The Priory of the Orange Tree

by Samantha Shannon

  “You were a rider,” she said.

  “You would have known my name. Many years ago, I was called the Driftwood Prince.”

  One of the greatest dragonriders who had ever lived. Born to a Seiikinese courtier and a pirate from a far-off land, he had been left at the door of the South House and eventually risen to the ranks of the High Sea Guard. One night, he had fallen from his saddle in battle, breaking his leg, and the Fleet of the Tiger Eye had taken him as a hostage.

  They had made a trophy of his leg that night. Legend said that they had thrown him into the sea for the bloodfish, but he had survived until dawn, when a friendly ship had found him.

  “Now you know,” Elder Vara said. “Some riders continue after such injuries, but the memory of it has scarred me. Each time I see a ship, I remember the sound of my bones shattering.” A true smile creased his face. “Sometimes my dragon will still come this way. To see me.”

  Tané felt a surge of admiration such as she had never known.

  “It has been peaceful here,” she said, “but my blood is the sea, and it cannot be still.”

  “No. This place was never in your stars.” The smile faded. “But perhaps Komoridu is.”

  He removed a scrap of paper, an inkpot, and a brush from his satchel.

  “If the great Kwiriki is good to us, the Golden Empress will never reach Komoridu,” he said. “But if she has pieced it together . . . she may be almost there.” He wrote the instructions. “You must sail east, to the constellation of the Magpie. At the ninth hour of night, make sure your ship is directly under the star representing his eye, and turn southeast. Sail for the midpoint between the South Star and the Dreaming Star.”

  Tané put the jewel away. “For how long?”

  “The chart did not say—but in that direction, you will find Komoridu. Follow those two stars no matter where in the sky they drift. With the jewel, you might be able to catch the Pursuit.”

  “You will let me keep the jewel.”

  “It was given to you.” He handed her the instructions. “Where will you go, Tané, once you find the great Nayimathun?”

  She had not yet thought that far ahead. If her dragon was alive, she would free her from the pirates and take her to the Empire of the Twelve Lakes. If not, she would ensure she was avenged.

  After that, she did not know what she would do. Only that she might be at peace.

  Elder Vara seemed to know from her face that she could give him no answer. “I will send you away with my blessing, Tané, if you promise me one thing,” he murmured. “That one day, you will forgive yourself. You are in the spring of your life, child, and have much to learn about this world. Do not deny yourself the privilege of living.”

  Her jaw trembled.

  “Thank you. For everything.” She bowed low. “I am honored to have been the student of the Driftwood Prince.”

  He returned the bow. “I am honored to have been your teacher, Tané.” With that, he ushered her toward the doors. “Go, now. Before someone catches you.”

  The storm still raged around the island, though the thunder was more distant now. Rain drenched Tané as she swung along the rope bridges and picked her way to the hidden steps.

  The village was silent. She crouched behind a fallen tree and watched for any movement. There was a flickering light in one of the old houses. A wind bell chimed outside it.

  There were two lookouts. Too busy muttering and smoking to see her. She slipped past the buildings and ran over the stiltgrass, making for the stone-cut stair that would take her to the beach.

  The steps flew beneath her boots. When she reached the bottom, she faced the sea.

  Rowing boats had been pulled on to the sand. There would be more lookouts on the ship, but she could fight them. If she had to shed blood, so be it. She had already lost her honor, her name, and her dragon. There was nothing left to lose.

  Tané turned and looked once more at Feather Island, her place of exile. One more home she had gained and lost. She must be destined to be rootless, like a seed tossed on the wind.

  She ran and dived beneath the waves. The storm roiled the sea, but she knew how to survive its wrath.

  Her heart was rising from the dead. She had worn armor to survive her exile, so thick she had almost forgotten how to feel. Now she savored the warm embrace of salt water, its tang in her mouth, the sense that she could be swept away if she put a hand or foot wrong.

  When she came up for breath, she considered the ship. The sails were stowed. A white flag lashed at the stern, emblazoned with a sword and crown. That was the ensign of Inys, the richest nation in the West. Another great breath, and she was under again, deep beneath the waves.

  The hull was close enough to touch. She waited for a swell to lift her and grabbed a rope that trailed down its side.

  She knew ships. With the jewel as her crew, she could tame this wooden beast.

  There was no one on the beach. Elder Vara had not betrayed her to the elders. In the morning, there would be no trace of the ghost she had become.

  It was the wind chimes that kept Loth awake. They had not ceased to ring all night. On top of that, he was cold and salt-encrusted, surrounded by the smell and snores of unwashed pirates. Harlowe had told them all to get some sleep before they sought sweet water.

  The captain himself had kept a vigil by the hearth. Loth watched the flames dance over his face. They brought out the white tattoo that snaked around his forearm and glinted on the locket he was studying.

  Loth sat up and pulled on his shirt. Harlowe glanced at him, but said nothing as he left.

  It was still raining outside. Melaugo, who was on watch, looked him up and down.

  “Midnight stroll?”

  “I’m afraid sleep eludes me.” Loth buttoned his shirt. “I won’t be long.”

  “Have you told your shadows?”

  “I have not. And I would be grateful if you would leave them to rest.”

  “Well, they must be very tired in all that mail. Surprised they haven’t rusted. I doubt these scholars are going to waylay you,” Melaugo said, “but keep your eyes open. And take this.” She tossed him her whistle. “We don’t know their real feelings toward us.”

  Loth nodded. He coaxed his sore feet back into his boots.

  He walked beneath the canopy of trees, following the few lanterns that still flickered, and took the stair to the beach again. His steps had never been so heavy. When he finally reached the bottom, he found a natural shelter and planted himself on the sand, wishing he had remembered his cloak.

  If the storms continued, they might be marooned on this Saint-forsaken island for weeks, and time was running out. He could not fail Sabran now. Lightning splintered the darkness yet again as he pictured the fall of Inys—the certain outcome of his failure.

  That was when he saw the woman.

  She was halfway across the beach. In the instant she was illuminated, he saw a tunic of dark silk and a curved sword at her side. One smooth dive took her into the sea.

  Loth flinched upright. He watched the waves for any sign of her, but no more lightning came.

  There were two reasons he could imagine that one of the scholars would swim, under cover of night, to the Rose Eternal. One was to slaughter the outsiders, perhaps to prevent an outbreak of plague. The other was to steal the ship. Sanity told him to summon Harlowe, but nobody would hear the whistle over this wind.

  Whatever this woman planned to do, he had to stop her.

  His feet scuffed through sand. He lurched into the water. It was folly to plunge in when the waves were this rough, but there was no other way.

  He swam beneath the arch. When they were children, he and Margret had sometimes paddled in Elsand Lake, but noblemen had little need to swim. On any other night, he might have been too frightened to attempt it.

  A wave crashed over his head, thrusting him deep beneath the surface. He kicked hard and broke the surface, spluttering.

  Shouts rose from the decks of the Rose Ete
rnal. A whistle shrilled. His hands found the rope, then the laths of wood that served as a ladder.

  Thim was crumpled by the mast. The woman in red silk was on the quarterdeck. Her sword clashed with that of the carpenter. Black hair whipped around her face.

  Loth wavered, his empty hands clutching at air. Three parries and a slash, and the carpenter stumbled, blood on his tunic. The woman kicked him neatly over the gunwale. Another man hurled himself at her back, but she whirled out of his grip and threw him over her shoulder. A moment later, he had followed the carpenter into the sea.

  “Stop,” Loth shouted.

  Her gaze snapped to him. In a blink, she had vaulted the balustrade and landed in a crouch.

  Loth turned and ran. He could use a sword well enough, but this woman was no timid scholar. Whoever she was, she fought like the storm. Quick as lightning, lithe as water.

  As his boots pounded across the deck, Loth snatched up an orphaned sword. Behind him, the woman unsheathed a knife. When he got to the prow, Loth scrambled on to the gunwale, teeth clenched, hands slippery with rainwater. He would jump before she reached him.

  Something struck the base of his skull. He collapsed on to the deck, heavy as a sack of grain.

  Hands took hold of him and turned him on to his back. The woman held her knife to his throat. As she did it, he caught sight of what was in her other hand.

  It was identical in shape to the one Ead possessed, and glistered in the same unnatural way. Like moonlight on the sea.

  “The other jewel,” he whispered, and touched it with one finger. “How— how can you have it?”

  Her eyes narrowed. She looked at the jewel, then at him. Then she glanced up, toward the sounds of shouting on the beach, and a mask of resolve dropped over her features.

  That was the last thing Loth remembered. Her face, and its faint scar, shaped just like a fishhook.

  60

  East

  In the Unending Sea, farther east than most ships dared to sail, and at the ninth hour of night, the Pursuit floated beneath the assembly of stars the Seiikinese had named the Magpie.

  Padar, their navigator, had stayed true to his word. To him, the celestial bodies were pieces on the gameboard of the sky. No matter how and where they moved, he knew a way to read them. Despite the gyre, he had known well where this star would be at this hour, and how to get there. On the deck beside him, Niclays Roos waited.

  Jan, he thought, I’m almost there.

  Laya Yidagé stood with folded arms beside him. Beneath the shadow of her hood, her jaw had a grim set.

  The Southern Star twinkled. Watched by her crew, the Golden Empress rotated the wheel and, as the sails netted the wind, the Pursuit began to turn.

  “Onward,” she called, and her pirates took up the cry. Niclays felt their joy magnified in his own heart.

  Onward indeed, to where the maps ended. To the mulberry tree, and to wonders untold.

  61

  East

  When he woke, the cold was brutal, and the sky wore the sickly purple of dusk, casting everything into shadow. It took Loth a moment to realize he was bound.

  Spray dampened his face. His head pounded horribly, and his senses were sludge.

  He blinked the fur of exhaustion away. In the dim glow of the lanterns, he made out a figure at the helm of the Rose Eternal.

  “Captain Harlowe?”

  No reply. When his vision sharpened, he saw that it was the woman from Feather Island.

  No.

  They had no time to go off-course. He struggled against his restraints, but there was enough rope around him to hang a giant. Beside him, Thim was also trussed to the mast. Loth nudged him with his shoulder.

  “Thim,” he whispered.

  The gunner did not answer. A bruise was forming on his temple.

  Loth turned his head and took their captor in. She was about twenty, perhaps a touch younger, leanly built. Short black hair framed a tanned and windburned face.

  “Who are you?” Loth called to her. His throat scorched with thirst. “Why have you taken this ship?”

  She ignored him.

  “I hope you realize that you have committed an act of piracy, mistress,” Loth bit out. “Turn back at once, or I shall take this as a declaration of war on Queen Sabran of Inys.”

  Nothing.

  Whoever this silent vagabond was, she had the other jewel. Fate had brought it into his path.

  A hand-length case, painted with flowers, hung from a sash at her hip. That must be where she kept it.

  Loth dozed for a time. Thirst and exhaustion pulled at him, and one side of his head was pounding. Sometime in the night, he blinked awake and found a gourd at his lips. He drank without question.

  Thim, too, was now alert. The woman let him drink and spoke to him in a foreign tongue.

  “Thim,” Loth muttered, “do you understand her?”

  The other man was blear-eyed. “Yes, my lord. She’s Seiikinese,” he said slowly. “She asks how you know about the jewel.”

  She stayed crouched in front of them, watching their faces. In the glow of the lantern she had brought with her, Loth could make out the scar on her cheek. “Tell her I know where its twin is,” he said. He looked the woman in the eye as Thim translated, and she replied.

  “She says that if that is true,” Thim said, “you will be able to tell her what color it is.”

  “White.”

  When Thim conveyed the words to her, she leaned toward Loth and took hold of his throat.

  “Where?” she asked.

  So she did speak a little Inysh. Her voice was as cold as her cast-iron expression.

  “Inys,” he said.

  Her mouth pinched shut. A fine-cut mouth that looked as if it seldom smiled.

  “You must give the jewel to me,” Loth beseeched her. “I have to take it to Queen Sabran, to reunite it with its twin. Together, they can be used to destroy the Nameless One. He will rise again soon, in a matter of weeks. He will come from the Abyss.”

  Frowning, Thim passed his words to the woman in Seiikinese. Her face hardened before she stood and left them.

  “Wait,” Loth called after her, frustrated. “For the love of the Saint, did you not hear what I said?”

  “We should not provoke her, Lord Arteloth,” Thim warned. “The rest of the crew could be stranded on Feather Island for weeks, if not months, without a ship. We are now the only ones who can take word of Queen Sabran’s proposal to His Imperial Majesty.”

  He was right. Their plan was at the mercy of this pirate. Loth sank into his bindings.

  Thim tipped back his head and squinted. It took a moment for Loth to realize that he was reading the stars.

  “Impossible,” Thim murmured. “We cannot have got this far east in so little time.”

  Loth watched the woman. One of her hands was on the wheel. The other now held a dark stone. For the first time, he became aware of the unbroken roar of water against the ship.

  She was using the jewel to drive the Rose forward.

  “My lord,” Thim said under his breath, “I think I know where we are going.”

  “Tell me.”

  “We heard a rumor at sea that the Golden Empress—leader of the Fleet of the Tiger Eye—was sailing east in pursuit of the elixir of life. Her butcher-ship, the Pursuit, left Kawontay not long ago. They were bound for the Unending Sea.”

  “What is the Fleet of the Tiger Eye?”

  “The largest pirate fleet in existence. They steal and slaughter dragons when they can.” Thim glanced at the woman. “If she is chasing the Golden Empress—and I cannot think why else we would be this far east—then we are both dead men.”

  Loth eyed her. “She seems a very good fighter.”

  “One fighter cannot best hundreds of pirates, and not even the Rose stands a chance against the Pursuit. It is a fortress on the sea.” Thim swallowed. “We might be able to take the ship back.”

  “How?”

  “Well, when she leaves it,
my lord. A man-of-war needs a vast crew, but . . . I suppose we have no choice but to try.”

  They lapsed into silence for a while. All Loth could hear was the crash of the waves.

  “Seeing as we have nothing better to do but wait, perhaps we could play a game.” He offered the gunner a tired smile. “Are you good at riddles, Thim?”

  The stars burned like a host of candles. Tané kept her gaze on them as she steered the Inysh ship, using the west wind as well as the jewel to spur it.

  The Inysh lord and the Lacustrine gunner were finally asleep. For quarter of an hour, the former had been straining to solve the easiest of riddles, making Tané grind her teeth in irritation.

  I close in the morning, I open at night,

  And when I am open, your eye I delight.

  I am pale as the moon and live only as long –

  For when the sun rises, behold, I am gone.

  At least now he had stopped blathering about how clever it was, and she could think. If she timed this right, she would be under the eye of the Magpie tonight.

  Using the jewel had left a fine sheen of cold sweat on her. She breathed slow and deep. Though it never drained her strength for long, she sensed that the jewel was drawing on something in her. She was the string, and the jewel was the bow, and only together could they make the ocean sing.

  “Loth.”

  Startled, Tané glanced across the deck. The Inysh man was awake once more.

  “Loth,” he repeated, and tapped his own chest.

  Tané looked back at the stars.

  In the South House, she had learned some of every language in the known world. She knew Inysh well enough, but she preferred that the strangers thought otherwise, lulling them into the false belief that they could speak freely.

  “May I ask your name?” the Inysh man said.

  Great Kwiriki, wash away this fool. Still, he knew about the waning jewel—that was reason enough to keep him alive.

  “Tané,” she finally said.

  “Tané.”

  He said it gently. She stared him out.

  Though he could be no more than thirty, and though he looked presently as if a smile had never been further from his face, there were already laugh lines around his full lips. His skin was the same deep brown as his eyes, which were large and full of warmth. His nose was broad, his jaw strong and unshaven, and his black hair puffed in small, tight curls.