The Priory of the Orange Tree

The Rose Eternal runs into a terrible storm that threatens to wreck it in the surrounding reefs. However, as if by a miracle, the ship manages to dock safely on the coast of an island. The crew believe this is Feather Island. On the beach they find the skeleton of the dragon Tané earlier saw washed up. The island’s scholars offer the crew shelter. The gesture touches Loth since he knows the scholars themselves live on meager supplies.

Elder Vara assures Tané and the other scholars that the crew members won’t raid their food supplies. Tané suggests they keep arms close in case the crew behave badly. In private, Tané has been practicing with the gem, discovering it has power over water. In fact, the Rose Eternal survived because Tané was pulling in the waves with the gem. Tané confesses to Elder Vara that she has the rising gem and wants to use it to go to Komoridu and save Nayimathun. Vara tells Tané he too was a Miduchi and explains how to get to Komoridu. Buoyed by the information, Tané heads off to steal the Rose Eternal and sail away from Feather Island. However, a sleepless Loth spots her go to the ship and follows her. He recognizes the gem in Tané’s hand as the twin of the gem Ead has. Tané knocks Loth out.

The Pursuit follows the constellations to approach Komoridu, the place “where the maps ended” (647). Niclays and the crew are gripped with excitement.

Tané is now steering the Rose Eternal to Komoridu. She has tied up Loth and Thim (it is unclear how Thim landed aboard the ship) to a mast. Loth is irate at Tané’s piracy. When he realizes that Tané understands some Inysh, he tries to reason with her to no avail. The speed at which the ship is moving amazes Loth.

Meanwhile, Niclays and Laya spot an island which has to be Komoridu. The Pursuit docks at the island, which seems wild and uninhabited. The Golden Empress, Niclays, and the crew climb a hill to reach an enormous dead mulberry tree. There are words carved on one of its branches, which an old crew member tries to decipher. Tané and Loth reach the docked Pursuit and sneak into the ship’s hull, where they find a barely breathing and chained Nayimathun. Nayimathun tells Tané the Golden Empress has the key to the chains.

The old shiphand translates the ancient Seiikian script on the tree. It tells the story of Neporo, a pearl diver so poor her family often lived off soil and leaves. When her younger sister starved to death, Neporo decided to fish for rare pearls in the sea to make more money. On one expedition, the sea swept her to the island of the mulberry tree. Eating its fruit gave Neporo magical powers and eternal youth. On her return to her village, people sensed that she did not age and began to fear her. Depressed by the fear she inspired, Neporo returned to the island. A dragon gifted her two celestial jewels to fight the Nameless One. Around the same time, an injured princess called Cleolind arrived at Komoridu. Cleolind wielded the waning jewel and Neporo the rising gem to bind the Nameless One for 1,000 years. The effort of banishing the wyrm took Cleolind’s life. Her body and the waning jewel were returned to Lasia. Neporo’s rising jewel was stitched into the side of her direct descendant, who passed the jewel down through generations.

Tané arrives on the spot and takes the Golden Empress captive, demanding the key. A pirate gives her the key, but another shoots at Tané. Tané holds up the rising jewel and Niclays understands that she is the heir of Neporo. Tané uses the gem to call up a wave that sweeps the pirates inland. She flees with the key. When the Golden Empress recovers, she cuts off Niclays’s hand for having failed to produce an elixir of immortality. Laya tries to keep the bleeding man alive.

On the Pursuit, Loth considers Nayimathun. Though he has learned to hate all dragons, he notes that Nayimathun does not act like an evil wyrm. Tané enters and frees Nayimathun. She asks Loth to climb onto the dragon’s back. They take off but descend momentarily to pick up Thim from the Rose Eternal. Valeysa the Harrower appears on the scene, breathing fire, but Nayimathun breathes out a wind that plunges the wyrm straight into the sea, where it drowns. An injured Tané faints. Loth requests that Nayimathun take them east, and the dragon agrees to take the “son of the West” to the City of the Thousand Flowers in the Empire of the Twelve Lakes (67).

Tané wakes in a room in the City of the Thousand Flowers, safe and healed. She meets Nayimathun, who is resting in a nearby garden. Tané expresses regret for her actions towards Nayimathun, but Nayimathun urges Tané not to look back. She believes Tané has a “dragon’s heart” and is the true heir of Neporo. Tané is honored. Nayimathun asks Tané not to tell the Emperor Dranghien about the jewels yet. Loth and Thim meet Tané. Loth says that after the meeting with the emperor, they must go to the orange tree and collect its fruit to heal Ead. Tané must also set aside her differences with the West and go to Inys to combine the power of the gems.

In Dranghien’s court, Loth tells the Unceasing Emperor about Sabran’s offer of an alliance. The water dragons are essential to fighting the rising threat of the Nameless One. The plan is that the armadas of the West, East, and South will go to the “Abyss,” the deep waters where the Nameless One slumbers, to draw Fýredel and his flock away from Yscalin. As the combined forces fight the other wyrms, Sabran herself will approach the Nameless One. Dranghien slowly comes around to the plan, but he needs the permission of the “Imperial Dragon,” the leader of dragons, before agreeing to an alliance.

Dranghien agrees to the alliance. He and Loth will remain in the East, Loth directing the navy to the Rose Eternal. Tané is to carry Dranghien’s message to Sabran and also stop in the South for the fruit of the orange tree. Loth urges Tané to beware of the prioress and trust only Chassar. He gives her a ring that belongs to Sabran so that Tané can enter Inys without trouble.

Bearing Dranghien’s letter to Sabran, Tané mounts Nayimathun for their journey. Nayimathun needs to swim before entering the desert on the way to Lasia. Even so, Nayimathun’s scales begin to dry as they fly over the desert. That is not the only trouble dragon and dragonrider face. The sisters of the Priory spot Nayimathun and shoot arrows at her, bringing her and Tané down. Tané and Nayimathun manage to kill one of the sisters and flee, but Nayimathun can no longer fly because of her wounds. Tané must make the rest of the journey alone; when Nayimathun has healed, she will find Tané. Tané notes that the women who attacked them went north and follows them, arriving at a forest. She meets a woman dressed in white and faints.

Tané wakes up in the Priory and realizes the gem and Sabran’s ring have been taken from her. Tané refuses to talk to anyone but Chassar, as per Loth’s suggestion. She tells Chassar about Ead’s need for the fruit. Chassar softens on hearing Ead’s name and guides Tané to the orange tree, returning Dranghien’s letter and the ring to her. The jewel, however, is with Mita.

Just as Tané reaches the tree, fire-breathing wyrms begin to wheel across the sky. Tané lets the fruit of the tree fall into her palms and notices a wyrm shapeshift into a woman (the reader knows this is Kalyba). Tané hides behind the tree as Mita arrives to battle Kalyba. Kalyba wins the battle and beheads Mita. Tané silently attempts to remove the jewel from Mita’s body, but Kalyba notices her, calling her Neporo and concluding that Tané is Neporo’s heir. A sister shoots Kalyba, and Tané jumps into the river by the orange tree. Parspa the hawiz arrives to take Tané to Inys.