The Priory of the Orange Tree (The Roots of Chaos, #1)

by Samantha Shannon

‘All the world is a cage in a young girl’s eyes.’

‘Reading,’ Ead said lightly. ‘A dangerous pastime.’

‘All stories grow from a seed of truth,’ Truyde said. ‘They are knowledge after figuration.’

That is the problem with stories, child. The truth in them cannot be weighed.

We may be small, and we may be young, but we will shake the world for our beliefs.’

‘In darkness, we are naked. Our truest selves. Night is when fear comes to us at its fullest, when we have no way to fight it,’ Ead continued. ‘It will do everything it can to seep inside you. Sometimes it may succeed – but never think that you are the night.’

‘He might be the very picture of a lambkin,’ Ead said, ‘but monsters often have soft faces. They know how to mask themselves.’

At first, Sabran stiffened. A moment later, she twined their fingers and held on. No woman should be made to fear that she was not enough.

‘Childing is not always easy. It seems to me that this is the best-kept secret in all the world. We speak of it as though there were nothing sweeter, but the truth is more complex. No one talks openly about the difficulties. The discomfort. The uncertainty. So now you feel the weight of your condition, you believe yourself alone in it. And you have turned the blame upon yourself.’