The Priory of the Orange Tree

Tané is at Feather Island, a lonely outpost with a hermitage called Vane Hall. Tané’s old and new injuries often pain her. An elder called Vara has taken to Tané. One day, Vara tells Tané the Seiikinese story of “Little Shadow-girl.” A “fire-breather” (the Seiikinese name for wyrms) ripped a precious pearl from the throat of a Seiikinese dragon, badly injuring it. A 12-year-old girl chased the wyrm to retrieve the pearl and found it buried in his mountainside hoard. However, the wyrm wounded her badly, and the girl died just as she returned the pearl to the “Spring Dragon.” For Vara, the story is heroic rather than sad. Vara wants a surgeon to see Tané’s injured side, presumably wounded when she was a child.

Ead is in a caravan on the way to Ersyr, a region bordering Lasia. A sandstorm forces the procession to stop in the desert. At night, a dragon-sized bird, the last surviving “hawiz,” visits the camp to take Ead to the Priory. Allies of the Priory, hawiz are white birds with which wyverns bred to create cockatrices. Ead recognizes this one as Parspa, Chassar’s bird. Parspa takes Ead to the Priory, where a sister called Nairuj and then Chassar greet her.