Page 255 of The Priory of the Orange Tree

Ead waited for her to finish.

“The East will already have weapons and money. I can add to those,” Sabran said, “but remember what I told you. Alliances have ever been forged through marriage.”

“Alliances must have been made without marriage in the past.”

“This alliance is different. It would have to unite two regions that have been estranged for centuries. Knit two bodies, and you knit two realms. That is why we royals marry—not for love, but to build our houses. That is the way the world is.”

“It does not need to be that way. Try, Sabran,” Ead urged. “Change the way things are.”

“You speak as if nothing was ever easier.” Sabran shook her head. “As if custom and tradition have no hold on the world. They are what shapes the world.”

“Itisthat easy. A year ago, you would not have believed that you could love someone you considered a heretic.” Ead did not look away. “Is that not so?”

Sabran breathed a white mist between them.

“Yes,” she said. “It is so.”

Snowflakes frosted her eyelashes and caught in her hair. She had stormed outside without a cloak, and now held her own arms to keep in the warmth.

“I will try,” she concluded. “I will . . . present this as a military alliance only. I am resolved that I will reign without a consort, as I have always desired. It is no longer my duty to marry and conceive a child. But if it is the custom in the East, as it usually is here—”

“It may not be the custom.” Ead paused. “But if it is . . . perhaps you should reconsider your determination to remain unwed.”

Sabran studied her face. Even as her throat ached, Ead did not break her gaze.

“Why do you speak like this?” Sabran said quietly. “You know I never wanted to marry in the first place, and I am not inclined to do it again. That aside, it is you I want. No one else.”

“But while you rule, you can never be seen to be with me. I am a heretic, and—”

“Stop.” Sabran embraced her then. “Stop it.”

Ead drew her close, breathed her in. They sank onto a marble settle.

“Sabran the Seventh, my namesake, fell in love with her Lady of the Bedchamber,” Sabran murmured. “After she abdicated in favor of her daughter, they lived together for the rest of their days. If we defeat the Nameless One, my duty will be done.”

“As will mine.” Ead wrapped her cloak around them both. “Perhaps then I can steal you away.”

“Where?”

Ead kissed her temple. “Somewhere.”

Another foolish dream but, just for a moment, she allowed herself to inhabit it. A life with Sabran at her side.

“You and Meg kept something from me,” Sabran said. “What happened in Goldenbirch?”

It was some time before Ead could bring herself to answer.

“You asked me once if I knew who the first Queen of Inys was, if not Cleolind.”

Sabran looked up at her.

“My mother always said it was best to receive bad news in winter, when everything is already dark. So one can heal for spring,” she said, while Ead searched for the words. “And I must be at my strongest this particular spring.”

Faced with those eyes—the eyes of the witch—Ead knew she could not withhold the revelation any longer. After eight years of lies, she owed Sabran this truth.

Underneath the stars, she gave it.

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