Page 39 of The Priory of the Orange Tree

“It is not Queen Sabran who sends us, mistress,” Kit said, “but the ghastly Seyton Combe.” He sighed. “He never liked my poetry, you know. Only a soulless husk could hate poetry.”

“Ah, the Night Hawk,” Melaugo said, chuckling. “A suitable familiar for our queen.”

Loth stilled. “What do you mean by that?”

“Saint.” Kit looked fascinated. “A heretic as well as a pirate. Do you imply that Queen Sabran is some sort of witch?”

“Privateer. And keep your voice down.” Melaugo glanced over her shoulder. “Don’t misunderstand me, my lords. I’ve no personal dislike of Queen Sabran, but I come from a superstitious part of Yscalin, and thereissomething odd about the Berethnets. Each queen only having one child, always a daughter, and they all look so similar . . . I don’t know. Sounds like sorcery to—”

“Shadow!”

Melaugo turned. The roar had come from the crow’s nest.

“Another wyvern,” she said under her breath. “Excuse me.”

She vaulted onto the ropes and climbed. Kit ran to the side. “Wyvern? I’ve never seen one.”

“We don’twantto see one,” Loth said. His arms were prickling. “This is no place for us, Kit. Come, back below deck before—”

“Wait.” Kit shielded his eyes. His curls flew in the wind. “Loth, do you see that?”

Loth looked askance at the horizon. The sun was low and red, almost blinding him.

Melaugo was clinging to the ratlines, one eye to a spyglass. “Mother of—” She lowered it, then lifted it again. “Plume, it’s— I can’t believe what I’m seeing—”

“What is it?” the quartermaster called. “Estina?”

“It’s a— a High Western.” Her shout was hoarse. “A High Western!”

Those words were like a spark on kindling. Order splintered into chaos. Loth felt his legs become stone.

High Western.

“Ready the harpoons, the chainshot,” a Mentish woman called. “Prepare for heat! Do not engage unless it attacks!”

When he saw it, Loth turned cold to the marrow of his bones. He could not feel his hands or face.

It was impossible, yet there it was.

A wyrm. A monstrous, four-legged wyrm, over two hundred feet long from its snout to the tip of its tail.

This was no wyverling prowling for livestock. This was a breed that had not been seen in centuries, since the last hours of the Grief of Ages. Mightiest of the Draconic creatures. The High Westerns, largest and most brutal of all the dragons, the dread lords of wyrmkind.

One of them hadwoken.

The beast glided above the ship. As it passed, Loth couldsmellthe heat inside it, the reek of smoke and brimstone.

The bear-trap of its mouth. The hot coals of its eyes. They wrote themselves into his memory. He had heard stories since he was a child, seen the hideous illustrations that lurked in bestiaries—but even his most harrowing nightmares had never conjured such a soul-fearing thing.

“Do not engage,” the Ment called again. “Steady!”

Loth pressed his back against the mainmast.

He could not deny what his eyes could see. This creature might not have the red scales of the Nameless One, but it was of his like.

The crew moved like ants fleeing water, but the wyrm appeared to have its mind set on another course. It soared over the Swan Strait. Loth could see the fire pulsing inside it, down the length of its throat to its belly. Its tail was edged with spines and ended in a mighty lash.

Loth caught the gunwale to hold himself upright. His ears were ringing. Close by, one of the younger seafarers was trembling all over, standing in a dark gold pool.

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