Page 186 of The Priory of the Orange Tree

“Perhaps your kind are not as violent as the Draconic Army,” Niclays said, “but you still see to it that humans worship your image and beg you for the rain that swells the crops. As if man is not also enough of a marvel to be adulated.”

The dragon huffed cloud through its nostrils.

Niclays decided then. That even if his alchemical tools were lost, and even if he was on his way to a font of eternal life, he would take what he had long been denied.

He laid down his staff and bared the knife Laya had given him. Its handle was lacquer, its blade was serrated down one side. He ran his gaze along the wealth of scale. When he had found an unmarred patch of scale, he placed a hand on it.

The dragon was smooth and cold as a fish. Niclays used the knife to pry the scale up, exposing the sheen of silvery flesh beneath.

“You are not meant to live for eternity.”

Niclays flung a withering glance at its head. “As an alchemist, I must disagree,” he said. “I believe in possibility, you see. Even if I cannot find the elixir of life in your body, the Golden Empress is on her way to the island of Komoridu. There we will find the mulberry tree, and the jewel that lies beneath it.”

The eye flared wide.

“Jewel.” A rattle stemmed from the dragon. “You speak of the celestial jewels.”

“Jewels,” Niclays echoed. “Yes. The rising jewel.” He softened his voice. “What do you know of it?”

Nayimathun remained silent. Niclays wrenched the blade upward, biting into scale, and the dragon twitched in its chains.

“I will say nothing to you,” it said. “Only that they must not fall into the hands of pirates, son of Mentendon.”

According to her journal, my aunt received it from a man who told her to carry it far from the East and never bring it back.Jannart’s words kept returning to him, circling in his head like a whipping top.Never bring it back.

“I do not expect you to stop your pursuit. It is too late for that,” the dragon said, “but do not let the jewel fall into the hands of those who would use it to destroy what little of the world is left. The water in you has grown stagnant, Roos, but it is not beyond cleansing.”

Niclays kept his grip on the knife, quaking.

Stagnant.

The dragon spoke true. Everything around him had stilled. His life had stopped, like a clock in water, when Sabran Berethnet had sent him to Orisima. He had failed to solve one mystery since. Not the mystery of eternal life. Not why Jannart had died.

He was an alchemist, the unmaker of mystery. And he would not be stagnant again.

“Enough of this,” he hissed, and carved.

43

South

The armorer furnished Ead with a monbone bow, an iron sword, an axe etched with Selinyi prayers, and a slim wood-handled dagger. Instead of the olive cloak of her childhood, she now wore the white of a postulant, a sign of her blossoming into a woman. Chassar, who had come with Sarsun to see her off, set his hands on her shoulders.

“Zala would be so proud to see you,” he said. “Soon the red cloak will be yours.”

“If I come back alive.”

“You will. Kalyba is a dread creature, but not as strong as she was. She has not eaten of the orange tree, for twenty years, and so will have no siden left.”

“She has other magic.”

“I trust you to conquer it, beloved. Or to turn back if the risk becomes too great.” He patted the ichneumon beside her. “Be sure to return her to me in one piece, Aralaq.”

“I am no stupid bird,” Aralaq said. “Ichneumons do not lead little sisters into danger.”

Sarsun cawed in indignation.

When she had been banished, Kalyba had fled to a part of the forest she had named the Bower of Eternity. It was said that she had put an enchantment on it that tricked the eyes. Nobody knew how she created her illusions.

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