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.’

When Margret Beck suffered, she suffered alone. She hated to burden anyone else. Even her closest friends.

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.’

‘Always.’ Her smile quivered. ‘You won’t miss me so much. When you soar above the clouds, we will all seem very small down here.’ ‘Wherever I am,’

‘I know you are mocking me, sir,’ he said, ‘but you must not mock my lady. She is someone for whom I would die a thousand times, whose name I cannot tell. Someone who is the light in my life, the breath in my breast, the sun to my—’ ‘Yes, all right, that’s quite sufficient.

‘No! My lady is noble-born. She is as sweet as the richest honey, as beautiful as an autumn fore—’ ‘Saint, enough. You’re giving me a headache.’

Sea sisters, Susa had called them once. Two pearls formed in the same oyster.

Do you not see that this is a divine mission?’ ‘No, I do not, you witless cabbage.’

‘You should do as you see fit. There will always be voices telling you what to do, and how to act, but it is you who wears the crown,’