Page 40 of A Song of Ash and Moonlight

Gemma made an incredulous sort of noise. “And what of those who can’t leave, for any number of reasons? We could have been helping them relocate all this time, if only you’d let anyone tell the truth about what they were enduring. You’re willing to sacrifice the lives of innocent people to protect your own pride?”

The Warden looked sharply at her. “Relocate every northerner to the south, and then any monsters that come sniffing through the Mist for human prey would have to go south instead, dooming everyone on the continent. And what if Ididtell the queen? What could she do, with her own palace compromised and her mind breaking? Oh.” She said it softly, looking at us with mock surprise. “You mean you thought I didn’t know? Of course I know. I’ve known longer than any of you. Yes, even you.” She glanced at me with the tiniest of smiles, one that made my whole body blaze with anger. “The Mist was made by the gods, and so was the queen. They arelinkedas much as any two things in our world can be. The Mist is dying, and so is she. So no, I don’t bother her with the details of how I protect her country. I simply protect it. And I choose to protect the most people I can, which means bolstering the Mist’s southern borders and unfortunately having to abandon some of the northern ones. The south is more populous; the north’s people are scattered, and there are far fewer of them. So there you have it.”

She sat in her chair once more, hands clasped in her lap, and glared at the floor, her shoulders hunched, her face tired. My mind reeled with everything she’d said; I couldn’t think of how to even begin to move through the world after such a revelation. Yvaine wasn’t merely sick, she wasdying? I found a chair and sank into it. I felt like the world had suddenly cracked open under my feet.

After a long moment of fraught silence, the Warden looked up,her ordinary implacable expression restored, and said lightly, “Have I answered all your questions to your satisfaction?”

“In fact, no,” said Gareth bluntly. I realized he’d been taking notes this entire time and was now flipping through his notebook eagerly. “I have no fewer than fifteen questions for you—”

But he was cut off by a clamor of noise as Rosewarren’s warning bells suddenly began to ring, filling the air both inside the priory and out on the grounds with urgent song. A sharp current of magic darted outward from the Warden in too many directions to follow—seeking out all the Roses on duty, I assumed. The Warden rose from her desk and looked outside, her gaze distant.

“If I have to endure one more eruption of godsdamnedbells…” Ryder muttered.

“There’s been a breach,” the Warden said quietly. My skin tingled as I imagined what it must feel like to be connected to the Mist by the ancient binding magic the gods had given her bloodline. What kind of information was this power sending her, and how did it sit in her body? When she looked out at the silver ocean shimmering just beyond the priory’s grounds, what did she see?

“Two werewolves coming down from a full-moon turning,” the Warden said, “and a furiant, tearing a path through the forest. They’re all fleeing…something. They’re heading straight for Fenwood.”

Fenwood.A chill swept through the room. Fenwood was a village on the southern Mistline, only a few miles from the priory.

“Fleeing something?” Gareth frowned, snapping shut his notebook. “If they’re fleeing something, maybe they intend no harm. Maybe they don’t even realize where they are. We should investigate—”

“Are you Warden of the Mist,” the Warden said coldly, “or are you a professor who lives in a safe tower far from here and knows nothing other than what he’s read in books?”

Gareth gaped at her, angry color darkening his cheeks. TheWarden muttered something under her breath—spellwords, with another biting current of magic in their wake. Merta sat down heavily on a bench by the window, seething but silent; I suspected that whatever magic working the Warden had just uttered had bound her to her seat.

But Mara…in that moment, with the Warden’s spellwork sizzling through the air, Mara became a soldier. She threw Gemma and me one quick look before dashing out of the room. Freyda gave a sharp cry and swooped down to her shoulder from the corridor’s rafters. Gareth ran out after her, followed by Ryder and Gentar, and Lord Alaster, and even Lady Leva.

“No, please, don’t follow her!” Gemma called out to our companions, but their curiosity was too tremendous, and soon I was racing down the hall to follow them, my heart thundering with new panic. Father, Gemma, and I had witnessed Mara’s transformation only once, early this past summer. It had been an accident, one I knew Gemma would forever feel guilty about. This time, maybe I could stop them all—or at least stop Gareth—before they saw Mara in her most vulnerable, most inhuman state.

But Mara was a sentinel, like my father. She was strong and quick, and whatever magic the Warden had woven into her as a child, binding her to the Mist as a shieldmaiden of the Order, made her stronger and quicker. Before she even set foot outside, she began to change: her strides longer, her clothes shredding as her body transformed. Feathers sprouted from her arms; her fingernails elongated into gleaming claws.

Once we were out in the trees, she grabbed weapons from a younger, fierce-eyed Rose standing ready: a quiver of arrows, a spear, a knife belt. She slung it all onto her new body and sprang into the air—part woman, part bird, part indefinable beast. Her limbs were long and muscled and gleaming, silky, as if she were some water creature bursting out of the sea. Scraps of her clothing drifted to theground like snowflakes as she tore into the air.

I finally caught up with the others, silently cursing both my aching body and Ryder for wearing me out so completely with our training.

“Look away,” I snapped at them, panting. “This isn’t for our eyes to see.”

Ryder, Lady Leva, Gentar, and Lord Alaster all obeyed almost at once, and even Lord Alaster had the grace to look abashed. But Gareth stood there gazing up at the transforming Roses like a child marveling at his first rainbow, his face open and soft with awe.

As she flew, Mara called out to the dozen other Roses hurrying to join her, all of them in various stages of transformation. They grabbed weapons from the young ones and leaped into the air after Mara. She shouted back at them in a trilling sort of language, and they darted into formation behind her—their familiars flying with them or else darting along below on paws and hooves—and then they were gone. The Mist swallowed them whole; a thunderous silence fell over us in their wake.

I grabbed Gareth’s arm and spun him around to face me, so furious with him I could barely speak. “I told you not to look at her!”

“I know, but…” He shook his head helplessly, and I was shocked to see that his eyes were bright with unshed tears. He had a small, wondering smile on his face, and he turned back to the Mist, as if the Roses would come bursting back toward us at any moment. “Gods remade, Farrin,” he whispered. He wiped his face with his sleeve. “She’s magnificent. I’ve heard the stories, of course, of Roses in battle—fierce and splendid, like something out of Olden tales—but to actually witness it for myself…” He turned back to me, dazed. “Mara.Mara.I’ve never seen a more beautiful woman in my entire life. Will you introduce me when they return?”

I almost slapped him. “Get hold of yourself. What’s wrong with you?”

Behind me, Gemma’s voice came sharply. “Will you not go withthem? Do you never fight alongside the women you’ve imprisoned?”

I whirled and saw Gemma standing near the Warden with clenched fists, her eyes glittering with everything I felt: pride for Mara, and terror for her, and awful, desolate despair. It was torment to see Mara surrounded by these sisters who were neither Gemma nor me, and to be reminded yet again of how far she was from us, of how unfair it was for these girls to be taken from their families to be raised in this awful, dank place shrouded in the shadows of the Mist.

The Warden towered over Gemma, tall and fearsome in that square-shouldered black gown—but there was a quiet sadness there, too, in the lines of her face. She looked drained, defeated, and I wondered if sending the Roses away to battle took something from her, another freshly cut piece every time.

“My Roses have been well trained,” was all she said in reply.

Father, standing in the shadows by the door, turned away and dragged a hand through his hair.

I couldn’t bear the awful quiet. If I didn’t say something, the cannon of anger in my chest would ignite and shoot someone, most likely Gareth. That moony look on his face made me want to scream.

---