The Priory of the Orange Tree (The Roots of Chaos)
The Priory of the Orange Tree: Part 2 – Chapter 29

Rain was falling on the capital again. Tané knelt at her table in her private rooms at Salt Flower Castle.

After her confession, Nayimathun had delivered her to the castle, where she remained. The dragon had said she would return to Cape Hisan for Sulyard. If he had the protection of a god, his petition would have to be heard at court. Nayimathun would also order that Susa be released at once from the jailhouse. They were to meet on the beach at sunrise, and then go together to the Sea General to tell him everything.

Tané tried to eat her supper, but her hands shook. Most of the dragonriders had been called away to assist the High Sea Guard in the coastal settlement of Sidupi. The Fleet of the Tiger Eye had attacked with a hundred-strong force of pirates, who were looting at will.

She called for tea. It was brought to her by one of her personal attendants, who now stayed close to serve her when she needed it.

Her bedchamber in the inner quarter was more beautiful than she had ever dreamed it would be, with a coffered lattice ceiling and sweet-smelling mats. Gold foil shone from the ornately painted walls, and the softest of bedding was waiting to embrace her.

At the heart of all this finery, she could not eat or sleep.

Her hands shook as she finished the tea. If she could only sleep, Nayimathun would be there when she woke up.

Tané had taken one step toward the bedding when the floor shunted and thunder rolled beneath the castle. She pitched into the wall. The force of the quake knocked her legs from under her, sprawling her across the mats.

The lantern flickered. Three of her attendants came running into the chamber. One of them knelt beside her while the others took her by the elbows and lifted her to her feet. She gasped when she put weight on her left ankle, and they hurried her to the bedding.

“Lady Tané, are you hurt?”

“A sprain,” Tané said. “Nothing more.”

“We will bring you something for your pain,” the youngest attendant said. “Wait here, honored Miduchi.” The three of them retreated.

Distant, confused shouts drifted through the open window. Earthshakes did happen in Seiiki, but there had not been one in a long time.

The attendants brought her a bowl of ice. Tané wrapped some in cloth and pressed it to her tender ankle. The fall had kindled the pain in her shoulder, and in her left side, where her old scar was.

When the ice was almost melted, she blew out the lantern and lay down, trying to replace a comfortable position. Her side ached as if a horse had kicked it. Even as she succumbed to sleep, it was throbbing, like a second heart.

A knock jolted her awake. For a moment, she thought she was back in the South House, late for her class.

“Lady Tané.”

It was not the voice of any of her attendants.

The pain in her side was raging now. Blear-eyed, she rose, trying not to jar her ankle.

Six masked foot soldiers waited outside her room. All wore the green tunics of the land army.

“Lady Tané,” one of them said with a bow, “forgive us for disturbing you, but you must come with us at once.”

It was unusual for any soldier of the land army to set foot in Salt Flower Castle. “It is the middle of the night.” Tané tried to sound imperious. “Who summons me, honorable soldier?”

“The honored Governor of Ginura.”

The most powerful official in the region. Chief magistrate of Seiiki, responsible for administering justice to those of high rank.

Tané was suddenly aware of every drop of blood in her veins. Her body felt untethered from the ground, and her mind gleamed with terrible possibilities, the foremost being that Roos had already gone to the authorities. Perhaps it was best to go softly, to play innocent. If she ran now, they would consider it an admission of her guilt.

Nayimathun would be back soon. Whatever happened, wherever she was taken, her dragon would come for her.

“Very well.”

The soldier relaxed his stance. “Thank you, Lady Tané. We will send your servants to help you dress.”

Her attendants brought her uniform. They lifted the surcoat on to her shoulders and tied a blue sash around her waist. As soon as she was dressed and they turned their backs to leave, she took a blade from under her pillow and slipped it into her sleeve.

The soldiers escorted her down the corridor. Every time her left foot touched the floor, pain arrowed up her calf. They took her through the near-deserted castle, into the night.

A palanquin awaited her at the gateway. She stopped. Every instinct was telling her not to get inside.

“Lady Tané,” one of the soldiers said, “you cannot refuse this summons from the honored Governor.”

Movement caught her eye. Onren was returning to the castle with Kanperu. Seeing Tané, they strode toward her.

“As a member of Clan Miduchi,” Tané said to the soldier, emboldened, “I believe I can do as I choose.”

Deep in the eyeholes of his mask, his gaze flickered.

Onren and Kanperu had reached her now. “Honorable Tané,” the latter said, “is something wrong?”

His voice was a rasp and a ring. A sword eased from its scabbard. Faced with two more riders, the soldiers shifted their weight.

“These soldiers wish to take me to White River Castle, honorable Kanperu,” Tané said. “They cannot tell me why I am summoned.”

Kanperu looked at the captain with a rimple in his brow. He was almost a head taller than all the soldiers. “By what right do you summon a dragonrider without warning?” he asked. “Lady Tané is god-chosen, yet you take her from this castle as though she were a thief.”

“The honored Sea General has been informed, Lord Kanperu.”

Onren raised her eyebrows. “Indeed,” she said. “I will be sure to confirm that with him when he returns.”

The soldiers said nothing. Casting them a stern look, Onren took Tané aside.

“You must not worry,” she said quietly. “It will be some trivial matter. I’ve heard the honored Governor likes to make her authority known even to Clan Miduchi.” She paused. “Tané, you look unwell.”

Tané swallowed.

“If I am not back within the hour,” she said, “will you send word to the great Nayimathun?”

“Of course.” Onren smiled. “Whatever it is will soon be resolved. See you tomorrow.”

Tané nodded and tried to smile back. Onren watched as she climbed into the palanquin, as it left the castle grounds.

She was a dragonrider. There was nothing to fear.

The soldiers carried her through the streets, past the evening market, and under the season trees. Laughter rolled from crowded taverns. It was only when they passed the Imperial Theatre that Tané realized they were not going to White River Castle, where the honored Governor of Ginura lived. They were heading into the southern outskirts of the city.

Fear clenched her chest. She reached for the door of the palanquin, but it was bolted from the outside.

“This is not the right way,” she called. “Where are you taking me?”

No answer.

“I am a Miduchi. I am the rider of the great Nayimathun of the Deep Snows.” Her voice cracked. “How dare you treat me in this way.”

All she heard was footsteps.

When the palanquin finally stopped, and she saw where they were, her stomach dropped. The door unlocked and slid open. “Honored Miduchi,” one of the soldiers said, “please follow me.”

“You dare,” Tané whispered. “You dare bring me to such a place.”

A rotten smell curdled in her nostrils, sharpening her fear. She had squandered her opportunity to run. Even a dragonrider could not fight all the sentinels here, not without a sword, and in any case, there was nowhere to go. She got down from the palanquin and walked, chin raised, side throbbing with every step, hands clenched.

They could not have brought her here to kill her. Not without a trial. Not without Nayimathun. She was god-chosen, protected, safe.

As the soldiers led her toward Ginura Jailhouse, the hum of insects snatched her gaze upward. Three flyblown heads, bloated with decay, watched the street from the gate above.

Tané stared at the freshest of them. The thatch of hair, taut with blood, the tongue puffy in death. His features had already slackened, but she recognized him. Sulyard. She tried to keep her grip on her composure, but her spine tightened and her stomach churned and her mouth turned dry as salt.

She had heard that far away in Inys, where the water ghost had come from, people gathered in public to witness executions. Not so in Seiiki. Most of the city was unaware that in the grounds of the jailhouse, a young woman of seventeen was on her knees by a ditch, her arms roped behind her back, waiting for the end. Her long hair had been shaved away.

The soldiers marched Tané toward the prisoner and held her in place. An official was speaking, but she could not hear through the swash of blood in her ears. The woman had looked up at the sound of footsteps, and Tané wished she had not, for she knew her.

“No,” Tané said, voice cracking. “No. I order you to stop this!”

Susa stared back at her. Hope had rushed into her eyes, but now grief quenched it.

“I am god-chosen,” Tané screamed at the executioner. “She is under my protection. The great Nayimathun will bring the sky down on your heads for this!” He might as well have been made of stone. “It was not her. It was me. It is my fault, my crime—”

Susa shook her head, lips quivering. Rain beaded on her lashes.

“Tané,” she said thickly, “look away.”

“Susa—”

Sobs clotted in her throat. It was a mistake. Stop this. Fingertips bit into her arms as she struggled, all her self-possession gone, more and more hands grasping her. Stop this. 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.

When the dragonrider did not arrive at the beach at the agreed-upon time, Niclays generously assumed that she had been unavoidably delayed and made himself comfortable. He had brought with him a satchel containing some of his books and scrolls, including the fragment Truyde had given him, which he perused by the light of an iron lantern.

His pocket watch was open beside him. The clock—the modern symbol of the Knight of Temperance. A symbol of regulation, measurement, restraint. It was the virtue of dullards, but also of scholars and philosophers, who believed it encouraged self-examination and the pursuit of wisdom. Certainly it was the closest of the Six Virtues to rational thought.

It should have been his patron virtue. Instead, on his twelfth birthday, he had chosen the Knight of Courage.

His brooch now rusted somewhere in Brygstad. He had torn it off the day he was exiled.

An hour passed, and then another. The truth was indisputable.

Lady Tané had called his bluff.

The promise of dawn was on the horizon. Niclays snapped his watch shut. There went his chance of a glorious return to Ostendeur with a freshly brewed elixir of life.

Purumé and Eizaru would be horrified if they knew what he had asked the dragonrider to do. It made him no better than a pirate, but creating the damned elixir was the only way he would ever get home, his only potential sway with the royal houses over the Abyss.

He sighed. To save Sulyard, he needed to tell the Warlord about Tané Miduchi and her crime against Seiiki. It was what he would have done at once, were he a better man.

As he trudged back up the beach, he stopped. For a moment, he thought the stars had been rubbed out. When he looked harder, and made out the flicker of light, he froze.

Something was descending.

Something vast.

It moved as if it were sinking through water. A banner of scarred, iridescent green. A bladder-shaped organ dominated its head, glowing lambent blue. The same glow throbbed under its scales.

A Lacustrine dragon. Niclays watched hungrily as it landed on the sand, graceful as a bird.

A great weathered rock hunched like a shoulder from the sand. He retreated behind it, never taking his gaze off the dragon. From the way it turned its head, it was looking for something.

Niclays hunkered down and blew out his lantern. He watched as the creature snaked toward the shore, closer to his hiding place. The creature spoke.

“Tané.”

Its massive front legs waded into the sea. Niclays was almost near enough to touch one of its scales. The key to his work, almost at his fingertips. He stayed crouched beneath the rock, craning his neck to look. Its eyes were pinwheels.

“Tané, the boy is dead,” it said in Seiikinese. “So is your friend.” It bared its teeth. “Tané, where are you?”

So this was her beast. The dragon sniffed, its nostrils flaring.

That was when a blade chilled his throat, and a hand covered his mouth. Niclays made a muffled sound.

The dragon jerked its head toward the rock.

Niclays trembled. He heard nothing of his own body, not his heartbeat or his breath, but he could picture the sword at his throat in meticulous detail. A curved blade. An edge sharp enough to spill his life if he moved a fraction of an inch.

A hiss came through the night. Then another.

And another.

The dragon let out a snarl. Claw rang against rock, like sword on sword.

Black smoke consumed the beach. The smell of it was acrid, like burning hair and brimstone. And gunpowder. Firecloud. Abruptly Niclays was wrenched to his feet—then he was stumbling through the billows of smoke, choking on them, hauled by a figure shrouded in cloth. The sand slithered beneath his feet, sending each footstep awry.

“Wait,” he panted at his captor. “Wait, damn you—”

A tail lashed out of the smoke and caught him a terrific blow in the gut. He was thrown back on to the sand, where he lay, benumbed and winded, his eyeglasses dangling off one ear.

He drifted, drunk on the black cloud. It rushed into his nostrils and plumed out again.

A mournful sound, like a dying baleen. A thud that shook the earth. He saw Jannart walking barefoot on the beach, a faint smile on his lips. “Jan,” he breathed, but he was gone.

Two booted feet pressed into the sand.

“Give me a reason,” a voice said in Seiikinese, “and I may not gut you.” A bone-handled knife flashed in front of him. “Do you have something to offer the Fleet of the Tiger Eye?”

He tried to speak, but his tongue felt bee-stung. Alchemist, he wanted to say. I am an alchemist. Spare me.

Someone lifted his satchel. Time splintered as scarred hands rummaged through his books and scrolls. Then the hilt of the knife clipped his temple, and a dark wave swept away his cares.