Page 119 of A Song of Ash and Moonlight

“Not for me it isn’t. Not for the queen of Edyn.” She sighed a little, looking at me with quiet resolve. “I’ll return to the palace, let you have some peace this afternoon, and if you’ll join me there for dinner tonight, both of you, we can discuss everything you’ve seen. Privately, or with the Royal Conclave, if you wish. But first…” She folded her hands in her lap. “Can we talk for only a few minutes? We’ve not talked in so long, you and me. I know so little of what’s happened to you in recent months.”

Then she glanced upstairs, the tiniest bit coy. “Tell me about Ryder. Is he as handsome in bed as he is outside of it?”

The abrupt change of subject made me laugh in surprise. “He…I…”

“Does it embarrass you to talk about it?”

“No, it’s not… I mean, yes, I suppose, a little.”

“You don’t have to answer, then, if it’s a private thing. It’s only that…” Yvaine sat very still for a moment, then looked away with a rueful sigh. “You’re going to think this is silly.”

“I’m too curious to think it silly,” I replied.

That amused her. She brightened, then almost as quickly grew quiet again, subdued. She picked at the sofa’s embroidery.

“I was in love once,” she said softly. “It was a very long time ago, I think, years and years before any of you were born. I think this is true, anyway. Lately, these peculiar memories have been floating tothe surface of my thoughts. Memories that are clearly mine, and yet they’re strange to me, unfamiliar, but dear at the same time.” She looked up at me. “Does that make sense?”

It didn’t, but I hated to discourage her. “I think so.”

“I know it sounds ludicrous—memories that aren’t mine and yet are? But whatever they are, I know what they’re telling me, and what they say is that once, long ago, I was in love. I can feel it right here.” She touched her throat, her chest, then her belly. “And here too. I feel the rightness of these ancient echoes. I was in love, and what I can remember of it warms me, makes me feel less…extraordinary. Love—that’s a thing everyone understands. And I’m a thing no one understands, not fully. Do you see what I mean?”

Her eyes were beginning to fill with tears, a sight that broke my heart. She looked so lonesome there amidst the cushions, so small and tired. When I offered my handkerchief, she took it without a word and held it bunched in her lap.

After a moment, she cleared her throat. “So I thought that if you could tell me a little about you and Ryder, about what it feels like to you, to be in love, I thought…” She shrugged helplessly. “Maybe it would help me remember more of what I’m trying to remember. Maybe there’s something in this memory struggling to surface within me. An explanation for everything—my sickness, the Mist’s sickness, the abductions, the sinkhole. Everything. Is that mad?” She held a silent plea in her eyes. “Is it mad to think that understanding love might explain so many terrible things?”

“No,” I whispered. I knew for certain that was the right answer, though I couldn’t have explained why. “No, I think love lies at the root of most things, both good and evil. And if you think it will help you…”

“It might.” She smiled a little, her hope painful to look at. “Do you think it might?”

“It’s certainly worth a try.” I drew in a breath carefully, held it around the feeling of Ryder in my heart. “To warn you, I’m not good at talking about these things.”

“Shocking information, since I’m only meeting you for the first time today.”

I made a face at her, trying not to smile. “I suppose I’ll start by telling you about the night of the fire.”

“At Ivyhill?” She looked surprised. “When you were small?”

I nodded. “I’ve told you about the boy who saved me that night. But what I haven’t told you—what I’ve only just learned myself—is that the boy was Ryder.”

I watched Yvaine closely. Would she remember what she’d told me, reassuring me that Ryder couldn’tpossiblybe the shining boy?

But the only thing I saw on her face was rapt, astonished interest. “Extraordinary,” she whispered. She found a pillow and held it to her stomach like a girl at a party, then waved at me in encouragement. “Go on, darling. How did you find this out?”

My heart sank. It was clear she remembered nothing of what she’d told me that day, and the horrible thought came to me that, given her sickness, and the fire that had burned her, it was impossible to know how fractured her mind was or wasn’t. What pieces of her had been seared away? What precious memories had been lost?

My despair came on so fast that I nearly stopped my story then and there. But Yvaine looked so eager, so happy to listen to me, that I somehow found my voice, and once I started the story in earnest, I found I was glad to tell it. I’d been bursting to show someone the wound of Ryder’s lie of omission, which had felt to me like nothing short of betrayal; how fresh and mean that felt, how meanI’dbeen in my anger and shock. How even though my rational mind insisted it wasn’t true, I was terrified that whatever he felt for me couldn’t be trusted—that he loved a power, not a person. And how impossibleit felt to reconcile all of this with the sheer breathless truth of how much I loved him.

I stared at my hands. For a moment, I couldn’t speak; if I did, I would start crying, and the thought of that was too exhausting to contemplate. Then Yvaine put her hand on my arm—the lightest touch, warm and unwavering—and so steadied, I found the strength to continue.

***

When I woke, it was to a world of confusion.

I didn’t remember falling asleep, or taking off my shoes and curling up on the sofa beneath a blanket. The last thing I recalled was talking to Yvaine about Ryder—his strength, his tongue, his hands, the surprising gentleness of him, the endearing gruffness of him, how safe I felt in his arms, and how when I was with him, I felt utterly seen, utterly cherished. I remembered Yvaine hanging on my every word as if I were a master storyteller, gasping and laughing, and looking suitably impressed—and delightfully scandalized—in all the right places. Her sympathy was a balm, her attention addictive.

But now the room was black, and my body was prickling, drenched in a cold sweat. The wind outside was roaring. It had blown back all the doors and pinned them to the walls.

I bolted upright and nearly ran upstairs for Ryder, but then my foggy mind understood what it was seeing. A storm had come as I slept, and now it stretched across the sky on dark wings.

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