Page 205 of The Priory of the Orange Tree

“What is it?” he murmured.

She shook her head.

Mustering his strength, Loth hoisted her into the saddle. He swung himself on, curled an arm about her, and pressed her back against his chest, grasping the ichneumon with the other hand.

“Hold on to me,” he said against her ear. “I will see us to Córvugar. As you have seen me here.”

47

South

Aralaq ran hard through the forest. Loth thought he had known his swiftness in the Spindles, but it was all he could do to hold on as the ichneumon leaped over twisted roots and creeks and between trees, lithe as a stone glancing off water.

He dozed as Aralaq took them farther north, away from the thickness of the forest. His dreams took him first to that accursed tunnel in Yscalin, where Kit must still lie—then farther, back to the map room at the estate, where his tutor was telling him about the history of the Domain of Lasia, and Margret was sitting beside him. She had always been a diligent student, keen to learn about their ancient roots in the South.

He had given up hope of ever seeing his sister again. Now, perhaps, there was a chance.

The rise and fall of the sun. The pounding of paws against earth. When the ichneumon stopped, Loth finally woke.

He rubbed the sand from his eyes. A lake stretched across a dusty expanse of earth, a streak of sapphire under the sky. Water olyphants bathed in its shallows. Beyond the lake were the great rocky peaks that guarded Nzene, all the red-brown of baked clay. Mount Dinduru, the largest, was almost perfect in its symmetry.

By noon, they were in the foothills. Aralaq climbed a brant path up the nearest peak. When they were high enough to make his thighs quake, Loth risked a look down.

Nzene lay before them. The Lasian capital sat in the cradle of the Godsblades, surrounded by high sandstone walls. The mountains—taller and straighter than any in the known world—sliced its streets with shadow. An immense road stretched out beyond it, no doubt a trade route to the Ersyr.

Date-palms and juniper trees lined streets that glistered in the sunlight. Loth spied the Golden Library of Nzene, built of sandstone taken from the ruins of Yikala, connected by a walkway to the Temple of the Dreamer. Towering over it all was the Palace of the Great Onjenyu, where High Ruler Kagudo and her family resided, set high above the houses on a promontory. The River Lase forked around its sacred orchard.

Aralaq sniffed out a shelter beneath a jut of rock, deep enough to protect them from the elements.

“Why are we stopping?” Loth wiped sweat from his face. “Ead told us to keep riding for Córvugar.”

Aralaq bent his front legs so Loth could dismount. “The blade she was cut with was laced with a secretion from the ice leech. It stops the blood from clotting,” he said. “There will be a cure in Nzene.”

Loth lifted Ead from the saddle. “How long will you be?”

The ichneumon did not reply. He licked Ead once across the brow before he disappeared.

When Ead rose from her world of shadows, it was sundown. Her head was a thrice-stirred cauldron. She was dimly aware that she was in a cave, but had no memory of having got there.

Her hand flinched to her collarbones. Feeling the waning jewel between them, she breathed again.

Retrieving it had cost her. She remembered the steel of the blade, and the sting of whatever foulness was on it, as she grabbed the jewel from Mita. Fire had sparked from her fingers, setting the bed ablaze, before she had rolled over the balustrade and into open sky.

She had dropped like a cat and landed on a ledge outside the kitchen. Mercifully, it had been empty, leaving her escape route clear. Still, she had barely made it to Aralaq and Loth before her strength gave out.

Mita deserved a cruel death for what she had done to Zala, but Ead would not deliver it to her. She would not debase herself by murdering a sister.

A hot tongue licked a curl back from her brow. She found herself almost nose to nose with Aralaq.

“Where?” she said hoarsely.

“The Godsblades.”

No. She sat up, biting back a groan when her midriff throbbed. “You stopped.” Her voice strained. “You damned fools. The Red Damsels—”

“It was this or let you bleed to death.” Aralaq nosed the poultice on her belly. “You did not tell us that the Prioress coated her blade in the glean.”

“I had no idea.”

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