The Priory of the Orange Tree

Legend says the Priory might have banished Kalyba for practicing unnatural magic different from the siden granted by the orange tree. Kalyba then reputedly fled to the forest, casting an illusion around her territory so no one could enter it. Now Ead and Aralaq head deeper into the forest, looking for Kalyba’s lair.

Ead burns away enchantments with magefire and asks Aralaq to wait for her; she then enters the deepest part of the forest. Alone, Ead reaches a pool from which a naked Kalyba emerges, red-haired and beautiful. Ead tells Kalyba she wants to be her apprentice. Kalyba asks Ead to surrender her weapons and kiss her in return for her knowledge. Ead complies.

Kalyba tells Ead that she is more than a mage: She is a sorceress who possesses both kinds of magic. One is the “siden”—the earthly magic that comes up from the core of the earth though the orange tree. A hawthorn tree and a mulberry tree were once channels for the magic as well, but they have since dried (Kalyba gained her siden from the fruit of the hawthorn tree). The second kind of magic is “sterren,” or star magic, which comes from a substance left behind by the Long-Haired Star.