Page 203 of The Priory of the Orange Tree

What she did next was a delicate thing. An ancient skill, no longer taught in the Priory.Candling, Jondu had called it. Lighting the smallest flame imaginable within a living body, just enough to cause the loss of breathing. It required a nimbleness of touch.

With the slightest twist of her fingers, she struck one candle in each of the women.

It had been a long time since a sister had turned against her kith. The twins were unprepared to feel the dry heat in their throats. Smoke curled from their mouths and noses and shot black tendrils through their minds, smothering their senses. As they sank, Ead moved past on silent foot and listened at the door. All was quiet.

Inside, moonlight made needles through the windows. She stood in the deep shadows.

The Prioress was in bed, surrounded by veils. The cup was on the nightstand. Ead approached, heart thumping, and looked inside it.

Empty.

Her gaze slid toward the Prioress. Sweat trembled at the very end of a coil of hair above her eyes.

It took moments to find the jewel. The Prioress had pressed it into soft clay and hung it from a cord around her neck.

“You must think me a fool.”

A chill took Ead through her gut, like a thrown spear. The Prioress turned onto her back.

“I sensed, somehow, that I should not drink the wine tonight. A premonition from the Mother.” Her hand closed around the jewel. “I suppose this . . . rebellion in you is not all your fault. It was inevitable that Inys would poison you.”

Ead dared not move.

“You mean to return there. To protect the pretender,” the Prioress said. “Your birthmother moves in you. Zala also believed that we should stretch our limited resources to protect all humankind. She was always whispering in the ear of the old Prioress, telling her that we ought to protect every sovereign in every court—even in the East, where they worship the wyrms of the sea. Where they idolize them asgods. Just as the Nameless One would have had us do to him. Oh, yes . . . Zala would have had us protect them, too.”

Something about her tone sat wrong with Ead. The hatred in it.

“The Mother loved the South. It is the South she sought to shield from the Nameless One,” she continued, “and it is the South I am sworn to protect in her name. Zala would have had us open our arms to the world and, in doing so, expose our bellies to the sword.”

All because Mita Yedanya told her I had poisoned your birthmother. Kalyba had worn a mocking smile.As if I would ever stoop to poison.

Mita had banished the witch and never allowed her to return. An outsider, after all, was an easy scapegoat.

“It was not the witch who killed Zala.” Ead closed a hand around her blade, and it nerved her. “It wasyou.”

She was cold to her bones. The Prioress raised her eyebrows. “Whatever can you mean, Eadaz?”

“You hated that Zala looked to defend the world beyond the South. Hated her influence. You knew it would only intensify when she was named Prioress.” Gooseflesh tightened her skin. “To control the Priory . . . you had to be rid of her.”

“I did it for the Mother.”

The confession was as blunt as the rest of her.

“Murderer,” Ead whispered. “You murdered asister.”

Honey pastries. Warm embraces. All her vague memories of Zala flooded back, and heat swelled to her eyelids.

“Toprotectmy sisters, and to ensure the South always had the protection it needed, I was willing to do anything.” With a sigh that was almost exasperated, the Prioress sat up. “I gave her a quiet death. Most had condemned Kalyba before I had even opened my mouth. It was an insult to the Mother that she came here—she who loved the Deceiver well enough to forge the sword for him. She is our enemy.”

Ead could scarcely hear her. For the first time in her life, shefeltthe Draconic fire in her blood. Rage was a furnace in her belly, and its roar overwhelmed all other sounds.

“The jewel. Give it to me, and I will leave in peace.” Her voice was distant to her own ears. “I can use it to find Ascalon. Let me finish what Jondu began, and protect the integrity of Virtudom, and I will not speak a word of your offense.”

“Someone will wield the jewel,” was the reply, “but it will not be you.”

The movement was as quick as a viper bite, too fast to avoid. White heat lashed across her skin. Ead reeled back, one hand beneath her throat, where blood was welling thick and fast.

The Prioress slashed away the remnants of the veil. The blade in her hand was laced with red.

---