Page 322 of The Priory of the Orange Tree

Queen Sabran was on theDefiance. Loth stood beside her, broadsword drawn, and twelve bodyguards fanned out around them. All of them were dripping wet.

“Sabran,” Kalyba breathed.

The queen gazed at her forebear. Their faces were identical.

“Your Majesty,” one of the guards stammered. All of them were looking between their queen and her double. “This is sorcery.”

“Stand back,” Sabran said to her guards.

“Yes,do, gallant knight. Do as my offspring decrees.” Kalyba curled her fingers around the flame in her palm. “Do you not see that I am your Damsel, foremother of Inys?”

The knights did not move. Neither did the queen. Her left hand strangled the hilt of her sword.

“You are an imitation of me,” Kalyba said to her, venomous. “Just as your sword is a cheap imitation of this one.”

She held up Ascalon. Sabran flinched.

“I did not want to believe Ead,” she replied, “but I see that my affinity with you cannot be denied.” She stepped toward Kalyba. “You took my child from me, Witch of Inysca. Tell me, after you went to so much trouble to found the House of Berethnet, why would you destroy it?”

Kalyba closed her first, and the flame was snuffed.

“One shortcoming of immortality,” she said, “is that everything you build seems too small, too transient. A painting, a song, a book—all of them rot away. But a masterwork, made over many years, many centuries . . . I cannot tell you the fulfilment it brings. To see your actions, in your lifetime, made into a legacy.” She lifted up Ascalon. “Galian lusted after Cleolind Onjenyu the moment he laid eyes on her. Though I had nursed him at my breast, though I gave him the sword that was the sum of all my achievements, and though I was beautiful, he wanted her above all things. Above me.”

“So it was unrequited love,” Sabran said. “Or was it jealousy?”

“A little of both, I suppose. I was younger then. Caged by a tender heart.”

Tané saw a flicker in the shadows.

Sabran moved a little to the left. Kalyba circled with her. Here, on this stretch of the ship, it was as if they were in the eye of the storm. No wyrms breathed fire near the witch.

“I watched Inys grow into a great nation. At first, that was enough,” Kalyba confessed. “To see my daughters thrive.”

“You still could,” Sabran told her softly. “I have no mother now, Kalyba. I would welcome another.”

Kalyba paused. Just for a moment, her face looked as naked as the rest of her.

“No, mylykyn,” she said, just as softly. “I mean to be a queen, as I once was. I will sit on the throne you can no longer hold.” She walked toward Sabran. The Knights of the Body pointed their swords at her. “I watched my daughters rule a country for a thousand years. I watched you preach against the Nameless One. What you failed to see is that the only way forward is to join with him.

“When I am queen, Inys will never burn again. It will be a Draconic place, protected. The people will never know you are gone. Instead they will rejoice to know that Sabran the Ninth, after reconciling her differences with the Nameless One, was blessed with his immortality. That she will reign forever.”

Sabran tightened her grip on her sword.

She was waiting for something, Tané realized. Her gaze flicked past her forebear, toward the bow of the ship.

“I misbelieve your grand talk,” the queen said, her tone pitying. “I think that this is simply the last act in your revenge. Your desire to destroy all trace of Galian Berethnet.” Her smile was pitying. “You are as beholden to your heart as you ever were.”

Suddenly Kalyba was right in front of her. The Knights of the Body started toward her, but she was already too close, close enough to kill their queen if they moved against her now. Sabran held very still as the witch pushed a wet strand of hair from her brow.

“It will hurt me,” Kalyba whispered, “to hurt you. You are mine . . . but the Nameless One will bring great things to this world. Greater things than even you could bring.” She kissed her forehead. “When I give you to him, he will know, at last, that I cherish him above all things.”

Sabran suddenly wrapped her arms around the witch. Tané stiffened, taken aback.

“Forgive me,” the queen said.

Kalyba wrenched away, eyes flared. Quick as a scorpion, she turned, fire igniting in her hand again.

A narrow blade ran her through. The sterren blade.

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