The Priory of the Orange Tree

by Samantha Shannon

  “When I am queen, Inys will never burn again. It will be a Draconic place, protected. The people will never know you are gone. Instead they will rejoice to know that Sabran the Ninth, after reconciling her differences with the Nameless One, was blessed with his immortality. That she will reign forever.”

  Sabran tightened her grip on her sword.

  She was waiting for something, Tané realized. Her gaze flicked past her forebear, toward the bow of the ship.

  “I misbelieve your grand talk,” the queen said, her tone pitying. “I think that this is simply the last act in your revenge. Your desire to destroy all trace of Galian Berethnet.” Her smile was pitying. “You are as beholden to your heart as you ever were.”

  Suddenly Kalyba was right in front of her. The Knights of the Body started toward her, but she was already too close, close enough to kill their queen if they moved against her now. Sabran held very still as the witch pushed a wet strand of hair from her brow.

  “It will hurt me,” Kalyba whispered, “to hurt you. You are mine . . . but the Nameless One will bring great things to this world. Greater things than even you could bring.” She kissed her forehead. “When I give you to him, he will know, at last, that I cherish him above all things.”

  Sabran suddenly wrapped her arms around the witch. Tané stiffened, taken aback.

  “Forgive me,” the queen said.

  Kalyba wrenched away, eyes flared. Quick as a scorpion, she turned, fire igniting in her hand again.

  A narrow blade ran her through. The sterren blade.

  A sliver of the comet.

  Kalyba drew in a sharp breath. As she stared at the shard of metal in her breast, her hooded killer revealed her face.

  “I do this for you.” Ead twisted the blade deeper. There was no malice in her expression. “I will take you to the hawthorn tree, Kalyba. May it bring you the peace you did not find here.”

  Dark lifeblood flowed from the witch, down her breast and past her navel. Even immortals bled.

  “Eadaz uq-Nāra.” The name left her like a curse. “You are so very like Cleolind, you know.” Blood speckled her lips. “After all this time, I see her spirit. Somehow . . . she outlived me.”

  As she sank over her mortal wound, the Witch of Inysca let out a scream. It echoed across the water, far into the Abyss. Ascalon fell from her hand, and Sabran seized it. At the last, Kalyba grabbed her by the throat.

  “Your house,” she whispered to the queen, “is built on barren ground.” Sabran strained to break her grip, but her hand was a vise. “I see chaos, Sabran the Ninth. Beware the sweet water.”

  Ead pulled her blade free, and more blood pulsed from Kalyba, like wine from a gourd. By the time she had fallen to the deck, her eyes were cold and dead as emeralds.

  Sabran gazed in silence at the naked body of her forebear, one hand at her throat, where finger marks had already blossomed. Ead removed her cloak and covered the witch, while Tané picked up another sword.

  A bell rang from the Inysh fleet. The sails of the Defiance stirred. Tané watched as the same wind set the Seiikinese flag aflutter. Even the cannon fire seemed to grow softer as a preternatural hush descended.

  “This is it,” Ead said, her voice calm. “He is coming.”

  In the sky, the fire-breathers moved the way starlings did, whirling in great clouds of wing. A dance of welcome.

  In the distance, the sea exploded upward.

  The waters of the Abyss convulsed. Shouts of panic spiked the night as waves crested the ships. Tané hit the gunwale as the Defiance lurched, unable to wrest her gaze from the horizon.

  The eruption of water rose high enough to obliterate the stars. Amidst the chaos, a shape took form.

  She had heard stories of the beast. Every child had grown up hearing about the nightmare that had crawled out of the mountain to ravage all the world. She had seen images of him, richly painted in gold-leaf and red lacquer, with blots of soot-ink where eyes ought to be.

  No artist had captured the magnitude of the enemy, or the way the fire inside him made him smoulder. They had never seen it for themselves. His wingspan was the length of two Lacustrine treasure ships. His teeth were as black as his eyes. The waves crashed and the thunder rolled.

  Prayers in every language. Dragons rising from the sea to meet their enemy, letting out haunting calls. Soldiers on the Defiance brandished their weapons, and on the Lord of Thunder, archers exchanged their arrows for longer ones, fletched with purple feathers. Poison arrows might fell a wyvern or a cockatrice, but nothing would get under those scales. Only one sword had a chance.

  Ead retrieved Ascalon.

  “Tané,” she shouted over the din, “take it.”

  Tané took its weight in her clammy hands. She had expected it to be heavy, but it felt as if it could be hollow.

  The sword that could slay the true enemy of the East. The sword that could earn back her honor.

  “Go.” Ead gave her a push. “Go!”

  Tané scraped up all her fear and crushed it into a dark place inside her. She made sure her borrowed sword was secure at her side. Then, keeping Ascalon in hand, she made for the closest sail. She scaled the battens, fighting through wind and rain, until she reached the top.

  “Tané!”

  She turned. A Seiikinese dragon with silver scales was rising from the waves.

  “Tané.” The rider beckoned her. “Jump!”

  Tané had no time to think. She threw herself from the beam, into nothing.

  A hand sheathed in a gauntlet took hold of her arm and hauled her into the saddle. Ascalon almost slipped from her embrace, but she pinned it with her elbow.

  “It’s been a while,” Onren called.

  The saddle was just big enough for two, but there was nothing to hold a second rider in place. “Onren,” Tané started, “if the honored Sea General finds out you let me ride with—”

  “You are a rider, Tané.” Her voice was muffled by the mask. “And this is no place for rules.”

  Tané pushed Ascalon into a sheath on the saddle and secured it. Her fingers were wet and icy, clumsy on the hilt. The sheath had not been made for such a long blade, but it would hold the sword better than she could. Seeing her struggle, Onren reached into one of the pouches and passed Tané a pair of gauntlets. She slipped them over her hands.

  “I assume you found a way to kill the Nameless One on your travels,” Onren said.

  “A scale of his chest armor is loose.” Tané had to shout to be heard over the clash of weapons and the roars of wyrms and fire. “We have to tear it off and pierce the flesh beneath with this sword.”

  “I think we can manage that.” Onren gripped the horn of the saddle. “Don’t you, Norumo?”

  Her dragon hissed his agreement. Cloud frothed from his nostrils. Tané held on to Onren, her hair flying about her face.

  The Seiikinese dragons were coming together. Most of their riders held longbows or pistols. At the same time, the fire-breathers flocked to protect their master, forming an appalling swarm in front of him. Tané felt Onren freeze. After all they had learned, all they had sacrificed, none of their schooling had prepared them for this. This was war.

  They were close to the front of the formation, behind the elders. The great Tukupa the Silver led the charge, with the Sea General buckled into the saddle on her back. The Imperial Dragon flew beside her, leading the Lacustrine dragons. Tané shielded her eyes against the rain, straining to see. The Unceasing Emperor was a small figure astride his fellow ruler.

  Bracing herself, Tané locked her arms around Onren. With a growl, the great Norumo lowered his head.

  When they hit the flock, the collision almost threw Tané from the saddle. She clung to Onren, who hacked with her sword at wings and tails while Norumo rammed his horns into anything in his path. All was uproar and thunder, screaming and death, rain and ruin. She had the short-lived sensation that this was a terrible dream.

  Lightning flashed through her eyelids. When she looked up,
she met the eyes of the Nameless One. He stared into her soul. And when he opened his mouth, she saw doom.

  Fire and smoke blasted from his jaws.

  It was as if a volcano had erupted into the night. The dragon elders parted around the Nameless One and snapped at his sides, but Norumo, like his rider, had a taste for breaking rules.

  He dived beneath the inferno and rolled. Tané tightened her arms around Onren as the world turned on its head. Another dragon tried to avoid that cavernous mouth, but the Nameless One bit her in two. Scales glittered as his teeth scattered them, like a fistful of coins tossed into the air. Tané watched, sickened, as the two halves of the dragon sank toward the sea.

  Smoke was in her chest and eyes. Blood surged to her head. They passed beneath the Nameless One, close enough for the heat from his belly to parch her skin and steal what was left of her breath. As Norumo spiraled, Onren thrust out her sword. It sparked over red scales, but made no mark. Norumo swerved between the spikes of an endless tail—and then they were flying even higher, above the beast, back toward the flock.

  I see you, rider.

  Tané stared at the Nameless One. His eye was upon her.

  You carry a blade I know well. The voice rang in every crevice of her mind. It was last in the possession of the White Wyrm. Did you slay her for it, as you now hope to slay me?

  Her hand flinched to her temple. She could feel his rage in her very bones, in the hollows of her skull.

  “We need to get closer,” Onren said, panting.

  Norumo was moving back into formation, but his breathing was just as labored as hers. The heat had baked the moisture from his scales.

  I smell the fire inside you, daughter of the East. Soon your ashes will scatter the sea. I suppose that befits one who swims with the slugs of the water.

  Tears streamed down her face. Her head was going to burst open.

  “Tané, what is it?”

  “Onren,” she gasped, “do you hear his voice?”

  “Whose voice?”

  She cannot hear me. Only those who have tasted of the trees of knowledge can, the Nameless One said. Tané sobbed in agony. I was born out of the hidden fire, forged in the vital furnace that gave you but one spark. For as long as you live, I will live inside you, in your every thought and memory.

  One of the Seiikinese dragons that had separated from the rest of the formation slammed into his neck. The vise on her mind sprang open. She fell against Onren, shuddering.

  “Tané!”

  The flock tore at Norumo. The Imperial Dragon, who was almost as large as the monster, forced a path through the swarm, let out a mighty roar, and scourged the Nameless One with her claws. Gold sparks flew and, for the first time, gouges appeared in that age-old armor. The Nameless One twisted his head, teeth bared, but the Imperial Dragon was already out of reach.

  Onren punched the air. “For Seiiki!” she cried out. Other riders echoed her.

  Tané shouted it until her throat was raw.

  The Sea General blew through his war conch, summoning the dragons for a second foray. This time, the flock they faced was even larger, a wall of wings. Fire-breathers everywhere were abandoning their clashes with the ships and flying to defend their master. Their ranks closed around the Nameless One, who was moving ever closer to the fleet.

  “We can’t get through that.” Onren grasped the saddle. “Norumo, take us to the front.”

  He growled low and drew up alongside the elders. Tané tensed as the Sea General turned his face toward them. Onren snapped open a fan and signaled for him to cease the charge.

  The Sea General signed with a fan in return. He wanted them to approach from above. Other riders passed the message along.

  Upward they flew, toward the moon. When they dived, in perfect unison, Tané narrowed her eyes. The wind tore back her hair. She reached for Ascalon and drew it from the sheath.

  This time, she would strike him.

  One moment, the fire-breathers rose to meet them. The next, all Tané could see was darkness.

  Norumo let out a roar. A blue glow vented between his scales before lightning splintered from his mouth. Every hair on Tané stood on end. As Norumo skewered an amphiptere on his horns, another bolt flashed out of the turmoil. It whipped past Onren, glanced off her armor, and caught Tané across the bare skin of her arm.

  She felt her heart stop.

  The lightning hit a wyvern, but not before it set her clothes on fire. Onren screamed her name just before Tané was thrust from dragonback, into the chaos of the sky.

  The wind smothered her shirt, but not the white-hot flame beneath her skin. For a moment, she felt weightless. She could hear nothing, see nothing.

  When she became aware again, the fire-breathers were high above her, the black sea rushing up below. Ascalon was wrenched from her hand. One flash of silver, and it vanished.

  She had failed. The sword was gone. Nothing but death awaited them at the end of this day.

  Hope was lost, but her body refused to give up the fight. Some long-buried instinct made her heed her training. All students of the Houses of Learning had been taught how to raise their chances of survival if they should ever fall from dragonback. She faced the Abyss and opened her arms, as if to embrace it.

  Then a banner of misty green rushed beneath her. She was caught in the coil of a tail.

  “I have you, little sister.” Nayimathun lifted Tané on to her back. “Hold on.”

  Her fingers splayed over wet scales.

  “Nayimathun,” Tané gasped.

  Livid red branches had spread from her shoulder, down her right arm, and across her neckline.

  “Nayimathun,” she said, panting, “I lost Ascalon.”

  “No,” Nayimathun said. “This is not over. It fell to the deck of the Dancing Pearl.”

  Tané looked down at the ships. It seemed impossible that the sword had avoided the endless black water.

  Another ship fractured into pieces as its black powder combusted. Bleeding, his wing injured, Fýredel threw back his head and let out a long sound that stemmed from deep within. Even Tané knew what it was. A rallying cry.

  The herd above their heads was thrown into disarray. As she watched, half of the fire-breathers dropped away from the Nameless One, to Fýredel.

  “Now,” Tané shouted. “Now, Nayimathun!”

  Her dragon did not hesitate. She flew toward the enemy.

  “Aim for his chest.” Tané unsheathed the sword at her side. Rain lashed her face. “We have to break through his scales.”

  Nayimathun bared her teeth. She rammed through what remained of the vanguard. The other dragons were calling to her, but she paid them no heed. As fire roared to meet them, she swept over the Nameless One and wrapped herself around his body, so her head was beneath his, out of the reach of his teeth and flame. Tané heard her scales begin to sizzle.

  “Go, Tané,” she forced out.

  Forgetting her fear, Tané leaped from dragonback and grabbed on to a scale. The heat burned through her gauntlets, but she kept climbing up the Nameless One, stretching up to each plate of his armor, using their razor-sharp edges as handholds, counting down from the top of his throat. When she reached the twentieth scale, she saw the imperfection, the place where it had never fitted smoothly back over the scar beneath. Holding on with one hand, she jammed the blade of her sword beneath the scale, planted her boots on the one below, and pulled on the haft with all her might.

  The Nameless One opened his jaws and let out an inferno, but though the fire soaked her in sweat and made it hard to breathe, Tané kept craning. Screaming with the effort, she threw all her weight behind the pull.

  The blade of her sword snapped. She dropped ten feet before she flung out a hand and caught herself on another scale.

  Her arms were trembling. She was going to slip.

  Then, with a war cry that rang in her bones, Nayimathun reared. The haft of the sword caught between two of her teeth. With one jerk of her head, she ripped the sca
le free.

  Steam vented from the flesh of the Nameless One. Tané threw out an arm to stop it scalding her—and fell from his armor.

  Her fingers caught in a riverweed mane. She hauled herself back onto Nayimathun. At once, her dragon uncoiled herself, scales burnt dry, and plunged toward the ocean. Tané choked on the stench of hot metal. The Nameless One came after them, jaws gaping to show the spark in his throat. Nayimathun keened as razor teeth closed on her tail.

  The sound screamed through Tané. She flicked her knife into her hand, twisted at the waist, and hurled it into the depths of a black eye. His jaws unlocked, but not before flesh and scale tore asunder. Nayimathun tumbled away from him, toward the Abyss, blood spraying from her.

  “Nayimathun—” Tané choked on her name. “Nayimathun!”

  The rain turned silver.

  “Find the sword,” was all her dragon said. Her voice was fading. “This must end here. It must be now.”

  The soldier stabbed for Ead with his partizan, almost catching her cheek. His face was clammy, he had pissed himself, and he was shaking so hard his jaw rattled. “Stop fighting, you witless fool,” Ead shouted at him. “Drop your weapon, or you give me no choice.”

  He wore a mail coat and a scaled helmet. His eyes were bloodshot with exhaustion, but he was in the grip of something beyond reason. When he swung for Ead again, the blow pendulous, she ducked beneath his arm and drew her sword upward, opening him from belly to shoulder.

  The man had come from the Draconic Navy. Its soldiers fought as if possessed, and perhaps they were. Possessed by fear of what would happen to their families in Cárscaro if they lost this fight.

  The Nameless One circled high above the ships. Ead watched as he thrashed, and a ribbon of pale green fell away from him. The sound of the Draconic tongue echoed across the waves.

  “The sword,” Fýredel bellowed. “Find the sword!”

  Half the Yscali soldiers scrambled to obey, while others took to the sea. Blood was spreading through the water, along with the wax that had protected the ships.