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

by Samantha Shannon

She imagined stealing her away to the Milk Lagoon, that fabled land, where her name would never find her. It could never be.

The night grew too still. And then—slowly, as if it were sinking through water—a golden fruit dropped from on high. She caught it in both hands. With a gasping sob, she sank her teeth into the flesh. A feeling like dying and coming to life. The blood of the tree spreading over her tongue, soothing the blaze in her throat. Veins turning to gold. As quickly as it quenched one fire, it sparked another, a fire that torched through her whole being. And the heat cracked her open, like the clay she was, and made her body cry out to the world. All around her, the world answered.

Did lovers ever reach the Milk Lagoon, or did they only dream of it?

The water in you has grown stagnant, Roos, but it is not beyond cleansing.” Niclays kept his grip on the knife, quaking. Stagnant. The dragon spoke true. Everything around him had stilled. His life had stopped, like a clock in water, when Sabran Berethnet had sent him to Orisima. He had failed to solve one mystery since. Not the mystery of eternal life. Not why Jannart had died. He was an alchemist, the unmaker of mystery. And he would not be stagnant again.

Ead leaned close to her and placed a kiss on her cheek. “There,” Kalyba said. Her breath was icy. “The price is paid.”

“That knowledge,” Kalyba said, “will require a higher price.” With that, the witch slid from the boulder. Naked once more, she listed on to her side, and the rock beneath her transformed into a bed of flowers. They smelled of cream and honey. “Come to me.” She smoothed a hand over her petals. “Come, lie with me in my Bower, and I will sing to you of dreaming.” “Lady,” Ead said, “I desire nothing more than to please you, and to prove my loyalty, but my heart belongs to another.” “The secret of dream-weaving must surely be worth the price of one night. It has been centuries since I felt the soft touch of a lover.” Kalyba drew a finger down her own abdomen, stopping just shy of where her thighs met.

Live laugh love this

“All of us have shadows in us,” he said. “I accept yours.” He placed a hand over her ring. “And I hope you will also accept mine.” With a tired smile, she threaded her fingers between his. “Gladly.”

“Meg, what has Loth told you about me?” “Everything.” Margret grasped her by the shoulders. “You know I take the Knight of Courage as my patron. There is courage, I think, in open-mindedness, and thinking for oneself. If you are a witch, then perhaps witches are not so wicked after all.”

“Rise,” Sabran said. “My lady.” Ead stood and looked her in the eye. “Thank you.” Her curtsy was brief. “Your Majesty.”

“I am not your queen,” Sabran whispered over her skin, “but I am yours.” Ead raked her fingers through the dark of her hair. “And you will find that I can also be generous.”

Truyde might care whether he lived or died, he supposed. He wondered how she fared. Was she still agitating for an alliance with the East, or quietly mourning her lover?

Damn rip truyde

“But while you rule, you can never be seen to be with me. I am a heretic, and—” “Stop.” Sabran embraced her then. “Stop it.” Ead drew her close, breathed her in. They sank onto a marble settle. “Sabran the Seventh, my namesake, fell in love with her Lady of the Bedchamber,” Sabran murmured. “After she abdicated in favor of her daughter, they lived together for the rest of their days. If we defeat the Nameless One, my duty will be done.”

“My mother always said it was best to receive bad news in winter, when everything is already dark. So one can heal for spring,”

“Great Nayimathun.” A low growl. Tané closed her eyes. “Rise, Tané,”the dragon said. “I told you. You must speak to me as you would to a friend.” “No, great Nayimathun. I have been no friend to you,” Tané raised her head, but there was a stone in her throat. “The honored Governor of Ginura was right to exile me from Seiiki. You were on the beach that night because of me. All of this happened because you chose me, and not one of the others, as your kin.” Her voice quavered. “You should not speak kindly to me. I have killed and lied and served myself. I ran from my punishment. The water in me was never pure.” The dragon tilted her head. Tané tried to stay facing her, but a rush of shame made her drop her gaze. “To be kin to a dragon,” Nayimathun said, “you must not only have a soul of water. You must have the blood of the sea, and the sea is not always pure. It is not any one thing. There is darkness in it, and danger, and cruelty. It can raze great cities with its rage. Its depths are unknowable; they do not see the touch of the sun. To be a Miduchi is not to be pure, Tané. It is to be the living sea. That is why I chose you. You have a dragon’s heart.”

I am obsessed with this dragon and need my own. She is a girls girl

when Nayimathun nuzzled her as though she were a hatchling, she broke. Tears dripped down her cheeks as she wrapped her arms around her friend and shook.

“There is great risk for us all, I know. But what ruler made history by avoiding it?”

“It would be unconventional. You are not my subject, and you are in disgrace,” the Unceasing Emperor mused, “but it seems we are destined for a change in the way of things. Besides, I like to defy convention now and then. No ruler made progress by playing a safe hand. And it keeps my officials on their toes.”

“They never expect us to actually rule, you know. If we do, they call us mad. “They raise us to be soft as silk, distract us with luxury and wealth beyond measure, so we never rock the boat that carries us. They expect us to be so bored by our power that we let them do the ruling in our stead. Behind every throne is a masked servant who seeks only to make a puppet of the one who sits on it.