Page 60 of The Priory of the Orange Tree

“I do not like bloodshed where it can be avoided. Perhaps tomorrow,” he conceded. “For now, I must send word of this unfortunate situation to the all-honored Warlord.” He returned his attention to his writing. “Rest well this night, learnèd Doctor Roos.”

13

East

The next trial was with knives. Like the others, it was observed by the Sea General and a group of strangers in blue robes. Other members of Clan Miduchi, who had undergone their own trials fifty years ago. The people whose legacy Tané might share if her body did not fail her.

Her eyes sat like pufferfish in her skull. As she picked up each knife, her hands felt slick and clumsy. She still performed better than all the apprentices but Turosa, whose skill with these blades was what had earned him such great renown at the North House.

Onren strode into the hall just after Turosa had achieved a perfect score. Her hair was loose and uncombed. The Sea General raised his eyebrows, but she only bowed to him and approached the knives.

Kanperu appeared next. The Sea General raised his eyebrows even higher. Onren took hold of a blade, found her stance, and threw it across the hall at the first scarecrow.

Every knife found its mark.

“A perfect score,” the Sea General remarked, “but do not be late again, honorable Onren.”

“Yes, honored Sea General.”

That night, the sea guardians were woken by the servants and escorted, still in their sleep robes, to a line of palanquins. Ensconced in hers, Tané chewed her nails to the quick.

They emerged from their palanquins beside a vast spring-fed lake in the forest. Raindrops pinked its surface.

“Members of the High Sea Guard are often woken in the night to answer threats to Seiiki. They must swim better than fish, for they may be separated at any time from their ship, or from their dragon,” the Sea General said. “Eight dancing pearls have been scattered in this lake. Should you retrieve one, it will encourage me to rank you higher.”

Turosa was already undressing. Slowly, Tané removed her sleep robe and waded in up to her waist.

Six and twenty sea guardians and only eight pearls. They would be hard to find in the darkness.

She closed her eyes and released the thought. When the Sea General gave the order, she sliced into the lake.

Water enfolded her. Clear, sweet water, cool against her skin. Her hair rippled around her like seaweed as she turned, straining for a glimpse of silver-green. Onren entered the lake with barely a splash. She dived, snatched her treasure, and glided upward in one graceful arc. She swam like a dragon.

Determined to be next, Tané ventured deeper. The spring, she reasoned, would waft the pearls west. Turning, she descended smoothly to the lakebed and swam using only her legs, ghosting her hands through the silt as she went.

Her chest was tight by the time her fingers brushed a tiny bead. She surfaced almost in unison with Turosa, who shook back his hair and held his pearl up to inspect it.

“Dancing pearls. Worn by the god-chosen,” he said. “Once these were symbols of heritage, of history.” He bared a knife of a smile. “Now they adorn so many peasants, they might as well be dirt.”

Tané looked him in the eye and said, “You swam well, honorable Turosa.”

That made him chuckle. “Oh, villager. I’m going to make such a fool of you that they’ll never let a peasant soil Clan Miduchi again.” He swam past. “Get ready to fall.”

He struck out for the edge of the lake. Tané followed at a distance.

There was a rumor that in the final trial, each principal apprentice would always fight another. She had already dueled Onren. Her opponent would either be Turosa or Dumusa.

If it was the former, he would do everything in his power to break her.

Niclays spent a restless night in the Governor of Cape Hisan’s mansion. The bedding was far more luxurious than what he had in Orisima, but rain battered the tiled roof and would not give him peace. On top of that, it was insufferably humid, as it always was in the Seiikinese summer.

Sometime in the small hours, he rose from the clammy heap of bedding and moved the window screen aside. The breeze was warm and thick as caudle, but at least he could see the stars. And think.

No educated person could believe in ghosts. Quacks professed that the spirits of the dead lived in an element calledether—pure drivel. Yet there was a whisper in his ear that he knew to be Jannart, telling him that what he had done to that musician was a crime.

Ghosts were the voices the dead left behind. Echoes of a soul taken too soon.

Jannart would have lied to keep the musician safe. Then again, Jannart had been good at lying. Most of his life had been a performance. Thirty years of lying to Truyde. To Oscarde.

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