Among the Burning Flowers

This short novel is a standalone prequel to The Priory of the Orange Tree, the first book in the Roots of Chaos series. Set in a fantasy world where the nations of Virtudom worship a legendary knight called the Saint and his Six Virtues, the story follows three characters whose fates converge during the fall of the Kingdom of Yscalin to an ancient wyrm.

Cárscaro, capital of Yscalin, sits atop a cliff backed by the Spindle Mountains, dominated by the blackstone Palace of Salvation. The Donmata Marosa Vetalda, the 25-year-old heir to the Yscali throne, lives as a virtual prisoner in this palace, controlled by her father, King Sigoso. She trusts only four attendants: her guard Ermendo Vuleydres, her cousin Priessa Yelarigas, and the Afleytan sisters, Ruzio and Yscabel. Each morning, Marosa stands on the balcony and feels a compulsive urge to jump, a dark impulse that has recurred since she learned, nine years earlier, that her mother, Queen Sahar, had died. Sahar was an Ersyri princess who converted to the Six Virtues to marry Sigoso. The official account holds that she fell in love with a servant, tried to elope, and took her own life when caught. Hidden beneath a floor tile, Marosa keeps a miniature of her mother and a mirror pendant symbolizing the Faith of Dwyn, an outlawed religion rooted in compassion.

Marosa's only hope of escape is her betrothal to Prince Aubrecht Lievelyn of Mentendon. She plans to leave Cárscaro after the wedding, claim the volcanic fumes endanger her pregnancy, and never return. She also dreams of making Yscalin tolerant of different faiths. When Sigoso sets the wedding for the first new moon in autumn, her relief is tempered by his demand that she return as soon as she is with child.

The narrative shifts to Estina Melaugo, a starving outlaw surviving in the Afelayanda Forest. Melaugo is a culler, someone who kills Draconic creatures. These fire-breathing beings have been dormant since the Grief of Ages five centuries earlier but are now waking across the continent. Culling is illegal in Yscalin. Melaugo is already wanted for killing a customs officer to save her lover, Liyat, a dealer of forbidden relics, from arrest. Her parents died in debtors' prison after Sigoso's temperance duty ruined them, and Melaugo grew up on the streets. After killing a lindworm, a Draconic serpent, for a hidden village, she earns food and shelter. Captain Gian Harlowe, an Inysh naval officer, offers her a post on his man-of-war, the Rose Eternal, but she refuses. Liyat arrives and proposes they travel to the city of Ortégardes to recover.

There, the Knights Defendant, a zealous order enforcing Yscali religious law, announce that King Sigoso has renounced the Saint and pledged allegiance to the Nameless One, a primordial wyrm. Wyverns descend on the city, breathing fire on the crowd, while the gates have been chained shut, confirming the king's forces are complicit. Melaugo and Liyat escape through a smugglers' drain and ride for the coast. At the Port of Oryzon, they swim to the Rose Eternal anchored offshore. When a wyvern attacks, the ship's cannons drive it off. Both join Harlowe's crew as he sets course for Inys. That night, watching Yscalin burn, Liyat commits to Melaugo: "Whatever happens next, I want us to face it together." For the first time, Melaugo feels safe.

In Cárscaro, a violent earthquake has opened a fissure in Mount Fruma, releasing the wyverns now terrorizing the kingdom. A wyrm called Fýredel demands the king come forth. Sigoso sends a decoy, but Fýredel kills him. Sigoso goes himself and returns transformed: his eyes have turned grey. He declares Yscalin a Draconic kingdom. In Brygstad, the Mentish capital, Aubrecht's family suspects Sigoso has been possessed by a High Western, an ancient and powerful class of wyrm, through the Draconic plague. Aubrecht organizes mercenary rescue missions through the Spindle Mountains, but all five attempts fail.

A year into the occupation, Cárscaro is sealed. Lord Wilstan Fynch, the Inysh ambassador and father to Queen Sabran, directs Marosa to a sealed sanctuary in the palace. There she and Priessa find coded letters, a defaced portrait of Queen Rosarian of Inys, and a vial of basilisk venom. One letter references a plot carried out the day Rosarian died. In his plague-weakened state, Sigoso confesses: He had Rosarian assassinated with a gown lined with basilisk venom. He also reveals the truth about Sahar: She discovered evidence of Rosarian's murder and tried to flee with Marosa. When caught, she was imprisoned. During a private meeting with Sigoso, she drew a concealed knife, ensured he could never sire another heir, and died in the struggle. The story of her suicide was a lie. Fynch also reveals that Marosa is heir presumptive to the Ersyr, since her uncle King Jantar has no children, a fact Sigoso has used to keep her hostage.

Two years into the occupation, Fýredel summons Marosa to his lair, where she discovers her people forced to repair wyvern armor and excavate more sleeping creatures. Fýredel orders her to become his puppet ruler and commands the execution of Jondu, an Ersyri warrior. Jondu tells Marosa that an iron box she was carrying holds the key to a weapon against the wyrms and must reach the Ersyri ambassador Chassar uq-Ispad. She reveals a lava tunnel beneath the palace and says the Draconic creatures will not attack a person carrying the plague. Marosa gives Jondu basilisk venom to melt her cell bars; Jondu escapes and dies fighting, as she wished. But Fýredel had ordered Jondu kept alive. In retribution, Sigoso executes Ermendo, Yscabel, and several others, and Marosa is forced to watch.

Marosa asks Fynch to carry the box through the mountains to Chassar. The mission fails: She finds Fynch's mauled body in the snow. His pale fingers reveal he never contracted the plague that would have shielded him from the Draconic creatures. Nearby, the skeletons of Ruzio and her lover Bartian Feyalda, who fled through the tunnel earlier, hang from a cliff.

Word arrives that Aubrecht has annulled the betrothal and intends to marry Queen Sabran. Marosa's last hope of escape dies, but she resolves to survive. She adopts the trappings of the Draconic cult flooding Cárscaro, emphasizing her descent from Oderica the Smith, a legendary figure the cultists revere. When Priessa reports that Inys is sending two ambassadors, Lord Arteloth Beck and Lord Kitston Glade, Marosa seizes on a new plan: These men may be brave enough to carry the box to Chassar.

Fýredel, speaking through the Flesh King, a human mouthpiece, announces he is leaving for Inys to destroy the Berethnet line, the ruling royal bloodline whose survival is believed to prevent the Nameless One from rising. Fýredel takes flight, his wings wide enough to plunge the city into shadow. Priessa pledges her faith: One day, the Marosan era will heal Yscalin.

The story ends as the Inysh ambassadors arrive. Marosa dons an iron helm shaped like a wyrm's head, takes her place on the obsidian throne, and greets them in the name of the Draconic Kingdom. She is a puppet and a prisoner, but beneath the helm she burns with defiance, ready to ask these men to carry the box that may save them all. A final letter to Queen Sabran reveals everything: Fýredel's awakening, Sigoso's murder of Rosarian, and Marosa's unbroken loyalty. She signs it as Marosa Taumargam Vetalda, Donmata of Yscalin, Crown Princess of the Ersyr.