Page 258 of The Priory of the Orange Tree

She walked down a flight of steps and into the open gallery below the Royal Solarium, where twelve small balconies spilled winter-flowering blossoms. As she strode toward the door to her own chamber, she heard a footstep behind her, soft as felt.

Silently, she turned. A Red Damsel stood in a beam of sunlight. At her lips was a blowpipe, whittled from wood.

The dart had punched through her shirt before Ead could take a breath. Death spread from its bite.

The floor met her knees with bone-jarring force. She lifted a shaking hand to her belly and felt the slender dart in it. Her killer caught and lowered her.

“Forgive me, Eadaz.”

“Nairuj,” Ead coughed out.

She had known this day would come. A sister of the Priory could avoid her wardings.

The molten glass was setting in her veins. Her muscles cramped around the dart, rejecting the poison. “You had the child,” she managed to say.

Ochre eyes looked down at her. “A girl,” Nairuj said, after a hesitation. “I did not want this, sister, but the Prioress commands that you are silenced.” Ead felt Nairuj twist the ring off her finger, the ring that had been her dream. “Where is the jewel, the white jewel?”

Ead could not reply. The feeling was already trickling from her. She had the curious sense that her ribs were disappearing. As Nairuj felt at her throat for the jewel, Ead gripped the dart in her belly and removed it.

She was so cold. All the fire in her was going out, leaving ashes in its wake.

“Nameless is—” Even breathing was agony. “Spring. The third d-day of spring.”

“What is this?”

Sabran. Fear strained her voice.

Nairuj moved like an arrow. Ead watched through watering eyes as her one-time sister pulled a band of silk across her mouth and vaulted over the nearest balustrade.

Footsteps clattered down the corridor. “Ead—” Sabran gathered her into her arms, gasping. “Ead!” Her features were bleeding together. “Look at me. Look at me, Ead, please. T-tell me what she did to you. Tell me which poison—”

Ead tried to speak. To say her name, just one more time. To say she was sorry to break her promise.

I will always come back to you.

Darkness closed around her like a cocoon. She thought of the orange tree.Not you. Ead. Please.The voice was fading.Please don’t leave me here alone.She thought of how it had been between them, from the candle dance to the first touch of her lips.

Then she did not think at all.

The sun was setting over Ascalon. Loth gazed through the window at the candlelit Alabastrine Tower, where the Virtues Council were debating the Eastern Proposal.

Ead lay on her bed. Her lips were as black as her hair, her corset unraveled to reveal a pinhole in her belly.

Sabran had not left her side. She was staring at Ead as if looking away would snap her fragile hold on life. Outside, Aralaq was prowling in the Privy Garden. It had taken a great deal of wheedling to convince him to leave for long enough for the Royal Physician to examine Ead and, even then, he had snapped his jaws when the man had tried to touch her.

Doctor Bourn moved like the hand of a clock around the sickbed. He measured her heartbeat, felt her brow, and studied the wound. When he finally took off his eyeglasses, Sabran raised her head.

“Lady Nurtha has been poisoned,” he said, “but by what, I cannot tell. The symptoms are like none I have ever seen.”

“The cruel sister,” Loth said. “That is its name.”

It was supposed to cause death. Once again, Ead had defied her fate.

The Royal Physician frowned at this. “I have never heard of such a poison, my lord. I do not know how to purge it from her.” He looked back at Ead. “Majesty, it seems to me that Lady Nurtha has been put into a deep sleep. Perhaps she can be woken from it. Perhaps not. All we can do is try to keep her alive for as long as we can. And pray for her.”

“Youwillwake her,” Sabran whispered. “You will find a way. If she dies—”

Her voice broke, and she held her head between her hands. The Royal Physician bowed.

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