Page 220 of The Priory of the Orange Tree

Lintley did not dignify the question with a retort.

“Go,” he said to Ead. “Get to Her Majesty.”

Ead needed no urging. She cast a final look at Crest and made for the end of the corridor.

“We can have a peaceful transition now, or war when the truth outs,” Crest called after her. “And it will, Mistress Duryan. The righteous will always triumph . . . in the end.”

Jaw clenched, Ead strode away.

As soon as she was out of sight, she broke into a run. Blood dripped in her wake as she followed the path she had taken countless times.

Into the Presence Chamber she ran. All was cold and dark. She rounded a corner, and there were the doors to the Great Bedchamber. The doors she had walked through so many times to find the Queen of Inys.

Something moved in the darkness. Ead stopped short. Her flame cast a queasy light on the figure crumpled by the doors. Eyes like cobalt glass and a curtain of dark hair.

Roslain.

“Get back.” A knife shone in her grasp. “I will cut your throat if you touch her, Grandmother, I swear it—”

“It’s me, Roslain. Ead.”

The Chief Gentlewoman of the Bedchamber finally saw past the light.

“Ead.” She kept the knife up, breathing hard. “I dismissed the rumors about your sorcery . . . but perhapsyouare the Lady of the Woods.”

“A humbler witch than she, I assure you.”

Ead crouched beside Roslain and reached for her right hand, making her flinch. Three of her fingers were bent at a grotesque angle, a splinter of bone jutting out above her love-knot ring.

“Did your grandmother do this?” Ead asked her quietly. “Or are you in league with her?”

Roslain let out a bitter laugh. “Saint, Ead.”

“You were raised in the shadow of a queen. Perhaps you grew to resent her.”

“I am not in her shadow. Iamher shadow. And that,” Roslain bit out, “has been myprivilege.”

Ead studied her, but there was no deceit in that tear-stained face.

“Go to her, but be on your guard,” Roslain whispered. “If my grandmother comes back—”

“Your grandmother is arrested.”

At this, Roslain let out a breathless sob. Ead squeezed her shoulder. Then she stood, and for the first time in an age, she faced the doors to the Great Bedchamber. Each sinew of her being was a harpstring, pulled taut.

Inside, the darkness yawned sinister. The flame untethered itself from her hand to float like a ghostlight and, by its pallid flicker, Ead made out a figure at the foot of the bed.

“Sabran.”

The figure stirred. “Leave me,” it rasped. “I am at prayer.”

Ead was already beside Sabran, lifting her head. Shivering limbs recoiled from her.

“Sabran.” Her voice quaked. “Sabran, look at me.”

When Sabran raised her gaze, Ead drew in a breath. Gaunt and listless, wound in the shroud of her own hair, Sabran Berethnet looked more of a carcass than a queen. Her eyes, once limpid, took little in, and the smell of days unwashed clung to her nightgown.

“Ead.” Fingers came to her face. Ead pressed the icy hand to her cheek. “No. You are another dream. You come here to torment me.” Sabran turned away. “Leave me in peace.”

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