Page 72 of The Priory of the Orange Tree

“I am sorry to hear it.”

Loth pressed his brow to the window and stared at the city in the mountains. Soon he would be at the heart of the mystery of what had happened to Yscalin.

A blur of movement caught his attention. He reached for the latch so that he might get a better look at the sky, but a gloved hand snapped it shut.

“What was that?” Loth asked, unnerved.

“A cockatrice.” Lady Priessa folded her hands in her lap. “You would do well not to wander far from the palace, Lord Arteloth. Many Draconic beings dwell in the mountains.”

Cockatrices. The spawn of bird and wyvern. “Do they harm the people in the city?”

“If they are hungry, they will harm anything that moves, except those who already have the plague. We keep them fed.”

“How?”

No reply.

The coach began its trundle up the mountain path. Across from Loth, Kit stirred from his doze and rubbed his eyes. He hitched up his smile at once, but Loth could tell he was afraid.

Night had fallen by the time the Gate of Niunda came into view. Colossal as the deity it was named after, carved from green and black granite and lit by torches, it was the sole entrance to Cárscaro. As they grew closer, Loth could make out shapes below its lintel.

“What is that, up there?”

Kit understood first.

“I would look away, Arteloth.” He sat back. “Unless you want this hour to haunt your nights forever.”

It was too late. He had seen the men and women chained by their wrists to the gate. Some looked dead or half-dead already, but others were alive and bloody, fighting their restraints.

“Thatis how we keep them fed, Lord Arteloth,” Lady Priessa said. “With our criminals and traitors.”

For a terrible moment, Loth thought he was going to cast up his last meal right here in the coach.

“I see.” His mouth flooded with saliva. “Good.”

He ached to make the sign of the sword, but here that would condemn him.

As the coach approached, the Gate of Niunda opened. No fewer than six wyverns guarded it. They were smaller than their High Western overlords and had only two legs, but their eyes scorched with the same fire. Loth looked away until they were past.

He was in a nightmare. The bestiaries, the stories of old, had come to life in Yscalin.

A tower of volcanic rock and glass rose from the middle of the city. That must be the Palace of Salvation, seat of the House of Vetalda. The mountain Cárscaro sat on was one of the lowest in the Spindles, but vast enough that its summit was hidden by the haze above the plateau.

The palace was a fearful thing, but it was the river of lava that unsettled Loth. It flowed in six forks around and through Cárscaro before merging into one pool and cascading onto the lower slopes of the mountain, where it cooled to volcanic glass.

The lava falls had appeared in Cárscaro a decade ago. It had taken the Yscals some time to build channels for the flaming river. In Ascalon, people now whispered that the Saint had sent it as a warning to the Yscals—a warning that the Nameless One would one day be the false god of their country.

Streets wound like rat tails around the buildings. Loth could see now that they were linked by high stone bridges. Stalls with red awnings were surrounded by people in heavy robes. Many wore veils over their faces. Fortifications against the plague could be seen everywhere, from charms in doorways to masks with glass eyes and long beaks, but some dwellings were still marked with red writing.

The coach brought them to the vast doors of the Palace of Salvation, where a line of servants waited. Lifelike carvings of Draconic creatures formed an arch around the entrance. It looked like the neck of the Womb of Fire.

Loth stepped from the coach and stiffly held out a hand to Lady Priessa, who declined it. It had been foolish to offer in the first place. Melaugo had told him to keep his distance.

The jaculi growled as their small party walked away from the coach. Loth fell into step beside Kit, and they followed the servants into a high-ceilinged vestibule, where a chandelier hung. He could have sworn its candles were burning with red flames.

Lady Priessa disappeared through a side door. Loth and Kit exchanged baffled glances.

Two braziers flanked a grand staircase. A servant lit a torch from one of them. He led Loth and Kit through deserted corridors and passages hid behind tapestries and trick walls, up cramped and tapering stairs that left Loth feeling even more nauseated, past oil paintings of former Vetalda monarchs, and finally into a gallery with a vaulted ceiling. The servant pointed first to one door, then another, and handed each of them a key.

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