Page 329 of The Priory of the Orange Tree

At least some of his friends had managed not to die. After the Siege of Cárscaro, a search party had been sent for Laya. As he had lain abed on theDancing Pearl, racked with fever, he had remembered certain things about that cavern that had been their prison—namely the red veins that had snaked through its walls.

They had found her in the Dreadmount. Close to death from thirst, she had been nursed back to health in a field hospital, and High Ruler Kagudo had taken her back to Nzene on her own ship. After decades away, she was home, and had already written to invite him to visit her.

He would go soon, when he had taken in enough of Mentendon to be certain it was there. To be sure that this was real.

The coach stopped outside the gates of Brygstad Palace—an austere structure of dark sandstone, hiding an interior of white marble and gilt. A footman opened the door.

“Doctor Roos,” he said, “Her Royal Highness, High Princess Ermuna, welcomes you back to Mentish court.”

Heat prickled in his eyes. He saw the stained-glass dormer window of the highest room.

“Not yet.”

The footman looked baffled. “Doctor,” he said, “Her Royal Highness expects you at noon.”

“At noon, dear boy. Noon is not now.” He sat back. “Do take my belongings, but I shall go to the Old Quarter.”

Reluctantly, the footman gave the order.

The coach trundled through the north of the city, past bookshops and museums and guildhalls and bakehouses. Hungry for the sights, Niclays leaned out on his elbow. Scents wafted from the open market, scents he had dreamed about so often in Orisima. Gingerbread and sugared quinces. Pies to crack open with the flat of a knife, revealing the spiral of pear and cheese and cuts of hard-boiled egg inside. Pancakes drizzled with sugar-brandy. The apple tarts he had loved to eat on strolls along the river.

On every corner, stalls sold pamphlets and tracts. The sight made Niclays think of Purumé and Eizaru, his friends on the other side of the world. Perhaps, when and if the sea ban was lifted, they could walk these streets with him.

The coach stopped outside a shabby-looking inn in a lane that branched off Brunna Square. The golden paint had flaked from its sign, but inside, the Sun in Splendor was just as he remembered it.

There was something he had to do before he faced the court. He would seek the ghosts before they found him.

It was traditional for the people of Mentendon to be laid to rest in their birthplaces. Only in rare cases was it permitted for them to be entombed elsewhere.

Jannart had been one of those rare cases. Custom dictated that he should be buried in Zeedeur, but Edvart, torn by grief, had given his dearest friend the honor of a tomb in the Silver Cemetery, where members of the House of Lievelyn were interred. Not long after, Edvart had caught the sweat and joined him there, along with his infant daughter.

The cemetery was a short walk from the Old Quarter. Snow lay thick and untouched over its grounds.

Niclays had never visited the mausoleum. Instead he had fled to Inys, racked with denial. Not believing in an afterlife, he had never seen the point of talking at a slab of stone.

It was icy cold in the mausoleum. An effigy, sculpted from alabaster, lay upon the tomb.

As he approached it, Niclays breathed in deeply. Whoever had captured his likeness had known Jannart well when he was in his early forties. On the shield of the statue, representing the protection of the Saint in death, was an inscription.

JANNART UTT ZEEDEUR

SEEK NOT THE MIDNIGHT SUN ON EARTH

BUT LOOK FOR IT WITHIN

Niclays spread his hand over the words.

“Your bones lie behind me. Nothing lies ahead. You are dead, and I an old man,” he murmured. “I resented you for such a long time, Jannart. I had been comfortable in the belief that I would die before you did. Perhaps I even tried to ensure it. I hated you—hated the memory of you—for leaving first. Leaving me.”

With a lump in his throat, he turned away. He sank to the floor, his back to the tomb, and clasped his hands between his knees.

“I failed her, Jan.” His voice grew almost too soft to hear. “I lost myself, and I lost sight of your grandchild. When the wolves encircled Truyde, I was not there to beat them back.

“I thought—” Niclays shook his head. “I thought of dying. When they brought me up from inside theDancing Pearl, I watched the sea burning. Light from darkness. Fire and stars. I looked into the Abyss, and I almost let myself fall.” A dry chuckle. “And then I stepped back. Too heartsore to live, too craven to die. But then . . . you sent me on that journey for a reason. The only way I could think to honor you was by continuing to live.

“You loved me. Without condition. You saw the person I could be. And I will be that person, Jan. I will endure, my midnight sun.” He touched the stone face one more time, the lips that were so like they had been in life. “I will teach my heart to beat again.”

It hurt to leave him in the dark. Still, leave he did. Those bones had long since let him go.

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