Page 115 of A Song of Ash and Moonlight

“Madam Moreen’s tending to Ryder over there,” Gemma continued, nodding at the corner of the room. “You suffered an arrow graze. Him, a few lacerations. Nothing too severe, thankfully.”

I shifted a little to look, and when I saw him, alive and whole, glowering up at Madam Moreen as she bandaged his left arm, relief swept through me and tears pricked my tired eyes. Ryder met my gaze from across the room. His whole self lit up when he saw me, his scowl softening to that tender expression I now knew so well—his face open and dear, the years falling away from his face so that he looked more the young man he actually was, and less the angry son forged in our fathers’ fires.

But then a shadow fell over his face, and he looked quickly away, frowning at the floor.

My heart twisted. How marvelous it was, how frighteningly precious, to be able to read another person’s face so well. He thought I was still angry with him, and of course Iwas, but… Gods, we were alive. At that moment, nothing else mattered. If I’d been able to stand, I would have thrown all my hurt and wounded pride out the window and run to him.

“And Alastrina…” Gemma’s voice trailed off.

Alarmed, I looked back at her. My vision was beginning to clear, and with it came a sort of creeping dread. “What is it? Is she hurt?”

“Not any worse than you and Ryder, at least not physically. But she hasn’t said a word, and only Illaria could get her calm enough forMadam Moreen to tend to her wounds. She wouldn’t even calm for Ryder—”

“Whoever you are—whateveryou are—if you have the power to heal them all, as you say you do, then do it at once, right this instant, or leave!”

Father’s voice rang with fury, drawing my attention across the room to where he stood in the doorway wearing his travel cloak, boots, and riding gloves. He had said he would go to the capital to alert Yvaine and her councilors of what had happened; someone must have ridden after him and brought him back. Behind him in the entrance hall, armed and ready, hovered six of our house guards and our groundskeeper, Mr. Carbreigh, with his apprentices—all of them elementals with as much talent for combat using natural magicks as for crafting a topiary with simple shears.

And facing Father, I realized, my stomach leaden, was Philippa.

Her face was hard, and her green dress and gray coat were as simple as they’d been at Wardwell. And though the splendor she’d worn around her like a gleaming cloak when she’d come for us in Mhorghast was gone—that shining armor, her hair full of jewels—it still burned my eyes to look at her, as if some remnant of that godly glory still clung to her.

“I told you, I can’t,” she said, her voice flat and clean as a fresh blade. “I’ve already risked too much by going to Mhorghast and rescuing them. Even in the brief instant I was there, I’m certain they sensed my presence and knew me for what I was.”

“Whoknew?” I asked, pushing myself up onto my forearms.

She glanced over at me, her expression unreadable. “Everyone. Even the simplest of creatures there—your bird friends from Edyn—sensed it, even if they didn’t understand it. But those whodidunderstand…”

She fell silent. My whole body turned cold. “Kilraith,” I whispered.

“He Who Is All, they call him,” she muttered in agreement. “Though I don’t know why. I sensed so many things in the moments I was there. So much agony, so much blood lust…”

Father was practically trembling with rage by the door. “As I said,” he ground out, “if you don’t intend to heal them, then—”

“You think I don’twantto heal them?” Philippa snapped. She glared back at him, her dark eyes flashing gold. “My own daughter, her lover, her friends? Gideon, Itoldyou: We are being watched. All ofEdynis being watched. A god wandered into their midst and then was gone. They’ll sniff me out like a hound on a blood trail. Even my presence here is dangerous; the world will start responding to me as anything would to its creator, and people will begin to notice. And intentionally working magic would without question bring the wrath of Mhorghast down on Ivyhill. You are woefully unprepared for such an assault.”

They stared each other down, Father and Philippa, before Father relented at last and sank into a nearby chair, his head in his hands. He didn’t say anything more. My heart ached for him; I could only imagine what he was thinking, how it hurt him to see Philippa. His beloved wife had returned—not a trick this time, not Alastrina donning a cruel glamour, but perhaps something even worse. The wife he’d lost had come back and was no longer entirely herself. She was something more, something unignorably mighty. The whole room vibrated with her presence, as if some great drum were sounding in Ivyhill’s basement, its rumbles traveling up the walls.

Desperate to break the silence, I somehow found my voice. “You said you sensed many things while you were there. What were they? Is it information we can use? Weaknesses in Mhorghast’s perimeter, the city’s population, Kilraith’s location—”

A dark curl of laughter sounded from behind me, but when I sat up to find it, my heart pounding with sudden fear, I saw only Alastrina.She was curled up in a chair by the window, her arms bandaged and her feet bare. My breath caught in my throat. She had looked gaunt in Mhorghast but still vital enough. Now she looked skeletal—her eyes haunted and red-rimmed, her scarred face draped in harsh shadows.

“You won’t be able to find him,” she whispered. “No one ever has. You think you’re the first to try and crack the shell?”

She stared at us for a moment, her eyes glittering with tears, and then looked away, back out the window. Gemma’s friend Illaria, who was also one of our closest neighbors, sat tensely on a nearby bench. She wore her long black hair neatly tied back from her lovely brown face, and a belt of herb sachets and stoppered essences strapped to her waist. Gemma had said she would send for her to help Talan decipher the scents he remembered from when he found the moonlight road, but now it seemed she had another task. Alastrina gripped her hand tightly, as if Illaria’s presence were the only thing keeping her from being pulled back through the night to Mhorghast.

I shot Gemma a look, remembering her words from months ago.I may have to play matchmaker with those two.

But Gemma just shook her head at me, looking as bemused as I felt. I desperately wanted to ask Alastrina what she meant—You think you’re the first to try and crack the shell?—but I stayed quiet, chewing my lip. She was in no state for questions.

“There were thousands of beings there,” Philippa said quietly, as if she hadn’t heard Alastrina. “Perhaps three thousand in total, most of them Olden. Most of them willing, but not all. And of the humans…” Philippa’s voice darkened. “Most of them were unwilling, but not all. There were many deals being struck, many bargains being made. For wealth, for power, for flesh.”

“And Kilraith?” Ryder asked from his corner. Madam Moreen had finished tying off his bandages, and he stood up, bristling with anger. “Did you sense him among all those thousands?”

Philippa’s brow furrowed. She tapped her pipe against her teeth. “I sensed…a presence, certainly. A tremendous will. And it was familiar, which surprised me. This Kilraith…I do not know the name, nor have I met him, whatever he is. And yet…” Her expression grew more troubled, as if she were recalling a nasty memory. “And yet I know what I felt when I came to save you, my dear.” She glanced at me, her gaze a bit absent. “I felt a great power in that place, stretching into every corner. Like ward magic, in a way, only much stronger. And…” She went to the fire and lit her pipe, puffed on it in contemplation. “Sofamiliar. Like seeing a face across a crowded room, and youknowthat face somehow, or at least you recognize shades of it. But you can’t put a name to it, can’t remember where you first saw it. A kindred feeling.”

“Kindred?” Talan turned toward her, his damp hair clinging to his forehead. “Do you think what you felt could have been the presence of another god?”

Philippa looked at him in astonishment. “Gorgeous demon. I’ll attribute that question to your tremendous loss of blood. Another god? Absolutely not. I would have known one of my own brothers or sisters immediately, without question. Would you have caught my Gemma’s perfume on the air and questioned that it belonged to her? Or would you know immediately, right down to your bones, the scent of your mate?”

---