Page 84 of The Priory of the Orange Tree

It was meant in courtesy, with no expectation of an answer. To her surprise, Sabran gave one.

“The wyrm.” Her gaze was on the fire. “He said the thousand years were almost done. It has been just over a thousand years now since my ancestor vanquished the Nameless One.”

There was a furrow in her brow. Standing there in her nightgown, she seemed as vulnerable as she would have looked when the cutthroat had beheld her.

“Wyrms have forked tongues for duplicity, madam.” Ead hung the rail over the back of a chair. “Fýredel is still weak from his slumber, his fire not yet fully lit. He fears the union of Berethnet and Lievelyn. He speaks in riddles to sow misgiving in your mind.”

“He has succeeded.” Sabran sank onto the bed. “It seems that I must wed. For Inys.”

Ead did not know the acceptable way to reply to this.

“Do you not wish to wed, madam?” she finally asked.

“That matters not.”

Sabran had power in all things but this. To conceive a legitimate heir, she must wed.

Roslain or Katryen should be here. They would soothe her fears while they combed her hair for bed. They knew the right things to say, the right way to comfort her while keeping her in the state of mind necessary to her union with Prince Aubrecht.

“Do you dream, Ead?”

It came from nowhere, but Ead kept her composure. “I dream of my childhood,” she replied, “and things I have seen around me by daylight, woven into new tapestries.”

“I long for that. I dream of—of terrible things,” Sabran murmured. “I do not tell my Ladies of the Bedchamber, for I think they would be afraid of me, but . . . I will tell them to you, Ead Duryan, if you will hear them. You are made of firmer stuff.”

“Of course.”

She curled up on the rug beside the fire, close to Sabran, who sat with a taut back.

“I dream of a shaded bower in a forest,” she began, “where sunlight dapples the grass. The entrance is a gateway of purple flowers—sabra flowers, I think.”

They grew at the end of the known world. It was said that their nectar glowed like starlight. This far north, they were legendary.

“Everything in the bower is beautiful and pleasing to the ear. Birds sing charming songs, and the breeze is warm, yet the path that leads me on is jeweled with blood.”

Ead nodded her reassurance, even as something glinted in the back of her mind.

“At the end of the path, I find a great rock,” Sabran continued, “and I reach out to touch it with a hand I do not think is mine. The rock breaks in two, and inside—” Her voice wavered. “Inside—”

A chamberer did not have leave to touch the royal person. And yet, seeing that drawn face, Ead found herself reaching for Sabran and clasping one of her hands between her own.

“Madam,” Ead said, “I am here.”

Sabran looked up. A moment passed. Slowly, she moved her other hand to cup the braid of their fingers.

“Blood overflows from within the cleft, and my arms, my belly, are awash with it. I step through the rock, into a standing circle, like those in the north. And scattered all around me are bones. Small bones.” Her eyes closed, and her lips quaked. “I hear terrible laughter, and I realize the laughter is mine. And then I wake.”

Ead kept the queen in her gaze. Sabran had been right. Roslain and Katryen would have been frightened.

“It is not real.” Ead tightened her grasp. “None of it is real.”

“There is a story in this country of a witch,” Sabran said, too far into her memory to hear. “She stole children and took them into the forest. Do you know it, Ead?”

After a moment, Ead said, “The Lady of the Woods.”

“I suppose Lord Arteloth told you, as he did me.”

“Lady Margret.”

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