The Priory of the Orange Tree

by Samantha Shannon

  A wyvern winged overhead and set fire to a trail of debris. Howls rose as soldiers and seafarers were broiled alive.

  Ead cupped a bloody hand over the waning jewel. There was a hum inside it. A tiny heartbeat.

  Find the sword.

  The jewel was calling to itself. Seeking out the stars.

  She stepped over another body, toward the prow. The hum faded. When she backtracked to the stern, it grew stronger. The Dancing Pearl was the nearest ship, straight ahead of her, still afloat.

  She dived. Her body sliced deep into the water. A flare of light lit her way as more gunpowder ignited.

  Daughter of Zāla.

  She knew the voice was in her head. It was too clear, too soft, as if the speaker was close enough for her to feel his breath—but under the water, it seemed as if it stemmed from the Abyss itself.

  The voice of the Nameless One.

  I know your name, Eadaz uq-Nāra. My servants have whispered it in voices filled with dread. They speak of a root of the orange tree, a root that can stretch far into the world and still burn golden as the sun.

  I am the handmaiden of Cleolind, serpent. Somehow she knew how to speak to him. This night I will complete her work.

  Without me, you will have nothing to unite you. You will fall to wars of wealth and religion. You will make enemies of each other. As you always have. And you will end yourselves.

  Ead swam. The white jewel rang against her skin.

  You need not give your life. Her head broke the surface, and she kept swimming. Another fire burns in your heart. Become my handmaiden instead, and I will spare Sabran Berethnet. If you do not do this, the voice said, I will break her.

  You will have to break me first. And I have proven difficult to break.

  She climbed onto the ship and rose.

  So be it.

  And so the Nameless One, the blight upon the nations, plunged toward the ship.

  Every fire in the Abyss went out. All Ead could hear were cries of fear as death came as a shadow from above. Only starlight pierced the darkness, but in that light, Ascalon shone.

  She ran across the Dancing Pearl. Her world darkened until there was only the beat of her heart and the blade. She willed the Mother to give her the strength that had filled her on that day in Lasia.

  Unearthly metal, alive to her touch. The Nameless One opened his jaws, and a white sun rose inside his mouth. Ead saw the place where his armor had been torn away. She lifted the sword that Kalyba had made, that Cleolind had wielded, that had lived in song for a thousand years.

  She buried it to the hilt in flesh.

  Ascalon glowed until it blinded her. She had a moment to see the skin of her hands simmering with heat—a moment, an age, something between—before the sword was wrenched from them. She was thrown high across the deck, over the gunwale, into the sea. Scale crashed through the Dancing Pearl, carving it fesswise.

  The strength left her as quickly as it had come.

  She had driven the blade into his heart, as the Mother had not, but it was not enough. He must be chained to the Abyss to die. And she carried a key.

  The jewel drifted in front of her. The star inside it lit the dark. How she longed to sleep for eternity.

  Another light flickered in the shadows. Lightning, glowing in a vast pair of eyes.

  Tané and her dragon. A hand reached through the water and Ead grasped it.

  They rose from the ocean, toward the stars. Tané held the blue jewel in one hand. The Nameless One thrashed in the Abyss, head thrown back, fire spraying from his mouth like lava from the mantle of the earth, with Ascalon still buried in his breast.

  Tané locked her right hand over Ead’s and pushed her fingers between her knuckles, so they both held the waning jewel. It pressed against the dying beat of her heart.

  “Together,” Tané whispered. “For Neporo. For Cleolind.”

  Slowly, Ead reached up with her other hand, and their fingers interlocked around the rising jewel.

  Her thoughts waxed faint with every breath, but her blood knew what to do. It was instinct, deep-rooted and ancient as the tree.

  The ocean rose to their command. They played this final game by turns, never breaking their hold on each other.

  They spun him a cocoon, two seamsters weaving with the waves. Steam filled the air as they knitted the Nameless One into the sea, and the darkness quenched the hot coal of his heart.

  He looked up at Ead one last time, and she looked into him. A flash of light blinded her where Ascalon had torn him open. The Beast of the Mountain let out a scream before he disappeared.

  Ead knew that she would hear that sound for as long as she drew breath. It would echo through her unquiet dreams, like a song across the desert. The dragons of the East dived after him, to see him to his grave. The sea closed over all their heads.

  And the Abyss was still.

  72

  West

  In the foothills of the Spindles, the wyrm Valeysa was dead, brought down by a harpoon. All around her, the ground was strewn with the earthly remains of human and wyrm.

  Fýredel had not stayed to defend his Draconic territory. Instead, he had summoned his brother and sister to rout the combined armies of North and South and West. They had failed. As for Fýredel himself, he had taken wing as soon as the Nameless One had disappeared beneath the waves, and his followers had scattered once more.

  The sun was rising over Yscalin. Its light fell on the blood and the char, the fire and the bones. A Seiikinese woman named Onren had brought Loth here on dragonback so he could find Margret. Standing on the wretched plain, he strained his gaze to Cárscaro.

  Smoke rose from the once-great city. No one had been able to tell him whether the Donmata Marosa had survived the night. What was known was that King Sigoso, murderer of queens, was dead. His wasted corpse hung from the Gate of Niunda. Seeing it had caused his soldiers to desert.

  Loth prayed the princess lived. With all his soul, he prayed she was up there, ready to be crowned.

  The field hospital was a league from where the fight had begun. Several tents had been erected near a mountain stream, and the flags of all nations flew outside them.

  The wounded were crying in agony. Some had burns that went deep into their flesh. Others were so covered in blood, they were unrecognizable. Loth spotted King Jantar of the Ersyr among those who were gravely hurt, lying with his warriors, tended to from all sides. One woman, whose leg had been shattered, was biting down on a leather strap while the barber-surgeons sawed it off below the knee. Healers brought in pails of water.

  He found Margret in a tent for Inysh casualties. Its flaps were open to let out the reek of vinegar.

  A bloodstained apron was tied over her skirts. She was kneeling beside Sir Tharian Lintley, who lay still and bruised on a pallet. A deep wound stretched from his jaw to his temple. It had been stitched with care, but he would be scarred for life.

  Margret looked up at Loth. For a moment, she was blear-eyed, as if she had forgotten who he was.

  “Loth.”

  He crouched beside her. When she leaned into him, he enveloped her in his arms and rested his chin on the top of her head.

  “I think he’ll be all right.” She smelled of smoke. “It was a soldier. Not a wyrm.”

  His sister curled against his chest.

  “He is dead.” Loth kissed her brow. “It’s over, Meg.”

  Her face was smeared with ash. Tears washed into her eyes, and she pressed a trembling hand to her mouth.

  Outside, a finger of light broached the horizon, pink as a wild rose. As a new spring dawn crested the Spindles, they held each other close and watched it gild the sky.

  73

  West

  Brygstad, capital of the Free State of Mentendon, crown jewel of learning in the West. Years he had dreamed of returning to its streets.

  There were the tall and narrow houses, each with a bell gable. There were the sugared roofs. There was the crocketed spire of the Sanctuar
y of the Saint, towering from the heart of the city.

  Niclays Roos sat in a heated coach, wrapped in a fur-lined cloak. During his convalescence at Ascalon Palace, High Princess Ermuna had written to request his presence at court. His knowledge of the East, she had told him in her letter, would help enrich the relationship between Mentendon and Seiiki. He might even be called upon to help open negotiations for a new trade deal with the Empire of the Twelve Lakes.

  He wanted none of it. That court was haunted. If he walked there, all he would see were the ghosts of his past.

  Still, he had to show his face. One did not refuse a royal invitation, especially if one was intending not to be banished again.

  The coach trundled over the Sun Bridge. Through the window, he looked out at the frozen River Bugen and the snow-capped spires of the city he had lost. He had crossed this bridge on foot when he had first come to court, having traveled from Rozentun on a haywain. In those days, he had not been able to afford coaches. His mother had withheld his inheritance, pointing out, not erroneously, that it amounted to the cost of his degree. All he had possessed was a sharp tongue and the shirt on his back.

  It had been enough for Jannart.

  His left arm now ended just below the elbow. Though it ached at times, the pain was easy to ignore.

  Death had kissed his cheek on the Dancing Pearl. The Inysh physicians had assured him that now he was through the worst, what was left of the limb would heal. He had never trusted Inysh physicians—pious quacks, the lot of them—but he supposed he had no choice but to believe them.

  It was Eadaz uq-Nāra who had mortally wounded the Nameless One with the True Sword. And then, as if that were not sufficient heroism for one night, she and Tané Miduchi had finished him off with the jewels. It was the stuff of legend, a tale destined to be enshrined in song—and Niclays had slept through the whole damned thing. The thought made a smile pull at the corner of his mouth. Jannart would have laughed his guts out.

  Somewhere in the city, bells were ringing. Someone had been wed today.

  The coach passed the Free State Theatre. On some nights, Edvart had disguised himself as a minor lord and slipped out with Jannart and Niclays to watch an opera or concert or play. They had always gone drinking in the Old Quarter after so Edvart could let go of his cares for a while. Niclays closed his eyes, remembering the laughs of friends long dead.

  At least some of his friends had managed not to die. After the Siege of Cárscaro, a search party had been sent for Laya. As he had lain abed on the Dancing Pearl, racked with fever, he had remembered certain things about that cavern that had been their prison—namely the red veins that had snaked through its walls.

  They had found her in the Dreadmount. Close to death from thirst, she had been nursed back to health in a field hospital, and High Ruler Kagudo had taken her back to Nzene on her own ship. After decades away, she was home, and had already written to invite him to visit her.

  He would go soon, when he had taken in enough of Mentendon to be certain it was there. To be sure that this was real.

  The coach stopped outside the gates of Brygstad Palace—an austere structure of dark sandstone, hiding an interior of white marble and gilt. A footman opened the door.

  “Doctor Roos,” he said, “Her Royal Highness, High Princess Ermuna, welcomes you back to Mentish court.”

  Heat prickled in his eyes. He saw the stained-glass dormer window of the highest room.

  “Not yet.”

  The footman looked baffled. “Doctor,” he said, “Her Royal Highness expects you at noon.”

  “At noon, dear boy. Noon is not now.” He sat back. “Do take my belongings, but I shall go to the Old Quarter.”

  Reluctantly, the footman gave the order.

  The coach trundled through the north of the city, past bookshops and museums and guildhalls and bakehouses. Hungry for the sights, Niclays leaned out on his elbow. Scents wafted from the open market, scents he had dreamed about so often in Orisima. Gingerbread and sugared quinces. Pies to crack open with the flat of a knife, revealing the spiral of pear and cheese and cuts of hard-boiled egg inside. Pancakes drizzled with sugar-brandy. The apple tarts he had loved to eat on strolls along the river.

  On every corner, stalls sold pamphlets and tracts. The sight made Niclays think of Purumé and Eizaru, his friends on the other side of the world. Perhaps, when and if the sea ban was lifted, they could walk these streets with him.

  The coach stopped outside a shabby-looking inn in a lane that branched off Brunna Square. The golden paint had flaked from its sign, but inside, the Sun in Splendor was just as he remembered it.

  There was something he had to do before he faced the court. He would seek the ghosts before they found him.

  It was traditional for the people of Mentendon to be laid to rest in their birthplaces. Only in rare cases was it permitted for them to be entombed elsewhere.

  Jannart had been one of those rare cases. Custom dictated that he should be buried in Zeedeur, but Edvart, torn by grief, had given his dearest friend the honor of a tomb in the Silver Cemetery, where members of the House of Lievelyn were interred. Not long after, Edvart had caught the sweat and joined him there, along with his infant daughter.

  The cemetery was a short walk from the Old Quarter. Snow lay thick and untouched over its grounds.

  Niclays had never visited the mausoleum. Instead he had fled to Inys, racked with denial. Not believing in an afterlife, he had never seen the point of talking at a slab of stone.

  It was icy cold in the mausoleum. An effigy, sculpted from alabaster, lay upon the tomb.

  As he approached it, Niclays breathed in deeply. Whoever had captured his likeness had known Jannart well when he was in his early forties. On the shield of the statue, representing the protection of the Saint in death, was an inscription.

  JANNART UTT ZEEDEUR

  SEEK NOT THE MIDNIGHT SUN ON EARTH

  BUT LOOK FOR IT WITHIN

  Niclays spread his hand over the words.

  “Your bones lie behind me. Nothing lies ahead. You are dead, and I an old man,” he murmured. “I resented you for such a long time, Jannart. I had been comfortable in the belief that I would die before you did. Perhaps I even tried to ensure it. I hated you—hated the memory of you—for leaving first. Leaving me.”

  With a lump in his throat, he turned away. He sank to the floor, his back to the tomb, and clasped his hands between his knees.

  “I failed her, Jan.” His voice grew almost too soft to hear. “I lost myself, and I lost sight of your grandchild. When the wolves encircled Truyde, I was not there to beat them back.

  “I thought—” Niclays shook his head. “I thought of dying. When they brought me up from inside the Dancing Pearl, I watched the sea burning. Light from darkness. Fire and stars. I looked into the Abyss, and I almost let myself fall.” A dry chuckle. “And then I stepped back. Too heartsore to live, too craven to die. But then . . . you sent me on that journey for a reason. The only way I could think to honor you was by continuing to live.

  “You loved me. Without condition. You saw the person I could be. And I will be that person, Jan. I will endure, my midnight sun.” He touched the stone face one more time, the lips that were so like they had been in life. “I will teach my heart to beat again.”

  It hurt to leave him in the dark. Still, leave he did. Those bones had long since let him go.

  Outside, the snow had eased a little, but a frigid chill remained. As he walked back through the cemetery, tears icy on his cheeks, a woman came through its wrought-iron gates, wearing a cloak lined with sable. When she looked up, her lips parted, and Niclays froze.

  He knew her well.

  Aleidine Teldan utt Kantmarkt was standing in the cemetery.

  “Niclays,” she whispered.

  “Aleidine,” he replied in disbelief.

  She was still a handsome woman in her august years. Her russet hair, as thick as ever, was streaked with white and gathered into a coiffure. The l
ove-knot ring was still on her hand, though not on the forefinger, where it ought to be. No ring had replaced it.

  They stared at each other. Aleidine recovered first. “You truly are back.” She let out a sound, almost a laugh. “I heard rumors, but I dared not believe them.”

  “Yes, indeed. After some trials.” Niclays tried to compose himself, but his throat had shrunk. “I, er— do you live here now, then? In Brygstad, I mean. Not the cemetery.”

  “No, no. Still in the Silk Hall, but Oscarde lives here now. I came to visit him. I thought I would visit Jannart, too.”

  “Of course.”

  There was silence between them for a moment.

  “Sit with me, Niclays,” Aleidine said, with a brief smile. “Please.”

  He considered the wisdom of following her, but did it anyway, to a stone bench by the cemetery wall. Aleidine dusted the snow from it before she sat. He remembered how she had insisted on doing things the servants would usually manage, like polishing the marquetry and dusting the portraits Jannart hung about the house.

  For a long while, the silence continued, unbroken. Niclays watched the snowflakes falling. Years he had wondered what he would say if he ever saw Aleidine again. Now the words eluded him.

  “Niclays, your arm.”

  His cloak had fallen back, revealing the stump. “Ah, yes. Pirates, believe it or not,” he said, forcing a smile.

  “I do believe it. People talk in this city. You already have a reputation as an adventurer.” She smiled a little in return. It deepened the fine wrinkles around her eyes. “Niclays, I know we … never spoke properly after Jannart died. You left for Inys so quickly—”

  “Don’t.” His voice was hoarse. “I know you must have realized. All those years—”

  “I don’t seek to reprimand you, Niclays.” Aleidine spoke gently. “I cared very deeply for Jannart, but I had no claim on his heart. Our families arranged our marriage, as you know. It was not his choice.” Snowflakes caught in her lashes. “He was an extraordinary man. All I wanted for him was happiness. You were that happiness, Niclays, and I bear no grudge against you. In fact, I thank you.”