Page 204 of The Priory of the Orange Tree

“Only death can change the wielder.” Ead looked at the blood on her fingers. “Do you mean to kill birthmother and child both?”

“I will not see a gift from the Mother in the hands of one who would desert her so willingly,” Mita said calmly. “The jewel will remain beneath her bones until the Nameless One threatens the people of the South. It willnotbe used to protect a Western pretender.”

She lifted the knife in a fluid movement, like a rising note of music.

“No, Eadaz,” she said. “It will not do.”

Ead looked into those resolute eyes. Her fingers curled around the handle of her blade.

“We both serve the Mother, Mita,” she said. “Let us see which of us she favors.”

Little moonlight reached the ground in the Lasian Basin, so dense was the canopy of trees. Loth paced the gloaming, wiping the sweat from his hands on his shirt, shivering as if with fever.

The ichneumon had led him through a labyrinth of passageways before emerging here. Loth had only understood that he was being rescued when they were breathing the warm air of the forest. The drink they had been giving him was at last wearing off.

Now the ichneumon was curled on a nearby rock, eyes fixed on the mouth of the cave. Loth had buckled on the saddle they had brought outside. Woven bags and saddle flasks were attached to it.

“Where is she?”

He was ignored. Loth wiped his upper lip with one hand and muttered a prayer to the Knight of Courage.

He had not forgotten. They had tried to smoke it out of him, but the Saint had always been there, in his heart. Tulgus had warned him against fighting, so he had prayed and waited for salvation. It had come in the form of the woman he had once known as Ead Duryan.

She was going to get them back to Inys. He believed it as much as he believed in the Knight of Fellowship.

When the ichneumon finally rose, it was with a growl. It bounded off to burrow between the roots of the tree and returned with an exhausted-looking Ead. Her arm was draped around its neck, and she carried another woven bag on her shoulder. Loth ran to her.

“Ead.”

She was glossed with blood and sweat, her hair curling thickly around her shoulders. “Loth,” she said, “we must leave now.”

“Lift her onto me, man of Inys.”

The deep voice scared Loth half to death. When he saw where it had come from, he gaped.

“You canspeak,” he spluttered.

“Yes,” the ichneumon said. The wolfish eyes went straight back to Ead. “You are bleeding.”

“It will stop. We must go.”

“The sisters of the Priory will come for you ere long. Horses are slow. And stupid. You cannot outstrip an ichneumon without riding one.”

She pressed her face into its fur. “They will butcher you if we are caught. Stay here, Aralaq. Please.”

“No.” Its ears flinched. “I go where you go.”

The ichneumon bent its front legs. Ead looked up at Loth.

“Loth,” she rasped, “do you trust me still?”

He swallowed.

“I don’t know if I trust the woman you are,” he admitted, “but I trust the woman I knew.”

“Then ride with me,” she said, cupping his cheek, “and if I lose consciousness, keep riding northwest for Córvugar.” Her fingers left blood on his face. “Whatever you do, Loth, do not let them take this. Even if you have to leave me behind.”

Her hand was clenched around something at the end of a cord. A round, white gemstone, pressed into clay.

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