Page 92 of The Priory of the Orange Tree

The Donmata sat on the step behind his, so their heads were level. She placed a silk-wrapped bundle into her lap.

“Can he hear us?” Loth asked her.

“No. He sleeps again.” She sounded tired. “I pray Fýredel will not realize that I stopped him. He may think Father is dying. Which I think he is.” Her chin lifted. “I have no doubt the wyrm intends for me to replace him. His manikin to be controlled.”

“Does Fýredel not take issue with your keeping the king like this, chained in a dark room?”

“Fýredel understands that my father does not look . . .kinglyin his present state, his body rotting even as it continues to draw breath,” the Donmata said dryly, “but I must lead him from his rooms when ordered. So our lord and master can see into the palace whenever he desires. So he can issue orders to the Privy Council. So he can ensure we are not mounting a rebellion. So he can stop us calling for aid.”

“If you killed your father, Fýredel would know,” Loth realized. “And punish you.”

“The last time I defied him, he had one of my ladies put on the Gate of Niunda.” Her face tightened. “I had to watch as his cockatrices pecked her to shreds.”

They were quiet and still for a time.

“Queen Rosarian died fourteen years ago,” Loth stated. “Then . . . Sigoso did not do it under Draconic control.”

“Not all evil comes from wyrms.”

The Donmata turned to face him on the stair, so her back was against the wall.

“I do not remember a great deal about my father from my childhood. Just his cold gaze,” she murmured. “When I was sixteen, my mother came to my bedchamber in the middle of the night. Their marriage had always been strained, but now she looked afraid. And angry. She said we were going to join her brother, King Jantar, in Rauca. We dressed as servants and stole through the palace.

“Of course, the guards stopped us. Confined us both to our bedchambers and forbade us from speaking. I have never cried so hard in my life. Mama bribed a guard to pass me a letter, telling me to remain strong.” She touched the pendant at her throat, set with emeralds. “A week later, Father came to inform me of her death. He told the court that she took her own life, shamed by her attempt to abandon her king . . . but I know otherwise. She would never have left me alone with him.”

“I am sorry,” Loth said.

“Not as sorry as I am.” Disgust tightened her face. “Yscalin does not deserve this, but my father does. He deserves to look as corrupt on the outside as he always was within.”

Sahar Taumargam and Rosarian Berethnet, both dead by the hand of the same king. All while Inys had considered him a friend in Virtudom.

“I wanted to tell Sabran the truth. I wanted to call for aid, for troops . . . but this palace is a dungeon. The Privy Council has fallen utterly to Fýredel, too afraid to anger him. They have families in the city who would die if we stoked his wrath.”

Loth lifted his sleeve to his face to blot the sweat.

“Sabran was my friend. Prince Aubrecht was my betrothed for a long while,” the Donmata reminded him. “I know they must think ill of me now.”

Guilt pricked at Loth. “Forgive us,” he murmured. “We should not all have assumed—”

“You could never have known Fýredel was awake. Or that we were under his wing.”

“Tell me how Cárscaro fell. Help me understand.”

The Donmata breathed out through her nose.

“Two years ago, there was a quake in the Spindles,” she said. “Fýredel had awakened in a chamber in Mount Fruma, where he had gone to sleep after the Grief of Ages. We were on his doorstep. Ripe for the seizing.

“The lavender fields burned first. Black smoke choked the evening sky.” She shook her head. “It all happened so quickly. Wyverns had surrounded Cárscaro before the city guards could reach the old defenses. Fýredel appeared for the first time in centuries. He said he would set us all afire if my father did not come to him to pay tribute.”

“And did he?”

“He sent a decoy at first, but Fýredel sensed the deception. He burned the man alive, and my father was forced to emerge,” she said. “Fýredel took him into the mountains. For the rest of that night, Cárscaro descended into chaos. People thought a second Grief of Ages had begun—which, in a way, it had.” A terrible sadness darkened her eyes. “Panic reigned. Thousands tried to flee, but the only way out is through the Gate of Niunda, and the wyverns guarded it.” Her mouth pinched. “Father returned at dawn. The people saw that their king was alive and unharmed and did not know what to think. He told them they would be the first to witness the rise of the Draconic world—if they obeyed.

“Behind the walls of this palace, Father ordered his Privy Council to announce our allegiance to the Nameless One. They sent word to every nation, too craven to challenge him. Too craven when he ordered our defenses be torn down. Too craven when he burned down the aviary, and every bird left in it. I tried to organize a counterstroke, to no avail. I could do no more without endangering my life.”

“But the rest of the country did not know the truth,” Loth said.

“Cárscaro became a fortress that night. No one could get word out.” Her head dropped back against the wall. “Wyrms are weak when they first stir. For a year, Fýredel remained under Mount Fruma, regaining his strength. I watched as he used my father to turn my country into the base of his power. I watched him destroy the Six Virtues. I watched the plague awaken and spread among my people. And my home became my prison.”

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