Page 168 of The Priory of the Orange Tree

After reflection, she would usually sweep the floors, help gather fruit from the forest, clear the graves of leaves, or feed the chickens. There were no servants on Feather Island, so the scholars shared the menial duties, with the young and strong-bodied taking the most. Strange that Elder Vara had asked her to come to the repository, where the most important documents were kept.

When she had arrived on Feather Island, she had taken to her room and lain there for days. She had not eaten a morsel or spoken a word. They had stripped her of her weapons in Ginura, so she had torn herself apart within. All she had wanted was to mourn her dream until she breathed no more.

It was Elder Vara who had shaken a semblance of life back into her. When she had grown weak with hunger, he had coaxed her into the sunshine. He had shown her flowers she had never seen. The next day, he had prepared a meal for her, and she had not wanted to disappoint him by leaving it untouched.

Now the other scholars called her the Ghost of Vane Hall. She could eat and work and read like the rest of them, but her gaze was always in a world where Susa still lived.

Tané stepped off the walkway and made for the repository. Only the elders were usually permitted to enter it. As she approached its steps, Feather Island rumbled. She dropped to the ground and covered her head. As the earthshake rattled the hermitage, she hissed through her teeth in sudden pain.

The knot in her side was a knifepoint. Cold pain—the bite of ice against bare skin, freezeburn in her innards. Tears jolted into her eyes as waves of agony pitched through her.

She must have dipped out of consciousness. A gentle voice called her back. “Tané.” Paper-dry hands took her arms. “Scholar Tané, can you speak?”

Yes, she tried to say, but nothing came out.

The earthshake had stopped. The pain had not. Elder Vara scooped her into his bony arms. It chagrined her to be lifted like a child, but the pain was more than she could stand.

He took her into the courtyard behind the repository and set her on a stone bench beside the fishpond. A kettle waited at its edge.

“I was going to take you for a walk on the cliffs today,” he said, “but I see now that you need to rest. Another time.” He poured tea for them both. “Are you in pain?”

Her rib cage felt packed with ice. “An old injury. It is nothing, Elder Vara.” Her voice was husky. “These earthshakes come so often now.”

“Yes. It is as if the world wants to change its shape, like the dragons of old.”

She thought of her conversations with the great Nayimathun. As she tried to steady her breathing, Elder Vara took a seat beside her.

“I am afraid of earthshakes,” he confessed. “When I still lived in Seiiki, my mother and I would huddle in our little house in Basai when the ground trembled, and we would tell each other stories to keep our minds off it.”

Tané tried to smile. “I do not remember if my mother did the same.”

As she spoke, the ground shook again.

“Well,” Elder Vara said, “perhaps I could tell you one instead. In keeping with tradition.”

“Of course.”

He handed her a steaming cup. Tané accepted it in silence.

“In the time before the Great Sorrow, a fire-breather flew to the Empire of the Twelve Lakes and ripped the pearl from the throat of the Spring Dragon, she who brings flowers and soft rains. The winged demons like nothing more than to greedily amass treasure, and no treasure is worth more than a dragon pearl. Though she was badly wounded, the Spring Dragon forbade anyone from pursuing the thief for fear they might also be hurt—but a girl decided she would go. She was twelve years old, small and quick, and so light on her feet that her brothers called her Little Shadow-girl.

“As the Spring Dragon mourned for her pearl, a most unnatural winter fell over the land. Though the cold burned her skin and she had no shoes, the Little Shadow-girl walked to the mountain where the fire-breather had buried its hoard. While the beast was away hunting, she stole into its cave and took back the pearl of the Spring Dragon.”

It would have been a heavy treasure to bear. The smallest dragon pearl was as big as a human skull.

“The fire-breather returned just as she had laid hands upon the pearl. Enraged, it snapped its jaws at the thief who had dared enter its lair and tore a piece of flesh from her thigh. The girl dived into the river, and the current whisked her away from the cave. She escaped with the pearl—but when she pulled herself out of the water, she could find nobody who would stitch her wound, for the blood made people fear that she had the red sickness.”

Tané watched Elder Vara through tendrils of steam. “What happened to her?”

“She died at the feet of the Spring Dragon. And as the flowers bloomed once more, and the sun thawed the snow, the Spring Dragon declared that the river the Little Shadow-girl had swum in would be named in her honor, for the child had reunited her with the pearl that was her heart. It is said that her ghost wanders its banks, protecting travelers.”

Never had Tané heard a tale of such bravery from an ordinary person.

“There are some who find the story sad. Others who find it to be a beautiful example of self-sacrifice,” Elder Vara said.

Another shock went through the ground, and inside Tané something called out in answer. She tried to keep the pain from her face, but Elder Vara was too sharp of eye.

“Tané,” he said, “may I see this old injury?”

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