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

by Samantha Shannon

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

The dragons watched her. It was said they could see the deepest secrets of a soul, for human beings were made of water, and all water was theirs.

‘Allow me to indulge in a little allegory. Art. Art is not one great act of creation, but many small ones. When you read one of my poems, you fail to see the weeks of careful work it took me to build it – the thinking, the scratched-out words, the pages I burned in disgust. All you see, in the end, is what I want you to see. Such is politics.’

In Eastern legend, dragons had possessed mystical abilities, like shape-shifting and dream-making. The last time they had exhibited these powers was in the years following the end of the Great Sorrow. That night, a comet had crossed the sky, and while wyrms the world over had fallen into a stone-like sleep, the Eastern dragons had found themselves stronger than they had been in centuries.

What the Inysh did not know was that it was Cleolind, not Galian, who had banished the Nameless One. They knew nothing of the orange tree.

Ead raised a hand. She mustered her power, and golden light sputtered in her fingertips. In Lasia, when she had been close to the orange tree, siden had glowed like molten glass in her veins. Then the Prioress had sent her here, to protect Sabran.

‘Ah, the Night Hawk,’ Melaugo said, chuckling. ‘A suitable familiar for our queen.’

This was a breed that had not been seen in centuries, since the last hours of the Grief of Ages. Mightiest of the Draconic creatures. The High Westerns, largest and most brutal of all the dragons, the dread lords of wyrmkind. One of them had woken.

‘I am not her enemy – and neither are the people of the East. They despise the Nameless One, as we do. The noble creatures they worship are nothing like wyrms.’ She drew herself up. ‘Draconic things are waking, Ead. Soon they will rise – the Nameless One and his servants – and their wrath will be terrible. And when they rally against us, we will need help to fight them.’

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

Fýredel. He who had called himself the right wing of the Nameless One. Fýredel, who had bred and led the Draconic Army against humankind in the Grief of Ages.

As Fýredel unleashed his fire, so Ead broke the chains on her long-dormant power.

Fýredel. Right wing of the Nameless One. Commander of the Draconic Army. If he had woken, then the other High Westerns would surely follow. It was from them that the rest of wyrmkind drew strength. When a High Western died, the fire in its wyverns, and in their progeny, burned out.

The sickness had first oozed from the Nameless One, whose breath, it was said, had been a slow-acting poison. A more fearsome strain had arrived with the five High Westerns.

What is below must be balanced by what is above, and in this is the precision of the universe. Fire ascends from the earth, light descends from the sky. Too much of one doth inflame the other, and in this is the extinction of the universe.

‘You are Eadaz du Zāla uq-Nāra, a handmaiden of Cleolind. You should not stay any longer in this court of blasphemers.’

First blood. ‘The honourable Tané of the South House,’ the Sea General announced, and he was smiling, ‘victory is yours.’

‘Listen well, Lord Arteloth. Yscalin does not only worship the Nameless One. We are also under Draconic rule. Fýredel is the true king of Yscalin, and his spies lurk everywhere. It was why I had to act the way I did in the throne room. It is all a performance.’

‘Niclays was exiled from court because he failed to make Queen Sabran an elixir of life.’

‘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.’

‘Firecloud?’ ‘A restricted substance. Alchemists make it from the bile of fire-breathers,’ Eizaru explained. ‘The bile is smuggled into the East by Southern pirates, treated in some way, then stuffed into a ceramic orb with a dab of gunpowder. When the wick is lit, the orb explodes and releases a smoke as black and thick as tar. If a dragon breathes it in, it falls asleep for many days. The pirates can then sell its body parts.’

‘A flesh king rules as the puppet of a wyrm. A title Fýredel hopes to bestow on every ruler in the world.’

‘Our ancestors came from the comet you call Kwiriki’s Lantern, before there were any children of the flesh. It rained light into the water, and from that water, dragonkind came forth.’

‘The comet ended the Great Sorrow, but it has come to this world many times before,’

‘Cleolind cast away her riches,’ Chassar said, as if Loth had not spoken, ‘and journeyed back into the Lasian Basin with her handmaidens. There, she founded the Priory of the Orange Tree, a house of women blessed with the sacred flame. A house, Lord Arteloth, of mages.’

‘She did not die needlessly,’ Tané said, her gaze blank. ‘With her dying breath, she restored the joy of a dragon and, in doing so, restored the world. Is there a more honourable thing to do with a life?’

An initiate when she had left for Inys, she had now completed an assignment of consequence for the Priory, making her eligible to be named a Red Damsel. Only the Prioress could decide if she was worthy of this honour.

‘There are times of plenty, when the tree gives freely – we are in one now – and periods where it offers less fruit. There have been two such times of scarcity, one of them directly after the Grief of Ages. This theory of a cosmic balance does something to explain it.’

‘We will meddle no more in Inysh affairs.’

The night grew too still. And then – slowly, as if it were sinking through water – a golden fruit dropped from on high.

‘This writing,’ the Golden Empress said, ‘is part of an Eastern text from long ago. It tells of a source of eternal life. A mulberry tree.’ She patted it. ‘I have been searching for this missing piece for many years. I expected it to contain directions, but it does not yield the location of this tree. All it does is complete the story.’

The engraved letters gradually filled, as if they were inlaid with ruby. Ead waited. When the blood reached the end of the final word, the riddlebox split down the middle.

A jewel. Slick with her blood, and no larger than a chestnut. A star imprisoned in a stone.

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

‘When history fails to shed light on the truth, myth creates its own.’

‘Well,’ the countess said, ‘according to records, Serinhall hosted the Saint for three days shortly after Queen Cleolind died in childbed. Our family were long-standing friends and allies to King Galian. Some say for a time he trusted only them, even above his Holy Retinue.’

‘If I have it right, yours is a magic of fire,’ Margret said, ‘and is attracted, in some way, to the magic of starlight – but not as much as the magic of starlight attracts itself. Do I have it right?’

A magnificent sword lay before them. Every inch of it – hilt, crossguard, blade – was a clean, bright silver, with a mirror shine.

When the flames dwindled, Margret was on all fours, one hand at her throat, eyes bloodshot. And Sabran Berethnet was standing beside her. Ead stared at her palms, then back at Kalyba, who was also Sabran.

‘Galian was my child.’

‘He had the sword. I was weak. A friend helped me escape . . . but I had to leave my Sabran. My little princess.’ Sabran the First, the first queen regnant of Inys.

‘The White Wyrm,’ she whispered. ‘That night. It was you. You are the sixth High Western.’

Ead tried to speak. To say her name, just one more time. To say she was sorry to break her promise. I will always come back to you.

When they reached the end of the corridor, Sabran buckled at last. Loth wrapped her in his arms as she sank to the floor and sobbed as if her soul had been ripped out.

A gnarled and ancient mulberry, larger than any tree he had ever laid eyes on. Cut down.

‘Great Nayimathun.’ She whispered it. ‘Please. It’s me. It’s Tané. Let me take you home.’

‘This is written in an ancient script of Seiiki,’ the scholar said. ‘It tells the story of a woman named Neporo. She lived over a thousand years ago on this island. Komoridu.’

‘It seems that somebody wanted the jewel for themselves. To keep it safe, a descendant of Neporo stitched the rising jewel into his own side, so it might never be taken from him. He left Komoridu and started a humble life in Ampiki, in the same pit-house Neporo had once lived in. When he died, it was taken from his body and placed into that of his daughter. And so on.’ Pause. ‘The jewel lives in a descendant of Neporo.’

Tané Miduchi. Heir of the Queen of Komoridu.

‘Would the world be any better if we were all the same?’