Page 118 of The Priory of the Orange Tree

Nayimathun looked at her with those ancient eyes. Tané felt very small under her gaze.

“Other dragons may not share this with their riders, Miduchi Tané,” she rumbled, “but I will make you a gift of another piece of knowledge.”

“Thank you.”

Shivers twitched through her. Surely no one living was worthy of so much wisdom from a god.

“The comet ended the Great Sorrow, but it has come to this world many times before,” Nayimathun said. “Once, many moons ago, it left behind two celestial jewels, each infused with its power. Solid fragments of itself. With them, our ancestors could control the waves. Their presence allowed us to hold on to our strength for longer than we could before. But they have been lost for almost a thousand years.”

Sensing the sadness in the dragon, Tané stroked a hand over her scales. Though they gleamed like the scales of a fish, they were hatched with scars, rent by teeth and horns.

“How were such precious objects lost?” she asked.

Nayimathun let out the softest rattle through her teeth. “Almost a thousand years ago, a human used them to fold the sea over the Nameless One,” she said. “That was how he was defeated. After that, the two jewels passed out of history, as if they never were.”

Tané shook her head. “A human,” she repeated. She remembered the legends from the West. “Was he called Berethnet?”

“No. It was a woman of the East.”

They sat in silence. Water dripped from the rock above their heads.

“We had many ancient powers once, Tané,” Nayimathun said. “We could shed our skins like snakes, and change our forms. You have heard the Seiikinese legend of Kwiriki and the Snow-Walking Maiden?”

“Yes.” Tané had heard it many times in the South House. It was one of the oldest stories in Seiiki.

Long ago, when they had first emerged from the waves, the dragons of the Sundance Sea had agreed among themselves to befriend the children of the flesh, whose fires they had seen on a nearby beach. They had brought them gifts of golden fish to show their good intent—but the islanders, suspicious and afraid, threw spears at the dragons, and they disappeared sadly to the depths of the sea, not to be seen again for years.

One young woman, however, had witnessed the coming of the dragons and mourned their absence. Every day she would wander into the great forest and sing of her sorrow for the beautiful creatures that had come to the island for such a brief time. In the story, she had no name, like too many women in stories of old. She was onlySnow-Walking Maiden.

One bitter morning, Snow-Walking Maiden came across a wounded bird in a stream. She mended its wing and fed it with drops of milk. After a year in her care, the bird grew strong, and she carried it to the cliffs to let it fly away.

That was when the bird had transformed into Kwiriki, the Great Elder, who had been wounded at sea and taken a new form to escape. Snow-Walking Maiden was filled with joy, and so was the great Kwiriki, for he knew now that the children of the flesh had good in them.

To thank Snow-Walking Maiden for caring for him, the great Kwiriki carved her a throne out of his own horn, which was called the Rainbow Throne, and made her a handsome consort, Night-Dancing Prince, out of sea foam. Snow-Walking Maiden became the first Empress of Seiiki, and she flew over the island with the great Kwiriki, teaching the people to love the dragons and harm them no more. Her bloodline had ruled Seiiki until they had perished in the Great Sorrow, and the First Warlord had taken up arms to avenge them.

“The story is true. Kwiriki did take the form of a bird. With time, we could learn to take many shapes,” Nayimathun said. “We could change our size, weave illusions, bestow dreams—such was our power.”

But no longer.

Tané listened to the sea below. She imagined herself as a conch, carrying that roar in her belly. As her eyelids grew heavier, Nayimathun looked down at her.

“Something troubles you.”

Tané tensed. “No,” she said. “I was just thinking how happy I am. I have everything I ever wanted.”

Nayimathun rumbled, and mist puffed from her nostrils. “There is nothing you cannot tell me.”

Tané could not meet her gaze. Every grain of her being told her not to lie in the presence of a god, but she couldnottell the truth about the outsider. For that crime, her dragon would cast her aside.

She would sooner die than have that happen.

“I know,” was all she said.

The pupil of the dragon’s eye grew to a pool of darkness. Tané could see her own face inside it. “I meant to fly you back to the castle,” Nayimathun said, “but I must rest tonight.”

“I understand.”

A low growl rolled through Nayimathun. She spoke as if to herself. “He is stirring. The shadow lies heavy on the West.”

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