Page 124 of The Priory of the Orange Tree

As the pistol snapped toward the royals, Ead threw her last knife. It struck the cutthroat through the heart just as the pistol fired.

Sabran flinched. Ead closed the space between them and felt for moisture on her bodice, sick with dread, but there was no blood. The gown was still pristine.

Behind them, Aubrecht Lievelyn dropped to one knee. His hands were at his doublet, where darkness was spreading.

“Sabran,” he murmured.

She turned.

“No,” she rasped. “Aubrecht—”

Ead watched, as if from a great distance, as the Queen of Inys ran to her companion and lowered him to the floor with her, gasping out his name as his heart’s blood soaked into her skirts. As she held him close and pleaded with him to stay with her, even as he slipped away. As she doubled over him, cradling his head. As he grew still.

“Aubrecht.” Sabran looked up, her eyes overflowing. “Ead. Ead, help him, please—”

Ead had no time to go to her. The doors opened again, and a second cutthroat stumbled into the sanctuary, heaving. At once, Ead divested the dead Lambren of his sword and pinned the cutthroat to the wall.

“Take off your mask,” she bit out, “or I swear to you, I will take off the face beneath it.”

Two gloved hands revealed a pale countenance. Truyde utt Zeedeur stared at the lifeless High Prince of Mentendon.

“I never meant for him to die,” she whispered. “I only wanted to help you, Your Majesty. I only wanted you to listen.”

27

East

Niclays Roos wasconniving. And it was a plan so dangerous and unflinching that he almost wondered if he really had come up with it, eternal coward that he was.

He was going to make the elixir and buy his way back to the West if it killed him. And it very well might. To escape Orisima for good, and to breathe life back into his work, he needed to take a risk. He needed what Eastern law had denied him.

He needed blood from a dragon, to see how gods renewed themselves.

And he knew just where to start.

The servants were busy in the kitchen. “What help can we be, learnèd Doctor Roos?” one asked when Niclays appeared in the doorway.

“I need to send a message.” Before Niclays could lose the speck of courage that remained to him, he held out the letter. “It must reach the honored Lady Tané at Salt Flower Castle before sunset. Will you take it to the postriders for me?”

“Yes, learnèd Doctor Roos. It will be done.”

“Do not tell them who sent it,” he added quietly. She looked uncertain, but promised she would not. He handed her money enough to pay a postrider, and she left.

All he could do now was wait.

Fortunately, waiting meant more time to read. While Eizaru was at the market and Purumé was tending to patients, Niclays sat in his room, the bobtail cat purring beside him, and perusedThe Price of Gold, his favorite text on alchemy. His copy was well worn.

As he turned to a new chapter that afternoon, a sliver of delicate silk fluttered out.

His breath caught. He retrieved the fragment from the floor and smoothed it out before the cat could claw it to shreds. It had been years since he had last brought himself to look at the greatest mystery of his life.

Most of the books and documents in his possession had once belonged to Jannart, who had bequeathed half of his library to Niclays, as well as his armillary sphere, a Lacustrine candle clock, and a host of other curiosities. There had been many beautiful tomes in the collection—illuminated manuscripts, rare tracts, miniature prayer books—but nothing had obsessed Niclays more than this tiny scrap of silk. Not because it was brushed with a language he could not decipher, and not because it was clearly very old—but because in attempting to unlock its secret, Jannart had lost his life.

Aleidine, his widow, had given it to Truyde, who had mourned for her grandfather by fixating on his possessions. The child had kept the fragment in a locket for a year.

Just before Niclays had left for Inys, Truyde had come to his house in Brygstad. She had worn a little ruff, and her hair—Jannart’s hair—had curled around her shoulders.

Uncle Niclays, she had said gravely,I know you are leaving soon. My lord grandsire was holding this piece of paper when he died. I have tried to work out what it says, but the petty school has not taught me enough. She had offered it with a gloved hand.Papa says you are very clever. I think you will be able to work out what the writing means.

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