Page 293 of The Priory of the Orange Tree

The desert did not end. Her gourds ran dry as bone. She sank into the cradle of the saddle and let go of her thoughts.

When she opened her eyes again, she was falling.

Branches lashed at her cloak and hair. She had no time to scream before the water seized her.

Panic thrummed along her limbs. Blind, she kicked. Her head broke the surface. In the blackness of night, she could just make out a fallen tree jutting over the water, almost too high to reach. As the current gulped her toward it, she grabbed one of its branches. The river tore at her legs. She hauled herself onto the tree and keeled over it, shuddering.

For a long time, she clung there, too bruised and shaken to move. Warm rain drummed on her scalp. When she finally came to her senses, she pushed her weight onto her hands and pinched the tree with her knees. It shook as she moved inch-meal along it.

As she fought to stay calm, she remembered Mount Tego. How she had weathered the freezing wind and knee-deep snow and the agony in her limbs. How she had climbed a sheer rock with bare hands, breathing flimsy air, one slip from death. How she had not let herself turn back. After all, dragonriders had to be able to remain nimble-fingered and strong at great heights. They could not fear the fall.

She had stood on the pinnacle of the world. She had ridden a dragon across the Abyss.

She could do this.

Her fear crushed, she moved faster. When she reached the end of the tree, her boots sank into mud.

“Nayimathun,” she shouted.

Only the roar of the water answered.

The case with the jewel was still on her sash. She was on the bank of a river, close to where it frothed into white rapids. If she had not been shocked awake in time, she would have been washed to her death. She pressed her back against a tree and slid to the ground.

She had fallen from the saddle. Either Nayimathun was looking for her, or she had fallen, too. If that was the case, she could not be far away.

This had to be the River Minara, which meant they had reached the Lasian Basin. She searched her memory for the maps she had seen as a child. The west of the country, she remembered, was covered by forest. That was where Loth had told her she would find the Priory.

Tané swallowed and blinked the water from her eyes. If she was to survive this, she would have to keep a clear head. The pistol was useless now it was wet, and her bow and sword had been attached to the saddle, but she still had a knife and the bladed wheels.

A few of her possessions had fallen with her. Tané crawled to the nearest bag and opened it with aching fingers. When she felt the compass in her hand, she let out a sigh of relief.

She gathered up as much as she could carry. Using a strip of her cloak, a branch, and a little sap, she fashioned a torch and kindled it with a spark from two stones. It might attract a few animals, but better to risk discovery than step on a snake, or fail to see a hunter in the dark.

The trees pressed close as conspirators. Just looking at them almost made her courage fail.

You have a dragon’s heart.

She paced into the forest, away from the roar of the Minara. Her boots sank into loam. It smelled the way Seiiki did after the plum rain. Rich and earthy. Comforting.

Her body was a half-drawn knife. Despite the familiar scent, the first steps were the hardest she had ever taken. She walked light-footed as a crane. When a twig snapped beneath her, birds of many colors took off from the trees. Before long, she found the damage to the canopy. Something large had fallen nearby. A few steps more, and her torch revealed a pool of silver blood.

Dragon blood.

The forest seemed set on hampering her progress. Hidden roots snared at her ankles. Once a branch crumbled beneath her, and she found herself up to her waist in swamp. She only just kept her grip on the torch, and it took far too long to prize herself free.

Her hand shook as she limped onward, following the trail of blood. From the amount that had been shed, Nayimathun was injured, but not badly enough to kill her. Her blood might still entice predators. The thought made Tané break into a run. In the East, tigers were sometimes bold enough to attack dragons, but the scent of Nayimathun would be strange to the animals of this forest. She prayed that would be enough to keep them at bay.

When she heard voices, she smothered the torch. An unfamiliar language. Not Lasian. She held her knife between her teeth and climbed a nearby tree.

Nayimathun was lying in a clearing. An arrow was embedded in her crown—the part of her that gave her the means to fly. Six figures were gathered around her, all in scarlet cloaks.

Tané tensed. One of the strangers was handling her bow, running her fingers over its limb. These must be the Red Damsels, the warriors of the Priory—and now they knew a dragonrider was close.

At any moment, one of them could plunge a sword into Nayimathun. She would be no match for them in this state.

After what seemed like hours, all but two of the Red Damsels disappeared into the trees. Now they were hunters, and Tané was their prey. Their sorcery might put her at a disadvantage, but even that did not make them all-powerful.

She dropped in silence from the tree. Her best weapon now was the element of surprise. She would get Nayimathun to safety, and then she would track one of the Red Damsels to the Priory.

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