Page 178 of The Priory of the Orange Tree

Laya brought the box to Niclays and lifted the lid. Inside, nestled in watersilk, lay a thin book. Shining on its wooden cover were the remains of a gold-leaf mulberry tree. Reverently, Niclays took it. It was bound in a Seiikinese style, the leaves stitched into an open spine. Each page was made of silk. Whoever had made it had wanted it to weather many centuries, and so it had.

This was the book Jannart would have dreamed of seeing.

“I have read every possible meaning into each word in Old Seiikinese, yet I have found nothing but a story,” the Golden Empress said. “Perhaps a Mentish mind can see it in a different way. Or perhaps the love of your life sent you some message you have yet to hear. Bring me an answer by sunrise in three days, or you may find I grow tired of my new surgeon. And when I grow tired of things, they are not long for this world.”

Stomach roiling, Niclays ran his thumbs over the book.

“Yes, all-honored Golden Empress,” he murmured.

Laya led him away.

Outside, the air was taut and cold. “Well,” Niclays said heavily, “I suspect this will be one of our last meetings, Laya.”

She frowned. “Are you giving up hope, Niclays?”

“I will not solve this mystery inthree days, Laya. Even if I had three hundred, I could not.”

Laya took him by the shoulders, and the force of her grasp stopped him. “This Jannart—the man you loved,” she said, looking him dead in the eye. “Do you think he would want you to give up, or carry on?”

“I don’twantto carry on! Do you not understand? Does nobody in this world understand, damn you? Is no one else haunted?” A quiver of wrath entered his voice. “Everything I did—everything I was—everything I am, is because of him. He was someone before me. I am no one without him. I am tired of living without him at my side. He left me for that book and, by the Saint, I resent him for it. I resent him every minute of every day.” His voice cracked. “You Lasians believe in an afterlife, don’t you?”

Laya studied him.

“Some of us, yes. The Orchard of Divinities,” she said. “He may be waiting for you there, or at the Great Table of the Saint. Or perhaps he is nowhere at all. Whatever has become of him,youare still here. And you are here for a reason.” She held a callused palm to his cheek. “You have a ghost, Niclays. Do not become a ghost yourself.”

How many years had it been since anyone had touched his face, or looked at him with sympathy?

“Goodnight,” he said. “And thank you, Laya.”

He left her.

On his stretch of floor, he lay on his side and pressed one fist over his mouth. He had fled from Mentendon. He had fled from the West. No matter how far he ran, his ghost still followed him.

It was too late. He was mad with grief. He had been mad for years. He had lost his mind the night he had found Jannart dead at the Sun in Splendor, the inn that had been their love nest.

It had been a week since Jannart was supposed to return from his journey, but no one had seen him. Unable to find him at court, and with word from Aleidine that he was not in Zeedeur, Niclays had gone to the only other place he could be.

The smell of vinegar had hit him first. A physician in a plague mask had been outside the room, painting red wings on the door. And when Niclays had shoved past her, into their room, there was Jannart, lying as if asleep, his red hands folded on his chest.

Jannart had lied to everyone. The library where he had hoped to find answers was not in Wilgastrom, but in Gulthaga, the city razed in the eruption of the Dreadmount. Doubtless he had thought the ruins would be safe, but he must have known there was a risk. Deceived his family and the man he loved. All so he could stitch a single hole in history.

A wyvern had been sleeping in the long-dead halls of Gulthaga. One bite had been all it took.

There was no cure. Jannart had known that, and had wanted to leave before his blood started to burn and his soul was scorched away. And so he had gone to the shadow market in disguise and procured a poison named eternity dust. It gave a quiet death.

Niclays trembled. He could still see the scene now, detailed as a painting. Jannart in the bed,theirbed. In one hand, the locket Niclays had given him the morning after their first kiss, with the fragment inside. In the other, an empty vial.

It had taken the physician, the innkeeper, and four others to hold Niclays back. He could still hear his own howls of denial, taste the tears, smell the sweetness of the poison.

You fool, he had screamed.You fucking selfish fool. I waited for you. I waited thirty years . . .

Did lovers ever reach the Milk Lagoon, or did they only dream of it?

He gripped his head between his hands. With Jannart’s death, he had lost one half of himself. The part of him worth living for. He closed his eyes, head aching, chest heaving—and when he fell into a fitful doze, he dreamed of the room at the top of Brygstad Palace.

There is a hidden message in it, Clay.

He tasted black wine on his tongue.

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