Page 311 of The Priory of the Orange Tree

It was the second day of spring, and Nayimathun had not come. Tané had known it would take time for her to fly again, but if she had reached the sea, it would have helped to knit the wound. That left the possibility that she had never got there. That the mages had hunted down and butchered her.

Let go of your guilt now, rider.

She wanted to obey, but her mind would not. It picked at her old wounds until they bled again.

A knock interrupted her pacing. She found Ead outside, hair sparkling with raindrops.

In the cabin, Tané lit what was left of the tallow candle. “How do you feel?” Ead asked, shutting the door behind her.

“Stronger.”

“Good. Your siden has settled.” Ead met her gaze. “I just wanted to check you were all right.”

“I am fine.”

“You don’t look it.”

Tané sat on her berth. She wanted to pretend otherwise, but she felt as if she could speak her mind around Ead.

“What if we fail?” she asked. “What if we cannot use the jewels as Cleolind and Neporo did?”

“You have the blood of Neporo, and weeks of practice to commend you.” The smile was brief. “Whatever happens, I think we will have Ascalon, Tané. I think we will be able to defeat him for good.”

“Why?”

“Because sterren calls to sterren. When we use the jewels, they will cry out to Kalyba. I imagine they have been calling to her ever since the two of us began to use them.” Her face was hard. “She will come.”

“I hope you are right.” Tané toyed with a tress of her own hair. “How are we to defeat her?”

“She is very powerful. Ideally, both of us will avoid single combat with her. But if it comes to that, I have a theory,” Ead said. “Kalyba draws her ability to change shape from star rot, and her stores of it must be low. Taking a form that is not her own drains it, and the more shechangesforms, I suspect, the worse the drain. Forcing her to change shape many times may weaken her. Trap her in one shape.”

“You do not know this for sure.”

“No,” Ead admitted, “but it is all I have.”

“How comforting.”

With another smile, Ead sat on the chest at the end of the bed.

“One of us must wield Ascalon. Drive it into the Nameless One,” she said. “You were exposed to the sterren in the rising jewel for years. The sword may answer more willingly to your hands.”

It took Tané a moment to understand. Ead was offering an artefact she had fought to obtain, a keystone of her religion, to a dragonrider. Someone she should still, by rights, consider an enemy.

“Princess Cleolind used it first,” Tané said, after a hesitation. “One of her handmaidens should wield it now.”

“We cannot quarrel about this. He must die tomorrow, or he will destroy us all.”

Tané glanced down at her hands. Stained with the blood of her closest friend. Unworthy of Ascalon.

“If there is opportunity,” she said, “I will take it.”

“Very well.” Ead smiled a little. “Goodnight, rider.”

“Goodnight, slayer.”

The door shut out an icy gust of wind.

Outside, the stars were bright above the Abyss. The eyes of dragons fallen and unborn. Tané asked them now for one more boon.Let me do what I must, she prayed,then let me ask no more.

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