Page 298 of The Priory of the Orange Tree

The rush of the river was closer now. Kalyba watched her go deeper into the roots.

“You look . . . so much like her.” The witch softened her voice. “A ghost of her.”

An arrow sailed across the clearing then and struck Kalyba in the back of her shoulder, making her turn in fury. A woman with golden eyes had emerged from the caves, a second arrow already nocked. She looked straight at Tané, and her gaze was a command.

Run.

Tané wavered. Honor told her to stand and fight, but instinct pulled harder. All that mattered now was that she reached Inys, and that Kalyba stayed ignorant of what she carried there.

She threw herself into the river, and the river took her back into its arms.

For a long time, all she knew was the fight to keep her head above water. As the river carried her from the valley, she crossed one arm over the fruit and used the other to swim. Smoke followed her all the way to the fork, where she hauled herself, dripping, from the rush, so bruised and tired and footsore that she could only lie and shudder.

Twilight turned to dusk, and dusk to moonless night.

Tané stood, her legs shaking, and walked.

Instinct made her take the jewel from its case, and it lit her way. Between the boughs of the canopy, she found the right star and followed its glimmer. Once, she saw the eyes of an animal watching her from the trees, but it kept its distance. Everything did.

At some point, her boots found a path of hard-packed earth, and she walked until the trees began to thin. When she was out of the forest, under the sky, she fell at last.

Her own hair was her pillow. She breathed through the clenched fist of her throat, and she wished on everything she loved that she was home in Seiiki, where the trees grew sweet.

An earth-shakingthumpmade her open her eyes. Wind unsettled her hair, and Tané looked up to see a bird looming over her. White as moonshine, with wings of bronze.

Ascalon Palace glistened in the first glow of sunrise. A ring of high towers at the crook of a river. Tané limped toward it, past the city-dwellers who had risen from their beds.

The great white bird had found a gap in the coastal defenses and taken her to a forest north of Ascalon. From there, she followed a well-trodden road until the horizon birthed a city.

The gates of the palace were threaded with flowers. When she got close, a throng of guards in silver plate blocked her way.

“Hold.” Spears pointed at her chest. “No farther, mistress. State your business here.”

She raised her head so they could see her face. The spears flinched higher as the guards stared at her.

“By the Saint,” one of them murmured. “An Easterner.”

“Who are you?” another asked her.

Tané tried to form words, but her mouth was dry, and her legs quaked.

Frowning, the second man loosened his grip on his sword. “Get the Resident Ambassador to Mentendon,” he said to the woman beside him.

Her armor rattled as she left. The others kept their spears trained on the stranger.

It was some time before another woman approached the gates. Her braided hair was a deep red, and she wore a black garment that flattened her breasts and waist, with skirts that belled out from her hips. Lace covered her brown skin to the throat.

“Who are you, honorable stranger?” she said in perfect Seiikinese. “Why have you come to Ascalon?”

Tané did not give her name. Instead, she held the ruby ring into the light.

“Take me to Lady Nurtha,” she said.

VI

The Keys to the Abyss

For whatsoever from one place doth fall,

---