The Priory of the Orange Tree

by Samantha Shannon

  The point of no return.

  She pulled in a breath, and her spine turned to iron. The Mother would not have watched while the world burned. Crushing the last embers of doubt, Ead changed into her nightrobe and took up her position on the bed, where she pretended to read. Outside, the light of day withdrew.

  Loth and Aralaq would be waiting for her by now. When it was full dark and a knock came at her door, she called, “Come in.”

  One of the menfolk entered, bearing a platter. On it were two cups and a jug.

  “Tulgus said you wished to taste the sun wine, sister,” he said.

  “Yes.” She motioned to the nightstand. “Leave it here. And open the doors, if you will.”

  When he set down the tray, Ead kept her expression clean and leafed past another page in her book. As he shuffled toward the balcony doors, she slipped the pouch of dreamroot from her sleeve and emptied it into one of the cups. By the time the man turned back, she had the other cup in her hand, and the pouch was nowhere to be seen. He took the tray and left.

  Wind rushed through the sunroom and blew out the oil lamp. Ead dressed in her travel clothes and boots, still sandy from the Burlah. The Prioress would be drinking the drugged wine by now.

  She took the only knife she had not already packed and sheathed it at her thigh. When she was certain that there was no one outside, she pulled her hood over her eyes and became one with the dark.

  The Prioress slept in the highest sunroom in the Priory, close to the crest of the waterfall, where she could see the dawn break over the Vale of Blood. Ead stopped at the arched entrance to the passageway. Two Red Damsels guarded the door.

  What she did next was a delicate thing. An ancient skill, no longer taught in the Priory. Candling, Jondu had called it. Lighting the smallest flame imaginable within a living body, just enough to cause the loss of breathing. It required a nimbleness of touch.

  With the slightest twist of her fingers, she struck one candle in each of the women.

  It had been a long time since a sister had turned against her kith. The twins were unprepared to feel the dry heat in their throats. Smoke curled from their mouths and noses and shot black tendrils through their minds, smothering their senses. As they sank, Ead moved past on silent foot and listened at the door. All was quiet.

  Inside, moonlight made needles through the windows. She stood in the deep shadows.

  The Prioress was in bed, surrounded by veils. The cup was on the nightstand. Ead approached, heart thumping, and looked inside it.

  Empty.

  Her gaze slid toward the Prioress. Sweat trembled at the very end of a coil of hair above her eyes.

  It took moments to find the jewel. The Prioress had pressed it into soft clay and hung it from a cord around her neck.

  “You must think me a fool.”

  A chill took Ead through her gut, like a thrown spear. The Prioress turned onto her back.

  “I sensed, somehow, that I should not drink the wine tonight. A premonition from the Mother.” Her hand closed around the jewel. “I suppose this . . . rebellion in you is not all your fault. It was inevitable that Inys would poison you.”

  Ead dared not move.

  “You mean to return there. To protect the pretender,” the Prioress said. “Your birthmother moves in you. Zāla also believed that we should stretch our limited resources to protect all humankind. She was always whispering in the ear of the old Prioress, telling her that we ought to protect every sovereign in every court—even in the East, where they worship the wyrms of the sea. Where they idolize them as gods. Just as the Nameless One would have had us do to him. Oh, yes . . . Zāla would have had us protect them, too.”

  Something about her tone sat wrong with Ead. The hatred in it.

  “The Mother loved the South. It is the South she sought to shield from the Nameless One,” she continued, “and it is the South I am sworn to protect in her name. Zāla would have had us open our arms to the world and, in doing so, expose our bellies to the sword.”

  All because Mita Yedanya told her I had poisoned your birthmother. Kalyba had worn a mocking smile. As if I would ever stoop to poison.

  Mita had banished the witch and never allowed her to return. An outsider, after all, was an easy scapegoat.

  “It was not the witch who killed Zāla.” Ead closed a hand around her blade, and it nerved her. “It was you.”

  She was cold to her bones. The Prioress raised her eyebrows. “Whatever can you mean, Eadaz?”

  “You hated that Zāla looked to defend the world beyond the South. Hated her influence. You knew it would only intensify when she was named Prioress.” Gooseflesh tightened her skin. “To control the Priory . . . you had to be rid of her.”

  “I did it for the Mother.”

  The confession was as blunt as the rest of her.

  “Murderer,” Ead whispered. “You murdered a sister.”

  Honey pastries. Warm embraces. All her vague memories of Zāla flooded back, and heat swelled to her eyelids.

  “To protect my sisters, and to ensure the South always had the protection it needed, I was willing to do anything.” With a sigh that was almost exasperated, the Prioress sat up. “I gave her a quiet death. Most had condemned Kalyba before I had even opened my mouth. It was an insult to the Mother that she came here—she who loved the Deceiver well enough to forge the sword for him. She is our enemy.”

  Ead could scarcely hear her. For the first time in her life, she felt the Draconic fire in her blood. Rage was a furnace in her belly, and its roar overwhelmed all other sounds.

  “The jewel. Give it to me, and I will leave in peace.” Her voice was distant to her own ears. “I can use it to find Ascalon. Let me finish what Jondu began, and protect the integrity of Virtudom, and I will not speak a word of your offense.”

  “Someone will wield the jewel,” was the reply, “but it will not be you.”

  The movement was as quick as a viper bite, too fast to avoid. White heat lashed across her skin. Ead reeled back, one hand beneath her throat, where blood was welling thick and fast.

  The Prioress slashed away the remnants of the veil. The blade in her hand was laced with red.

  “Only death can change the wielder.” Ead looked at the blood on her fingers. “Do you mean to kill birthmother and child both?”

  “I will not see a gift from the Mother in the hands of one who would desert her so willingly,” Mita said calmly. “The jewel will remain beneath her bones until the Nameless One threatens the people of the South. It will not be used to protect a Western pretender.”

  She lifted the knife in a fluid movement, like a rising note of music.

  “No, Eadaz,” she said. “It will not do.”

  Ead looked into those resolute eyes. Her fingers curled around the handle of her blade.

  “We both serve the Mother, Mita,” she said. “Let us see which of us she favors.”

  Little moonlight reached the ground in the Lasian Basin, so dense was the canopy of trees. Loth paced the gloaming, wiping the sweat from his hands on his shirt, shivering as if with fever.

  The ichneumon had led him through a labyrinth of passageways before emerging here. Loth had only understood that he was being rescued when they were breathing the warm air of the forest. The drink they had been giving him was at last wearing off.

  Now the ichneumon was curled on a nearby rock, eyes fixed on the mouth of the cave. Loth had buckled on the saddle they had brought outside. Woven bags and saddle flasks were attached to it.

  “Where is she?”

  He was ignored. Loth wiped his upper lip with one hand and muttered a prayer to the Knight of Courage.

  He had not forgotten. They had tried to smoke it out of him, but the Saint had always been there, in his heart. Tulgus had warned him against fighting, so he had prayed and waited for salvation. It had come in the form of the woman he had once known as Ead Duryan.

  She was going to get them back to Inys. He believed it as much as he believed in t
he Knight of Fellowship.

  When the ichneumon finally rose, it was with a growl. It bounded off to burrow between the roots of the tree and returned with an exhausted-looking Ead. Her arm was draped around its neck, and she carried another woven bag on her shoulder. Loth ran to her.

  “Ead.”

  She was glossed with blood and sweat, her hair curling thickly around her shoulders. “Loth,” she said, “we must leave now.”

  “Lift her onto me, man of Inys.”

  The deep voice scared Loth half to death. When he saw where it had come from, he gaped.

  “You can speak,” he spluttered.

  “Yes,” the ichneumon said. The wolfish eyes went straight back to Ead. “You are bleeding.”

  “It will stop. We must go.”

  “The sisters of the Priory will come for you ere long. Horses are slow. And stupid. You cannot outstrip an ichneumon without riding one.”

  She pressed her face into its fur. “They will butcher you if we are caught. Stay here, Aralaq. Please.”

  “No.” Its ears flinched. “I go where you go.”

  The ichneumon bent its front legs. Ead looked up at Loth.

  “Loth,” she rasped, “do you trust me still?”

  He swallowed.

  “I don’t know if I trust the woman you are,” he admitted, “but I trust the woman I knew.”

  “Then ride with me,” she said, cupping his cheek, “and if I lose consciousness, keep riding northwest for Córvugar.” Her fingers left blood on his face. “Whatever you do, Loth, do not let them take this. Even if you have to leave me behind.”

  Her hand was clenched around something at the end of a cord. A round, white gemstone, pressed into clay.

  “What is it?” he murmured.

  She shook her head.

  Mustering his strength, Loth hoisted her into the saddle. He swung himself on, curled an arm about her, and pressed her back against his chest, grasping the ichneumon with the other hand.

  “Hold on to me,” he said against her ear. “I will see us to Córvugar. As you have seen me here.”

  47

  South

  Aralaq ran hard through the forest. Loth thought he had known his swiftness in the Spindles, but it was all he could do to hold on as the ichneumon leaped over twisted roots and creeks and between trees, lithe as a stone glancing off water.

  He dozed as Aralaq took them farther north, away from the thickness of the forest. His dreams took him first to that accursed tunnel in Yscalin, where Kit must still lie—then farther, back to the map room at the estate, where his tutor was telling him about the history of the Domain of Lasia, and Margret was sitting beside him. She had always been a diligent student, keen to learn about their ancient roots in the South.

  He had given up hope of ever seeing his sister again. Now, perhaps, there was a chance.

  The rise and fall of the sun. The pounding of paws against earth. When the ichneumon stopped, Loth finally woke.

  He rubbed the sand from his eyes. A lake stretched across a dusty expanse of earth, a streak of sapphire under the sky. Water olyphants bathed in its shallows. Beyond the lake were the great rocky peaks that guarded Nzene, all the red-brown of baked clay. Mount Dinduru, the largest, was almost perfect in its symmetry.

  By noon, they were in the foothills. Aralaq climbed a brant path up the nearest peak. When they were high enough to make his thighs quake, Loth risked a look down.

  Nzene lay before them. The Lasian capital sat in the cradle of the Godsblades, surrounded by high sandstone walls. The mountains—taller and straighter than any in the known world—sliced its streets with shadow. An immense road stretched out beyond it, no doubt a trade route to the Ersyr.

  Date-palms and juniper trees lined streets that glistered in the sunlight. Loth spied the Golden Library of Nzene, built of sandstone taken from the ruins of Yikala, connected by a walkway to the Temple of the Dreamer. Towering over it all was the Palace of the Great Onjenyu, where High Ruler Kagudo and her family resided, set high above the houses on a promontory. The River Lase forked around its sacred orchard.

  Aralaq sniffed out a shelter beneath a jut of rock, deep enough to protect them from the elements.

  “Why are we stopping?” Loth wiped sweat from his face. “Ead told us to keep riding for Córvugar.”

  Aralaq bent his front legs so Loth could dismount. “The blade she was cut with was laced with a secretion from the ice leech. It stops the blood from clotting,” he said. “There will be a cure in Nzene.”

  Loth lifted Ead from the saddle. “How long will you be?”

  The ichneumon did not reply. He licked Ead once across the brow before he disappeared.

  When Ead rose from her world of shadows, it was sundown. Her head was a thrice-stirred cauldron. She was dimly aware that she was in a cave, but had no memory of having got there.

  Her hand flinched to her collarbones. Feeling the waning jewel between them, she breathed again.

  Retrieving it had cost her. She remembered the steel of the blade, and the sting of whatever foulness was on it, as she grabbed the jewel from Mita. Fire had sparked from her fingers, setting the bed ablaze, before she had rolled over the balustrade and into open sky.

  She had dropped like a cat and landed on a ledge outside the kitchen. Mercifully, it had been empty, leaving her escape route clear. Still, she had barely made it to Aralaq and Loth before her strength gave out.

  Mita deserved a cruel death for what she had done to Zāla, but Ead would not deliver it to her. She would not debase herself by murdering a sister.

  A hot tongue licked a curl back from her brow. She found herself almost nose to nose with Aralaq.

  “Where?” she said hoarsely.

  “The Godsblades.”

  No. She sat up, biting back a groan when her midriff throbbed. “You stopped.” Her voice strained. “You damned fools. The Red Damsels—”

  “It was this or let you bleed to death.” Aralaq nosed the poultice on her belly. “You did not tell us that the Prioress coated her blade in the glean.”

  “I had no idea.”

  She should have expected it. The Prioress wanted her dead, but she could not do it herself without drawing suspicion. Better to slow her with blood loss, then tell the Red Damsels their newly returned sister was a traitor and order them to kill her for it. Her own hands would be clean.

  Ead lifted the poultice. The wound was painful, but the mash of sabra flowers had leached the poison from it.

  “Aralaq,” she said, sliding into Inysh, “you know how quickly the Red Damsels hunt.” Having Loth there made the language spring to her tongue. “You were not supposed to stop for anything.”

  “High Ruler Kagudo keeps a supply of the remedy. Ichneumons do not let little sisters die.”

  Ead forced herself to breathe, to be calm. The Red Damsels were unlikely to be searching the Godsblades just yet.

  “We must move on soon,” Aralaq said, with a glance at Loth. “I will check it is safe.”

  Silence yawned after he left.

  “Are you angry, Loth?” Ead finally asked.

  He gazed at the capital. Torches had been lit in the streets of Nzene, making it glimmer like embers beneath them.

  “I should be,” he murmured. “You lied about so much. Your name. Your reason for coming to Inys. Your conversion.”

  “Our religions are intertwined. Both oppose the Nameless One.”

  “You never believed in the Saint. Well,” he corrected himself, “you did. But you think he was a brute and a craven who tried to press a country into accepting his religion.”

  “And demanded to marry Princess Cleolind before he would slay the monster, yes.”

  “How can you say such a thing, Ead, when you stood in sanctuary and praised him?”

  “I did it to survive.” When he still refused to look at her, she said, “I confess I am what you would call a sorceress, but no magic is evil. It is what the wielder makes it.”

  He risked a
surly glance at her. “What is it you can do?”

  “I can drive away the fire of wyrms. I am immune to the Draconic plague. I can create barriers of protection. My wounds heal quickly. I can move among shadows. I can make metal sing of death like no knight ever could.”

  “Can you make fire of your own?”

  “Yes.” She opened her palm, and a flame shivered to life. “Natural fire.” Again, and the flame blossomed silver. “Magefire, to undo enchantments.” Once more, and it was red, so hot it made Loth sweat. “Wyrmfire.”

  Loth made the sign of the sword. Ead closed her hand, extinguishing the heresy.

  “Loth,” she said, “we must decide now whether we can be friends. We both need to be friends to Sabran if this world is to survive.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There is much you don’t know.” An understatement indeed. “Sabran conceived a child with Aubrecht Lievelyn, the High Prince of Mentendon. He was killed. I will tell you all later,” she added, when he stared. “Not long after, a High Western came to Ascalon Palace. The White Wyrm, they called it.” She paused. “Sabran had a miscarriage.”

  “Saint,” he said. “Sab—” His face was tight with sorrow. “I am sorry I was not there.”

  “I wish you had been.” Ead watched his face. “There will be no other child, Loth. The Berethnet line is at an end. Wyrms are rising, Yscalin has all but declared war, and the Nameless One will rise again, soon. I am sure of it.”

  Loth was beginning to look very sick. “The Nameless One.”

  “Yes. He will come,” Ead said, “though not because of Sabran. It has naught to do with her. Whether there is a queen in Inys or a sun in the sky, he will rise.”

  Sweat dotted his brow.

  “I think I know a way to defeat the Nameless One, but first we must secure Virtudom. Should it fall to civil war, the Draconic Army and the Flesh King will make short work of it.” Ead pressed the poultice against her belly. “Certain members of the Dukes Spiritual have abused their power for years. Now they know she will have no heir, I believe they will try to control Sabran, or even to usurp her.”

  “By the Saint,” Loth murmured.

  “You warned Meg about the Cupbearer. Do you know who it is?”