Page 305 of The Priory of the Orange Tree

A knock had her tucking the jewel away. She opened the door and found Margret on the threshold.

“Ead.” She looked nervous. “The rulers of the South have just arrived at Summerport. What do you suppose they want?”

67

West

Damp skin moved against his own, and a hand gentled his hair. Those were the first things he knew before the agony broke into his sleep, sharp and vengeful.

The air burned his mouth, reeking of brimstone. A whimper escaped his lips.

“Jan.”

“Shh, Niclays.”

He knew that voice. “Laya,” he tried to say, but only a groan came out.

“Oh, Niclays, thank the gods.” She pressed a cloth to his brow when he whimpered. “You must be quiet.”

The events of Komoridu came back to him in a flash. Ignoring her pleas for him to be still, he groped for his throat. Where a second mouth had been, he could feel shiny, tender skin—the scar of cautery. He raised his arm and saw that it now ended in a puffy stump, webbed with black stitches. Tears squeezed from his eyes.

He was an anatomist. Even now, he knew this wound would almost certainly kill him.

“Shh.” Laya stroked his hair. Her cheeks were damp, too. “I’m so sorry, Niclays.”

A sickening throb filled his arm. He took the piece of leather she offered and bit with all his might to keep from screaming.

A strained creak came to his attention. Slowly, he realized that the swaying was not the result of pain, but the fact that he and Laya were suspended in an iron cage.

If he had been seized by fear before, he was losing his mind to it now. His first thought was that the Golden Empress had taken them ashore and left them to starve—then he remembered the last thing he had heard before fainting. The drumbeat of Draconic wings.

“Where?” he forced out. Vomit threatened to follow his words. “Laya. Where?”

Laya swallowed, hard enough for him to see the movement of her throat. “Dreadmount.” She held him close. “The red veins in the rock. No other mountain has them.”

Birthplace of the Nameless One. Niclays knew he ought to be pissing himself with fear, but all he could think was how close he was to Brygstad.

He wadded down his gasps. The bars were wide enough to squeeze through, but the fall would kill them both. In the sunless cavern, he could just make out the mass of scales.

Red scales.

Not on a living beast. No—painted on the wall of this cavern was a memory. It showed a woman in a Lasian war cap facing the Nameless One, sword piercing his breast.

The sword was unmistakably Ascalon. And its wielder was Cleolind Onjenyu, Princess of the Domain of Lasia.

So many lies.

Red scales. Red wings. The immensity of the beast covered most of the wall. Delirious, Niclays began to count its scales while Laya dabbed his brow. Anything to distract him from the agony. He had counted them twice over before he fell into a doze, and dreamed of swords and blood and a redheaded corpse. When Laya stiffened against him, he opened his eyes.

A woman had appeared in the cage, dressed all in white. That was when he knew he was delirious.

“Sabran,” he gasped.

A fever dream. Sabran Berethnet was standing in front of him, hair black against waxen skin. The supposed beauty that had always given him a chill, as if he had put a foot through ice.

Her face came closer. Those eyes, the creamy green of jade.

“Hello, Niclays,” she said. “My name is Kalyba.”

---