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

by Samantha Shannon

Dragons might yet be the key to his work. They could live for thousands of years. Something in their bodies must allow them to keep renewing themselves. They were not what they had once been. 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. Now their powers had dwindled again. And yet they lived on. The elixir incarnate. Not that the theory would help Niclays much. On the contrary, the realisation had driven his work into a dead end. The islanders saw their dragons as sacred. Consequently, trade in any substance from their bodies was outlawed on pain of a particularly slow and hideous death. Only pirates risked it.

Environmental lore