Page 234 of The Priory of the Orange Tree

Sabran worked her way downward. Ead closed her eyes, breath netted in her chest. Her senses splintered to admit each luminous sensation. Fire-warmed skin. Creamgrail and clove. By the time a finger brushed her navel, she was drawn taut, shivering and glazed with sweat. As her hips rose in welcome, soft lips charted the crook of her thigh.

Each sinew of her was a string on a virginal, aching for the stroke of the musician. Her senses wound tight about ever-smaller centers, tensed to the pitch of Sabran Berethnet, and every touch vibrated through her bones.

“I am not yourqueen,” Sabran whispered over her skin, “but I am yours.” Ead raked her fingers through the dark of her hair. “And you will find that I can also be generous.”

They slept only when they were too heavy-limbed and sated to keep their exhaustion at bay. Sometime in the small hours, they woke to the patter of rain against the window, and they sought each other out again, bodies echoing the ember light.

After, they lay interlaced under the coverlets.

“You must remain as my Lady of the Bedchamber,” Sabran murmured. “For this. For us.”

Ead gazed at the ornate stonework on the ceiling.

“I can play the part of Lady Nurtha,” she said, “but it will always be a part.”

“I know.” Sabran looked into the darkness. “I fell in love with a part you played.”

Ead tried not to let the words find her heart, but Sabran had a way of always reaching it.

Chassar had fashioned Ead Duryan, and she had inhabited her so fully that everyone had fallen for the act. For the first time, she understood the depth of betrayal and confusion that Sabran must be feeling.

Sabran took Ead by the hand and traced the underside of her finger. The one that held her sunstone ring.

“You did not wear this before.”

Ead was close to falling asleep. “It is the symbol of the Priory,” she said. “The ring of a slayer.”

“You have slain a Draconic creature, then.”

“Long ago. With my sister, Jondu. We killed a wyvern that had woken in the Godsblades.”

“How old were you?”

“Fifteen.”

Sabran studied the ring for a time.

“I long not to believe your tale of Galian and Cleolind. I prayed to them both all my life,” she murmured. “If your version of events is correct, then I never knew either of them.”

Ead slid a hand to her back.

“Do you believe me?” she asked. “You know I have no proof of it.”

“I know,” Sabran said. Their noses touched. “It will take time for me to come to terms with this … but I will not close my mind to the notion that Galian Berethnet was only flesh.”

Her breathing grew softer. For a time, Ead thought she had drifted back to sleep. Then Sabran said, “I fear the war Fýredel craves.” She entwined their fingers. “And the shadow of the Nameless One.”

Ead only stroked her hair with one hand.

“I will address my people soon. They must know that I will stand against the Draconic Army, and that there is a plan in place to end the threat once and for all. If you can find the True Sword, I will show it to them. To lift their spirits.” Sabran looked up. “Your ambition is to defeat the Nameless One. If you succeed, what then will you do?”

Ead let her eyelids fall. It was a question she had tried her utmost not to ask herself.

“The Priory was founded to keep the Nameless One at bay,” she said. “If I bind him . . . I suppose I could do anything.”

A strange quiet grew between them. They lay in silence until Sabran shifted away and turned on to her other side.

“Sabran.” Ead kept her distance. “What is it?”

---