The Priory of the Orange Tree

by Samantha Shannon

  “You can take to your bed or your bier. The choice is yours.”

  Making a face, Sabran sat up. “Very well. But you are not to play nursemaid.” She watched Ead rise and dry herself. “You must speak with the Easterner on the morrow. Everything depends on our being able to coexist in peace.”

  Ead pulled on her bedgown.

  “I make no promises,” she said.

  In her years of study at the South House, Tané had been taught only what were considered to be the necessary facts about the Queendom of Inys. She had learned about their monarchy and their religion of Six Virtues. She knew their capital was called Ascalon, and that they had the largest and best-armed navy in the world. Now she also knew that they lived in damp and cold, kept idols in their bedchambers, and forced their sick to drink a lumpy gruel that set her teeth on edge.

  Fortunately, nobody had tried to coax it into her this morning. A servant had brought her a jug of ale, thick-cut slices of sweet bread, and a stew of brown meat. All of it had clotted in her stomach. She had only tried ale once before, when Susa had stolen a cup for her from Orisima, and she had thought it foul.

  In the South House, there had been minimal furniture and sparing artwork. She had always liked that simplicity; it left her room to think. Castles were more ornate, of course, but the Inysh seemed to revel in things. In adornment. Even the curtains were dolorous. Then there was the bed, which was so laden with covers, it seemed to swallow her.

  Still, it was good to be warm. After such a long journey, all she had been able to do for a day was sleep.

  The Resident Ambassador to Mentendon returned when the sun was high.

  “Lady Nurtha is here, honorable Tané,” she said in Seiikinese. “Should I let her in?”

  At last.

  “Yes.” Tané set the meal aside. “I will see her.”

  When she was alone, Tané folded her hands on the covers. Eels were twisting in her stomach. She had wanted to meet Lady Nurtha on her feet, but the Inysh had put her in a lace-trimmed garment that made her look a fool. Better to maintain a semblance of dignity.

  A woman soon appeared in the doorway. Her riding boots made no sound.

  Tané studied the slayer. Her skin was smooth and golden-brown, and her hair, which curled like wood shavings, sat thick and dark on her shoulders. There was something of Chassar, the man who had saved her, in the lines of her jaw and brow, and Tané wondered if they were kin.

  “The Resident Ambassador tells me you speak Inysh.” She had a Southern lilt. “I had no idea it was taught in Seiiki.”

  “Not to everyone,” Tané said. “Only to those in training for the High Sea Guard.”

  “I see.” The slayer folded her arms. “I am Eadaz uq-Nāra. You may call me Ead.”

  “Tané.”

  “You have no family name.”

  “It was Miduchi once.”

  There was a brief silence.

  “I am told you made a perilous journey to the Priory to save my life. I thank you for it.” Ead went to the window seat. “I assume Lord Arteloth told you what I am.”

  “A wyrm-killer.”

  “Yes. And you are a wyrm-lover.”

  “You would slay my dragon if she were here.”

  “A few weeks ago, you would have been right. My sisters once slaughtered an Eastern wyrm that thought it shrewd to fly over Lasia.” Ead spoke without apparent remorse, and Tané wrestled with a surge of hatred. “If you will oblige me, I would like to hear how you started this journey, Tané.”

  If the slayer was going to be civil, so would Tané. She told Ead how she had come to have the rising jewel, her skirmish with the pirates, and her brief and violent detour to the Priory.

  It was at this point that Ead began to pace back and forth. Two small lines appeared between her eyebrows.

  “So the Prioress is dead, and the Witch of Inysca has possession of the orange tree,” she said. “Let us hope that she seeks only to keep it to herself, and not to gift it to the Nameless One.”

  Tané allowed her a moment. “Who is the Witch of Inysca?” she finally asked, quietly.

  Ead closed her eyes.

  “It is a long tale,” she said, “but if you wish, I will tell it to you. I will tell you everything that has happened to me over the last year. After your journey, you deserve the truth.”

  While rain drizzled down the window, she did. Tané listened without interrupting.

  She listened to Ead tell her the history of the Priory of the Orange Tree, and the letter she had found from Neporo. About the Witch of Inysca and the House of Berethnet. About the two branches of magic, and the comet and the sword Ascalon, and how the jewels fit into it all. A servant brought them hot wine while Ead talked, but by the time she was finished, both cups had turned cold, untouched.

  “I understand if you find this difficult to believe,” Ead said. “It all sounds quite ridiculous.”

  “No.” Tané released her breath for what felt like the first time in hours. “Well, yes, it does. But I believe you.”

  She realized she was shivering. Ead flicked her fingers, and a fire sprang up in the hearth.

  “Neporo had a mulberry tree,” Tané said, even as she took in this evidence of magic. “I may be her descendant. It is how I came to have the rising jewel.”

  For a time, Ead seemed to digest this. “Is this mulberry tree alive?”

  “No.”

  Ead visibly clenched her jaw.

  “Cleolind and Neporo,” she said. “One mage of the South. One of the East. It seems that history is to repeat itself.”

  “I am like you, then.” Tané watched the flames dance behind a grate. “Kalyba also had a tree, and Queen Sabran is her descendant. Does that make us both sorceresses?”

  “Mages,” Ead corrected, though she sounded distracted. “Having mage blood does not make you one. You must eat of the fruit to call yourself that. But it is why the tree yielded you a fruit in the first place.” She lowered herself on the window seat. “You said my sisters grounded your wyrm. It never occurred to me to ask how you reached Inys.”

  “A great bird.”

  Ead’s gaze snapped to her.

  “Parspa,” she said. “Chassar must have sent her.”

  “Yes.”

  “I am surprised he trusted you. The Priory does not take kindly to wyrm-lovers.”

  “You would not despise the Eastern dragons if you knew anything about them. They are nothing like the fire-breathers.” Tané stared her out. “I despise the Nameless One. His servants threw down our gods in the Great Sorrow, and I mean to throw him down in punishment for it. In any case,” she said, “you have no choice but to trust me.”

  “I could kill you. Take the jewel.”

  From the look in her eyes, she would do it. There was a knife in a sheath at her hip.

  “And use both jewels yourself?” Tané said, undaunted. “I assume you know how.” She took her case from under the pillows and tipped the rising jewel into her palm. “I have used mine to guide a ship through a windless sea. I have used it to draw the waves onto the sand. So I know that it drains you—slowly at first, so you can bear it, like the ache from a rotten tooth. Then it turns your blood cold, and your limbs heavy, and you long only to sleep for years.” She held it out. “The burden must be shared.”

  Slowly, Ead took it. With her other hand, she eased a chain from around her neck.

  The waning jewel. A little moon, round and milky. The steady glow from a star was inside it, calm where its twin was always sparkling. Ead held one jewel in each palm.

  “The keys to the Abyss.”

  Tané felt a chill.

  It seemed impossible that they had united them.

  “There is a plan in place to defeat the Nameless One. I assume Loth told you.” Ead handed back the blue jewel. “You and I will use these keys to bind him forever in the deep.”

  Just as Neporo had a thousand years ago, with a fellow mage beside her.

  “I should warn you,” Ead
said, “that we cannot kill the Nameless One without Ascalon. Someone must drive it into his heart before we use the jewels. To quench his fire. My hope is that the Witch of Inysca will bring it to us, and that we can take it from her. If not, it is possible that your Eastern wyr— dragons . . . will be able to weaken him enough for us to use the jewels without the sword. Perhaps then we can bind him for another thousand years. I mislike that option, for it means that another generation will have to take up this mantle.”

  “I agree,” Tané said. “It must end here.”

  “Good. We will practice with the jewels together.”

  Ead reached into a pouch at her side and withdrew the golden fruit Tané had brought to Inys.

  “Take a bite of this,” she said. “Siden may help you in this battle. Especially if Kalyba comes.” Tané watched her place it on the nightstand. “Do it soon. It will rot today.”

  After a moment, Tané nodded.

  “Binding the Nameless One may be the end of us both,” Ead said, softer. “Are you willing to take that risk?”

  “To die in the service of a better world would be the highest honor.”

  Ead gave her a faint smile. “I believe we understand each other. On this one thing, at least.”

  To her surprise, Tané found herself smiling in return.

  “Come and find me when you feel stronger,” Ead said. “There is a lake in Chesten Forest. We can learn to use the jewels. And see how long we can last without killing each other.”

  With that, she took her leave. Tané slipped the rising jewel, still glinting, back into its case.

  The golden fruit was glowing. She cupped it in her hands for a long time before she tasted of its flesh. Sweetness burst beneath her teeth and washed over her tongue. When she swallowed, it was hot.

  The fruit fell to the floor, and she erupted into flame.

  In the Great Bedchamber, the Queen of Inys burned. Doctor Bourn had watched her all day, but now Ead went to her side, against her word.

  Sabran slept in the vise of her fever. Ead sat on the bed and soaked a cloth with water.

  The Prioress was dead, and the Priory in the hands of the witch. The thought of the Vale of Blood filled with wyrms, brought there by a mage, was as bitter to Ead as wormwood.

  At least Kalyba would not harm the orange tree. It was her only source of the siden she craved.

  Ead cooled Sabran’s hot brow. She could not mourn for Mita Yedanya, but she did for her sisters, who had lost their second matriarch in as many years. With the Prioress dead, they would either flee elsewhere and elect a new leader—likely Nairuj—or submit to Kalyba so they might stay close to the tree. Whatever they chose, Ead prayed Chassar would be safe.

  Sabran had fallen still by dusk. Ead was trimming the wicks on the candles when the silence broke.

  “What did the Easterner say?”

  Ead looked over her shoulder. Sabran was watching her.

  Quietly, so no one outside the door could eavesdrop, Ead recounted her meeting with Tané. When she was finished, Sabran gazed with glassy eyes at the canopy.

  “I will address my people the day after tomorrow,” she said. “To tell them about the alliance.”

  “You are not well. Surely you can delay for a day or two.”

  “A queen does not abandon her plans for a trifling fever.” She sighed as Ead covered her with the mantle. “I told you not to play nursemaid.”

  “And I told you I was not your subject.”

  Sabran muttered into her pillow.

  When she had drifted back to sleep, Ead took out the waning jewel. It had sensed other magic, and latched on to it, even though its nature was the opposite of hers.

  A knock had her tucking the jewel away. She opened the door and found Margret on the threshold.

  “Ead.” She looked nervous. “The rulers of the South have just arrived at Summerport. What do you suppose they want?”

  67

  West

  Damp skin moved against his own, and a hand gentled his hair. Those were the first things he knew before the agony broke into his sleep, sharp and vengeful.

  The air burned his mouth, reeking of brimstone. A whimper escaped his lips.

  “Jan.”

  “Shh, Niclays.”

  He knew that voice. “Laya,” he tried to say, but only a groan came out.

  “Oh, Niclays, thank the gods.” She pressed a cloth to his brow when he whimpered. “You must be quiet.”

  The events of Komoridu came back to him in a flash. Ignoring her pleas for him to be still, he groped for his throat. Where a second mouth had been, he could feel shiny, tender skin—the scar of cautery. He raised his arm and saw that it now ended in a puffy stump, webbed with black stitches. Tears squeezed from his eyes.

  He was an anatomist. Even now, he knew this wound would almost certainly kill him.

  “Shh.” Laya stroked his hair. Her cheeks were damp, too. “I’m so sorry, Niclays.”

  A sickening throb filled his arm. He took the piece of leather she offered and bit with all his might to keep from screaming.

  A strained creak came to his attention. Slowly, he realized that the swaying was not the result of pain, but the fact that he and Laya were suspended in an iron cage.

  If he had been seized by fear before, he was losing his mind to it now. His first thought was that the Golden Empress had taken them ashore and left them to starve—then he remembered the last thing he had heard before fainting. The drumbeat of Draconic wings.

  “Where?” he forced out. Vomit threatened to follow his words. “Laya. Where?”

  Laya swallowed, hard enough for him to see the movement of her throat. “Dreadmount.” She held him close. “The red veins in the rock. No other mountain has them.”

  Birthplace of the Nameless One. Niclays knew he ought to be pissing himself with fear, but all he could think was how close he was to Brygstad.

  He wadded down his gasps. The bars were wide enough to squeeze through, but the fall would kill them both. In the sunless cavern, he could just make out the mass of scales.

  Red scales.

  Not on a living beast. No—painted on the wall of this cavern was a memory. It showed a woman in a Lasian war cap facing the Nameless One, sword piercing his breast.

  The sword was unmistakably Ascalon. And its wielder was Cleolind Onjenyu, Princess of the Domain of Lasia.

  So many lies.

  Red scales. Red wings. The immensity of the beast covered most of the wall. Delirious, Niclays began to count its scales while Laya dabbed his brow. Anything to distract him from the agony. He had counted them twice over before he fell into a doze, and dreamed of swords and blood and a redheaded corpse. When Laya stiffened against him, he opened his eyes.

  A woman had appeared in the cage, dressed all in white. That was when he knew he was delirious.

  “Sabran,” he gasped.

  A fever dream. Sabran Berethnet was standing in front of him, hair black against waxen skin. The supposed beauty that had always given him a chill, as if he had put a foot through ice.

  Her face came closer. Those eyes, the creamy green of jade.

  “Hello, Niclays,” she said. “My name is Kalyba.”

  He could not even summon a croak. His body was a nerveless thing, unmoving and cold.

  “I suppose you must be confused.” Her lips were red as apples. “I am sorry to have brought you so far, but you were very close to dying. I find the loss of life distasteful.” She laid a glacial hand on his head. “Let me explain. I am of the Firstblood, like Neporo, whose story you read in Komoridu. I ate of the hawthorn tree when Inys had no queen.”

  Even if Niclays had been able to speak in more than whimpers, he would not have known what to say in the presence of this being. Laya held him tighter, shivering.

  “I suppose you know where you are. I imagine it frightens you, but this is a safe place. I have been preparing it, you see. For spring.” Kalyba teased a wisp of hair back from his eyes. “The Nameless One came
here after Cleolind wounded him. He bid me find an artist to paint the story, to show how it was on that day in Lasia. So he might always remember.”

  Niclays might have thought her mad, had he not felt mad himself. All this had to be a nightmare.

  “Immortality is my gift,” Kalyba whispered. “Unlike Neporo, I learned to share it. Even restore the dead to life.”

  Jannart.

  Her breath was the chill of high winter. Niclays gazed at her, mesmerized by her eyes.

  “I know you are an alchemist. Let me share the gift with you. Show you how to unknit the seams of age. I could teach you how to build a man from the ashes of his bones.”

  Her face began to change. The green in her eyes drained to gray, and her hair turned red as blood.

  “All I need,” said Jannart, “is one small favor in return.”

  It was the first time in many decades that the House of Berethnet had received the rulers of the South. Ead was on Sabran’s right, watching them.

  Jantar Taumargam, who was called the Splendid, was as much of a presence as his epithet implied. He was not imposing in the physical sense; he was fine-boned, slim as a feather, almost delicate at first glance—but his eyes were dungeons. Once he had you in his gaze, you were his until he let it go. He wore a brocaded sapphire robe with a high collar, closed with a gold belt. His queen, Saiyma, was already on her way to Brygstad.

  Beside him was the High Ruler of Lasia.

  At five and twenty, Kagudo Onjenyu was the youngest monarch in the known world, but her bearing made it clear that those who took her lightly would pay a heavy toll. Her skin was a deep brown. Cowry shells encircled her neck and wrists, and each of her fingers gleamed with gold. A shawl of sea silk, knitted in the Kumenga fashion, draped her shoulders. Four sisters of the Priory had been assigned to defend her since the day she was born.

  Not that Kagudo needed much defending. Rumor had it she was as great a warrior as Cleolind had been.

  “As you know, the Mentish land army is small,” Sabran was saying. “The wolfcoats of Hróth will be a great help, as will their navy on my side of this battle, but more soldiers are needed.” She paused to breathe. Combe gave her a concerned look. “You both have soldiers and weapons at your disposal, strong enough to damage Sigoso’s armies.”