” Ead tried not to let the words find her heart, but Sabran had a way of always reaching it. Chassar had fashioned Ead Duryan, and she had inhabited her so fully that everyone had fallen for the act. For the first time, she understood the depth of betrayal and confusion that Sabran must be feeling.
Her voice was armored. Faced with the back of her shoulder, Ead tried her best to sleep. She had no right to ask for truth.
“I wish he had not needed to be Viscount Morwe to be deemed worthy of me, but things are as they are.” Margret withdrew and grasped her hands. “Ead, will you be my giver?” “It would be an honor. And now you can give your parents the good news.”
She could trust Margret. Mother knew, it would be good to have someone to talk to about her feelings for Sabran—yet something made her want to keep it secret, to keep their hours stolen.
“I often wonder what she would have been like. If her name would have been a burden, or if she would have become even more illustrious than the others.” “I think she would have been as fearless and virtuous as her mother.”
“You see, Lord Arteloth, while my eyes are everywhere, I closed them to those of holy blood. I assumed the loyalty of the other Dukes Spiritual. And so, I did not watch.”
“Well, then perhaps you won’t die. But I have had enough of this fleet now. I have lived as an old salt, but I have no intention of dying one.” She looked at him. “I want to go home. Do you?”
“What will we do if there is no mulberry tree at the end of the path?” Laya gave him a look. “If they find nothing,” she said quietly, “then take to the sea, Niclays. It will be kinder than her rage.”
And he would find Truyde. He would be a grandfather to her, and he would make Jannart proud.
Buddy.
She would have made a fine Countess of Goldenbirch, had she been the elder child.
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.
“And you think my family has kept it secret from their queens all these centuries?” “Possibly.”
Ead forced herself to nod, but this title would never sit easily on her.
“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.
“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.”
Ead had never known who her birthfather was, but suddenly she wished she had.
“Mother curse these ancients and their riddles. We have no time to—” “I know exactly what it means.”
“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.”
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.
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.
Mother, make me worthy. She pressed her lips to the cold blade. I will finish all that you began.
“I suppose he did it just before he went to Nurtha. To his end.”
And Sabran Berethnet was standing beside her.
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.
“Galian was my child.”
I confess that I gave way to sentiment, and raised him as my own on Nurtha, in the hollow of the hawthorn tree.”
“The heart is a cruel thing.
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.
All the scattered fragments of the truth were aligning, explaining what the Priory had never understood. The Deceiver had himself been deceived.
Then he went to Nurtha, where I had raised him, and hanged himself from my hawthorn tree.
