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

by Samantha Shannon

“Reading,” Ead said lightly. “A dangerous pastime.” Truyde looked up at her, sharp-eyed. “You mock me.” “By no means. There is great power in stories.” “All stories grow from a seed of truth,” Truyde said. “They are knowledge after figuration.” “Then I trust you will use your knowledge for good.”

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.

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.”

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

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.

“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.”

Hush, my child, the wind is rising. Even the birds are quiet. Stop your tears. The fire-breathers will hear us. Sleep now, sleep, or you will see them coming. Hold on to me and close your eyes.

the festival of Summerfall,

mereswine

No woman should be made to fear that she was not enough.

Within this impossible sea, every star, every constellation, every fold and spiral of the cosmos was reflected. As if there were two firmaments, and their ship was a ghost ship, adrift between worlds. The sea had turned itself to glass, so the heavens might finally look upon themselves.

truth is a weave with many threads,”

“The sisters of the Priory, as you know, are practitioners of siden—terrene magic. It comes from the core of the world, and is channeled through the tree. Those who eat of its fruit can wield its magic. Once there were at least three siden trees—the orange, the hawthorn, and the mulberry—but now, to my knowledge, only one remains.

“But siden, dear Eadaz, has a natural opposite. Sidereal magic, or sterren—the power of the stars. This kind of magic is cold and elusive, graceful and slippery. It allows the wielder to cast illusions, control water . . . even to change their shape. It is far harder to master.”

“When the Long-Haired Star passes, it leaves behind a silver liquid. I named it star rot,” Kalyba said. “It is in star rot that sterren lives, just as it is in the fruit that siden lives.”

She held a moonrise in her hand.

“Piety can turn the power-hungry into monsters,” Ead said. “They can twist any teaching to justify their actions.”

SEEK NOT THE MIDNIGHT SUN ON EARTH BUT LOOK FOR IT WITHIN