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.”

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.

Sometimes he wanted to unmask himself, just to see their faces. To tell them that he was the alchemist who had convinced the young Queen of Inys that he could brew her an elixir of life, removing any need for marriage or an heir.

No, Sabran had not taken his head—but she had taken everything else. Now he was trapped on the edge of the world, surrounded by people who despised him.

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.

Sometimes she felt as if they could smell her secrets. As if they sensed she had not come to this court to be a lady-in-waiting. As if they knew about the Priory.

Siden, the gift of the orange tree—a magic of fire and wood and earth. The Inysh in their witlessness would call it sorcery. Their ideas about magic were born of fear of what they could not understand.

Ead knew Sabran was angry, but it still took considerable restraint not to empty the wine over her head.

With words alone, he could beautify the dullest object or bring civilizations rising from the dust. For Niclays, he had been a sunray, illuminating every facet of his world.

Eight years she had spent at the court of Sabran the Ninth. In all that time, she had never said anything to nettle her. Now she was like a viper, unable to keep her tongue in her mouth. Something made her want to rile the Queen of Inys.

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

We may be small, and we may be young, but we will shake the world for our beliefs.” Whatever the truth, this girl had swallowed the torch of delusion.

She called her delulu frfr!!

Fýredel reared up and opened his wings. Faced with this behemoth, the Queen of Inys was smaller than a poppet. Still she did not balk.

“I was only observing how the fiercest warriors can hide behind such gentle faces.”

Even though I feel as if I have bled myself dry practicing, some of the others seem to perform just as well as I do without working themselves to sleeplessness. They drink and smoke and laugh with one another, but all I can do is continue to refine my skill. After fourteen years of preparation, the water in me will not run true—and I am afraid, Susa.

Jannart would have lied to keep the musician safe. Then again, Jannart had been good at lying. Most of his life had been a performance.

It is not her fault my heart belongs to you, Jannart had told him once, and he had spoken true.

Do you not see that this is a divine mission?” “No, I do not, you witless cabbage.” “But—”

WITLESS CABBAGE?!?! gagged

Then the Night Hawk would take flight again, dark wings spread over the throne. Ead meant to clip them. All she needed was the evidence—and the opportunity.

A chamberer did not have leave to touch the royal person. And yet, seeing that drawn face, Ead found herself reaching for Sabran and clasping one of her hands between her own. “Madam,” Ead said, “I am here.” Sabran looked up. A moment passed. Slowly, she moved her other hand to cup the braid of their fingers.

AAAGGGHHHHH

“So you see, Ead,” the queen said, “I do not sleep because I am not only afraid of the monsters at my door, but also of the monsters my own mind can conjure. The ones that live within.”

Cold scale brushed her fingers. She dared not look. She must. When she did, two eyes, as bright as fireworks, stared back from the face of a Lacustrine dragon.

The fool in Ead wanted to take her by the hand and get her away from this room, but that fool was too much of a coward to act. She left Sabran alone, like all the others had.

Sabran slid her fingers between hers. Thinking she meant to say more, Ead leaned down to hear—but instead, Sabran Berethnet kissed her on the cheek. Her lips were soft as swansdown. Gooseflesh whispered all over Ead, and she fought the need to let out all her breath.

It took Niclays all his strength to swallow his disappointment. It went down like a mouthful of thorns.

As Tané drowsed against the dragon she had always dreamed about, lulled by her heartbeat, she had the curious sense that she was in the womb again. She also had the sense that something was closing in on her. Like a net around a writhing fish.

“Take off your mask,” she bit out, “or I swear to you, I will take off the face beneath it.” Two gloved hands revealed a pale countenance. Truyde utt Zeedeur stared at the lifeless High Prince of Mentendon.

“What must I do, Nayimathun?” “That is not the question you must ask. You must ask what we must do.”

All she could see was Susa as a child, crowned with snowflakes, and her smile when Tané had taken her hand. The executioner raised his sword. When the head rolled into the ditch, Tané slid to her knees. I will always keep you safe.

Jannart smiled. “Let us not speak of death when there is still so much life to be lived.”

This was the Golden Empress, the enemy of order, who had clawed herself from poverty to construct her own nation on the waves—a nation beyond the dominion of dragons.

Her body was spun glass. A flower just opened to the world. When Sabran parted her lips with her own, Ead understood, with an intensity that wrenched the breath from her, that what she had wanted for months now was to hold her like this.

She was lost and found and wandering, all at once. At the cusp of dreaming, yet somehow never more awake.

But Ead called fire her friend, and she would plunge into the furnace for Sabran Berethnet, for just one night with her. Let them come with their swords and their torches. Let them come.

For the first time in many years, the Queen of Inys slept without a candle. Ead gazed at the canopy. She knew one thing now, and it blotted all else out of her mind. Whatever the Priory desired, she could not abandon Sabran.