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

by Samantha Shannon

“You have just lost your companion. You are carrying his child. Of course you feel vulnerable.” Ead pressed her hand. “Childing is not always easy. It seems to me that this is the best-kept secret in all the world. We speak of it as though there were nothing sweeter, but the truth is more complex. No one talks openly about the difficulties. The discomfort. The uncertainty. So now you feel the weight of your condition, you believe yourself alone in it. And you have turned the blame upon yourself.”

There, she founded the Priory of the Orange Tree, a house of women blessed with the sacred flame. A house, Lord Arteloth, of mages.”