Page 101 of A Song of Ash and Moonlight

“Farrin of the gods, Farrin of the old power,” she said, her face a knot of fire, her mouth a snapping disc of bright light. “You did well just then.”

I did not allow myself to savor the strange delight that blossomed inside me at her words. I flung out my arm sharply at the stable. “Stop the fire, Ankaret. Now. You’ve proven your point.”

She obeyed with a slight sweep of her left wing. In an instant, the flames vanished, and the stable stood unburnt, undamaged. Ryder froze mid-stride, water sloshing from the pail in his hands. He whipped around to glare at Ankaret, murder on his face.

She rose on long legs of fresh fire and began to pace. The flames swept her along like a dancer across a stage. “She is sorry,” she began, her voice troubled, crackling. “She doesn’t want to do these things, to frighten you. Either of you. But she must prepare you. Do you understand?”

I nodded, watching her pace. Eerie, and beautiful, to see her flitting back and forth, quick and restless now, obviously perturbed. Her feathers stood on end, a brilliant conflagration falling around her body like a gown sewn of flames. With each movement, she shifted into a new shape. First, a fiery outline of a woman, then, in a flash, a fearsome crimson bird. The ground sizzled beneath her; each darting footstep dried the leaves she trod upon, but nothing burned.

“I understand,” I said, “but the horses don’t. Next time, don’t terrorize innocent bystanders in the name of helping me.”

Perhaps that was too bold of me, but Ankaret was seemingly too preoccupied to care. Her footsteps drew sparks along the ground, and she shook her head, muttering to herself.

I hesitated, then placed a hand on my stomach, as if to remind us both that there had been an exchange between us—a pledge of duty, if not outright friendship. The feather pulsed beneath my dress, warming my palm. “Why have you come here?”

“Because she can go where she likes,” Ankaret snapped in response. She seemed to speak more easily now, as if she had been diligently practicing human speech since our last meeting. “And here is where she would like to be just now.”

Ryder, glaring, came up beside me. Ankaret’s white-blue gaze flew to him. “Apologies, Ryder of the House of Bask. I am glad to see you both.”

Ryder gave her a hard smile. “I’m not. I don’t trust you.”

She tossed her head with a harsh laugh, throwing off sparks. “Has she given you reason not to trust her?”

“Well, you did pretend to burn me, and you just scared my horses into a panic, and beyond that, you are a mystery whose origins and motivations remain unclear to me. Anyone would distrust such a creature.”

Ankaret paused in her pacing and fixed her blazing eyes on me. “Farrin trusts me,” she said. “I see it on her face.”

I felt Ryder glance at me, but I kept my eyes on Ankaret. “I think that if you wanted to hurt us, you would have done it long ago. You would have let your fire burn true and killed Ryder. I think,” I added slowly, “that you could someday be a friend, and I hope I’m not wrong.” I tried and failed to read some sort of expression in the flames, a face I could understand. “What have you come to tell us? Or did you simply come to test me again?”

She resumed her pacing, the air between us shimmering with heat. Curls of steam drifted up from her feet.

“You asked her, what is Moonhollow?” she said, her voice harder now, a little angry. “And she said she would find out for you, since you released her from your arrow, sparing her life and her dignity. And she did find some things. She asked and she watched, she pulled it from tongues and plucked it from the air. Moonhollow, here in your world. Mhorghast, in theirs.”

I remembered Nerys’s words.Moonhollow. Your languages are as pitiful as you are.

“Their language,” I said. “You mean an Olden language? Is that where Moonhollow is, then? In the Old Country?”

Ankaret nodded, her feathers fluttering. “It is a city and it is apalace, hidden in Olden lands, and there are gardens that stretch for miles, all of it ruled by a great storm. The storm lives in the walls, and sometimes in the sky. The storm is not like others. It has a will, and a hunger. It does not simply storm; it seeks. It has many arms, and they travel far.”

My mind raced as I listened to her, trying to tuck away her every word so I would remember it later. The sky overhead, thick with its own waning storm, seemed newly ominous. Ryder was tense beside me, held as rapt as I was.

“There are many beings there,” Ankaret continued, speaking faster and faster, as if she would soon run out of breath. “Blood eaters and glittering tricksters, old winds with mischief in their eyes. Beasts made of many other beasts. Lady Winter and Lord Summer, and the forest folk with their smiles and charms. Some go, some stay. There is music that never stops and a moon that never sets.”

I deciphered the riddles, each one making my stomach twist in fear.Blood eaters.Vampyrs.Beast made of many other beasts.Chimaera.Forest folk.Fae. Mara had said the Olden races were isolationists, loath to cohabitate. But first Nerys and now Ankaret had said otherwise. I tried not to linger on how disturbing it was that my sister, soldier of the Mist, possessed outdated knowledge.

“And are there humans as well?” Ryder said tightly.

Ankaret paused. Her light sputtered. “Yes. Taken humans are there in chains and cages, on tables and stages. They are not themselves. They are made to do things they don’t want to do.”

Ryder let out a breath, turned away in despair.

I ached to touch him but instead took a step forward. I would remain calm, clearheaded, for both of us. For Alastrina. For Gareth. I would not grieve for them now, not yet.

“Where is this place?” I asked. “How do we get there?”

Ankaret cocked her head. “You do not wish to go to this place.”

“I do. My friends are there. Many people of my country are there. They are in chains, you said, in cages. They are prisoners, and we must free them.”

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