Page 70 of The Priory of the Orange Tree

“The Mother defeated him more than a thousand years ago,” Ead said. “Did she not? If that were the date the wyrm meant, the Nameless One should have risen already.”

Chassar took a thoughtful sip of wine. “I wonder,” he said, “if this threat has anything to do with the Mother’s lost years.”

All sisters knew about the lost years. Not long after vanquishing the Nameless One and founding the Priory, the Mother had left on unknown business and perished before she could make her way home. Her body had been returned to the Priory. No one knew who had sent it.

One small faction of sisters believed that the Mother had gone to join her suitor, Galian Berethnet, and had a child with him, establishing the House of Berethnet. This idea, unpopular in the Priory, was the founding legend of Virtudom—and what had landed Ead in Inys.

“How could it?” she asked.

“Well,” Chassar said, “most sisters believe that the Mother left to protect the Priory from some unnamed threat.” He pressed his lips together. “I will write to the Prioress and tell her what Fýredel said. She may be able to solve this riddle.”

They fell into a brief silence. Now twilight had drawn in, candles began to flicker to life in the windows of the palace.

“I must go soon,” Ead murmured. “To pray to the Deceiver.”

“Eat a little first.” Chassar moved the bowl of fruit toward her. “You look tired.”

“Well,” Ead said dryly, “banishing a High Western alone, as it turns out,isa tiring affair.”

She picked at the honey-sweet dates and cherries. Tastes of a life she had never forgotten.

“Beloved,” Chassar said, “forgive me, but before you go, there is something else I must tell you. About Jondu.”

Ead looked up.

“Jondu.” Her mentor, her beloved friend. Something twisted in her gut. “Chassar, what is it?”

“Last year, the Prioress decreed we must resume our efforts to find Ascalon. With Draconic stirrings on the rise, she believed we should do everything we could to find the sword the Mother used to vanquish the Nameless One. Jondu began her search in Inys.”

“Inys,” Ead said, chest tight. “Surely she would have come to see me.”

“She was ordered not to approach the court. To leave you to your task.”

Ead closed her eyes. Jondu was headstrong, but she would never have disobeyed a direct order from the Prioress.

“We last heard from her when she was in Perunta,” Chassar continued, “presumably making her way home.”

“When was this?”

“The end of winter. She did not find Ascalon, but she wrote to tell us she carried an object of importance from Inys and urgently required a guard. We sent sisters to find her, but there was no trace. I fear the worst.”

Ead stood abruptly and walked to the balustrade. Suddenly the sweetness of the fruit was cloying.

She remembered Jondu teaching her how to yoke the raw flame that scorched in her blood. How to hold a sword and string a bow. How to open a wyvern from gizzard to tail. Jondu, her dearest friend—who, along with Chassar, had made her all she was.

“She may still be alive.” Her voice was hoarse.

“The sisters are searching. We will not give up,” Chassar said, “but someone must take her place among the Red Damsels. That is the message I bring from Mita Yedanya, our new Prioress. She commands you to return, Eadaz. To wear the cloak of blood. We shall need you in the days to come.”

A shiver caressed Ead from her scalp to the base of her spine, chill and warm at once.

It was all she had ever wanted. To be a Red Damsel, a slayer-in-waiting, was the dream of every girl born into the Priory.

And yet.

“So,” Ead said, “the new Prioress does not care to protect Sabran.”

Chassar joined her at the balustrade. “The new Prioress is more skeptical of the Berethnet claim than the last,” he admitted, “but she will not leave Sabran undefended. I have brought one of your younger sisters with me to Inys, and I mean to present her to Queen Sabran in exchange for you. I will tell her one of your relatives is dying, that you must return to the Ersyr.”

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