Page 153 of The Priory of the Orange Tree

“Ask Fýredel if my fire is spent,” she answered.

The wyrm hissed.

Most Draconic creatures were easy to distract. Not this one. Its gaze snapped to where the Knights of the Body had emerged. Their copper-plated armor reflected the flames, drawing its eye.

“Sabran.”

Ead felt a chill in her bones. The wyrm said that name with a softness. A familiarity.

That softness did not last. Teeth bared, the beast threw back its head and spoke in the Draconic tongue. As fireballs rained from the wyverns, the Knights of the Body, in terror, divided. Half retreated into the Marble Gallery, while the others ran for the Banqueting House. Lintley was one of the latter. So was Margret. So was Heath, ever fearless. Ead could see him with his shield raised high, cradling Sabran with his sword arm. She was bent over her belly.

The wyrm opened its jaws. The Marble Gallery melted beneath its fiery breath, cooking the knights inside.

Ead released the bowstring. With punishing force, her arrow seared across the space between mage and wyrm.

It found its mark.

The bay of agony was deafening. She had struck it in the place Jondu had shown her, the supple armor under the wing. Blood poured down its scales and bubbled around the spit of ice.

One green eye burned into Ead. She felt herself etched into that eye. Into its memory.

Then it happened. As it took off, bleeding and enraged, the wyrm swung his spiked tail—and the vestibule of the Dearn Tower, its foundations already weakened by Fýredel, collapsed into the courtyard. So did the statues of the Great Queens atop it. Ead looked down in time to see Heath struck by a block of masonry, and Sabran falling from his arms, before a cloud of dust swallowed them both.

The silence was a held breath. It rang with a secret that could not be spoken.

Ead dropped like a shadow from the roof, and she ran as she never had in her life.

Sabran.

She was curled, like a feather shaken from a bird, by the body of Sir Gules Heath. Eyes closed. Still breathing. Just breathing. Ead wrapped the Queen of Inys in her arms and gathered her up as darkness stole into her nightgown, stemming from between her thighs.

The stone head of Glorian Shieldheart watched her bleed.

35

East

All things considered, his first surgery aboard thePursuit—the flagship of the Fleet of the Tiger Eye—had gone better than Niclays had anticipated. He had been presented with a Lacustrine fellow who had been stung by a frilled and glowing quarl, rarely seen in these waters. The poor man had shrieked in agony while his leg took on the appearance of rawhide.

By a stroke of luck, Eizaru had once told Niclays exactly how to soothe a sting from this quarl. Niclays had cobbled together the ingredients and, lo and behold, the pirate was free of pain, if mutilated for life. He would be back to pillaging and killing again soon.

Having received word that the Seiikinese had sent the High Sea Guard to reclaim the dragon, the Golden Empress had ordered the fleet to scatter in all directions. ThePursuitwould skirt the Abyss before sailing to the Sleepless Sea and unloading its forbidden cargo in the lawless city of Kawontay. The Eastern dragons were afraid of the Abyss, slow to enter it.

That night, Niclays found himself shivering in the rain on the three-foot stretch of the deck he had been allotted to sleep on. A few pirates had kicked him in the shins as they passed. He wondered dimly if anyone had ever felt worse than he did at this moment.

This was his life now. He should have been grateful for his little house in Orisima. Suddenly he missed the sunken hearth and the pothook, the bedding he left to air in the sun, the dark walls, and woven mats. It had not belonged to him, but it had kept a roof over his head.

A pair of booted feet appeared in front of him. He shrank away, expecting another kick.

“Gods lie weeping. Look at the state of you.”

The interpreter was standing over him, one hand on her hip. This time she wore a shawl and gloves that made him weak with envy. A cloud of dark hair, marbled with gray, sprang in tiny curls around her face. A band of silk kept it out of her eyes.

“No sea legs yet, I see, Old Red,” she said.

Niclays blinked. She spoke his language impeccably. Few but the Mentish spoke Mentish.

“I don’t suppose you feel well enough for supper, but I thought I’d bring it.” With a broad smile, she handed him a bowl. “The Golden Empress bids me tell you that you are now her master surgeon. You’re to be ready at all hours to tend her seafarers.”

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