Page 170 of The Priory of the Orange Tree

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.

Athumpwoke 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 herparghover 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 knownhawiz. 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.

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