Page 39 of A Song of Ash and Moonlight

Once the tea and cookies had been served by a teenaged Rose in an apron, who stared at all of us with wide eyes, no doubt eager to take gossip back to the kitchens, the Warden began to speak.

“I suppose there’s no use in evading your questions,” she said evenly. She took a measured sip of tea and looked up at my father. “You saw the chimaera for yourself, Lord Ashbourne. You heard, I’m sure, what the people of Devenmere had to say about what they’ve endured.”

Father ignored his tea, his fists clenched on his knees, and said nothing, didn’t even give her a nod. I was glad; the longer we couldkeep the Warden talking of her own volition, the better.

“The fact is that the state of things here in the Mistlands is far worse than anyone knows, and I’ve worked hard to keep that truth hidden,” the Warden went on. She sat rigidly in her chair, her gaze distant and flat. “One of my duties as Warden of the Mist is to protect the people of Gallinor, yes, but another duty is to prevent needless panic.”

“I’d hardly call the people of Devenmere’s panicneedless,” Gemma said, her eyes sparking with anger over the rim of her cup. I was pleased to see that some of her color had returned.

Standing to my left near a wall of bookshelves, Mara shifted uneasily from one foot to the other.

“The Order of the Rose has protected the Middlemist since the Unmaking,” the Warden responded with awful calmness, “and it will continue to do so without burdening the crown, the Senate, or the people of this continent.”

“But we are burdening the people,” said Mara quietly. “Aren’t we, madam? It’s as Merta said. You promised us those days were over.”

The Warden’s eyelids flickered, not quite a blink. “I lied. I had to.”

She stared at Mara for a long moment, but my sister didn’t look away. She set her jaw and stared right back. My heart swelled with love for her. Gareth, sitting beside her, seemed quite transfixed by her, as if he’d never seen such a marvelous thing in his life, which didn’t surprise me. She was magnificent, lean and strong, self-possessed and unafraid. With a jolt, I remembered that they had never met before, my sister and my best friend. I made a note to give them a proper introduction before we left and stepped softly on Gareth’s foot.Get a hold of yourself, I said with a look. He hastily averted his eyes from Mara and took a loud sip of tea.

“Youhadto lie?” Merta scoffed, but before she could say more, the Warden silenced her with a single hard look.

“You are out of line, Merta,” she said quietly, and only when Mertalooked at the floor, angry and abashed, did the Warden continue.

“When the gods created the Mist,” she said, “they made certain choices. They chose a woman to serve the people and made her high queen of Edyn. They chose another woman to serve the Mist and named her Warden. She was my ancestor, Llyris, and when the gods chose her, they blessed her with binding magic—unique to the human realm and tremendously powerful. I don’t know why they chose her, just as we don’t know why they chose the queen. I suppose they must have known Llyris was strong enough to withstand what they would do to her.

“They chose two other women to guard the Knotwood in Aidurra and the Crescent of Storms in Vauzanne. These were Tamina and Mariel, and the gods bound each to the magical rift of her continent, the place where the veil between human and Olden realms was thin. And in doing so, they bound their children, and their children’s children, and so on, and with the inexorable compulsions inherent to the binding magic ensured these women had no choice but to have children, to serve the Mist. This magic even prevents them from ending their own lives, thereby ending their service.”

A strange look passed over her face then; the corner of her mouth held a sad smile. “Interesting, isn’t it? How our gods chose only women to serve them? How they bound them and gave them the power of binding in return, but nothing else? No mercy, no end in sight? And the gods did all of this to compensate for their own failings. They could have made the seal between the Old Country and Edyn complete, and yet they didn’t. Was this a mistake? Or was it deliberate? I’ve never been certain which I think is worse, and now generation after generation has suffered as a consequence.”

“A sad story,” Ryder said tightly, breaking the awful silence that fell. He loomed at the edge of the room, arms crossed over his chest, brow fierce and furious. “And yet you’re using this explanation to justify the secret you’ve bound us all to keep—this act of binding we toohad no choice but to receive.”

Suddenly he surged to his feet and rushed at the Warden. He knocked her from her chair and pinned her to the window behind her with his hands at her throat. She looked up at him without fear, as if she’d expected such an assault.

“When my family emerged from the forest that held us trapped,” he said quietly, “we found that much had changed in our absence. The Mist had grown—not south, but north. Into lands you perhaps deemed less worthy of protection?”

Father looked away, his expression miserable. I wondered: Would he and Mother have trapped the Basks in that forest, an act of horrible vengeance, even if they’d known the truth? That without the Basks to help protect the north, the people there would be far more vulnerable?

I feared they would have.

The Warden blinked, her face reddening from Ryder’s grip. “The Order cannot be everywhere at all times. I must choose how best to use our limited resources.”

“And when we discovered what you had done,” Ryder went on, “and that the people had been fighting for their lives without you to protect them, withoutusto protect them, we couldn’t speak of it, nor write of it. Not to the queen, not to other families in the south. Hardly even to each other. You bound us all to secrecy while we slept. Us and hundreds of others.”

The Warden gave him a strained smile. Her eyes were watering. “I did what I had to do. You would have done the same.”

“No.” He released her, shoving her hard against the window. He turned around, wiped his mouth. He was shaking all over; his voice was thick with sadness. “No, I wouldn’t have.”

“I don’t understand,” Gareth said quickly. I could see the gears of his mind turning. “How is such an act possible, binding hundreds ofpeople to secrecy? I’ve never heard of such spellcraft. I know you’re a beguiler, Warden, but—”

“Haven’t you been listening, Professor?” The Warden stood with her head held high, red marks on her neck from Ryder’s fingers. She didn’t touch them. The wordProfessorcame out sourly. “My blood is Anointed, just as yours is. Though whereas you were lucky enough to be born a sage, bearing the mind magic of Jaetris and enjoying keen intellect and an unflappable memory, I was born asthis. I’m not only a beguiler; I’m a binder, one of only three in the world. And someday soon I’ll have to find a man to bed me—it won’t be difficult; many would do it in a moment out of sheer curiosity—and then I’ll bear a daughter, and she’ll become the Warden after me. And you ask me why I keep the fact of the Mist’s true, ever-changing illness quiet and bear the burden of that secret for our queen?”

Suddenly, watching the Warden’s black eyes glitter with that defiant sheen, seeing more emotion on her face than I ever had before in all my years of visiting Mara, I understood perfectly.

“You don’t want the Mist to die on your watch,” I said quietly. “And you don’t want to ask for help from anyone, or tell the queen, because that would mean admitting weakness.” I rose to my feet, suddenly so furious that my exhaustion faded in the face of it. “You’ll weave secrets and lies to everyone you can, even your own Roses, if it means you’ll have more time to repair whatever’s gone wrong without anyone knowing the true extent of your failure.”

Mara quickly stepped forward.“Farrin…”

“It’s all right, Mara.” The Warden stood behind her chair, considering me thoughtfully. “Your sister is correct. Idon’twant the Mist to die on my watch, and it won’t. I’ll mend it. I always have, and all my ancestors have, and my daughter’s daughters will too. And if I can raise girls every year and send them off to die for this world, and feel my heart break again and again upon finding their slain bodies in theMist—or worse, never finding them—then the people of the north will have to do the same, or else leave. A freedom I’m not afforded.”

---