Page 51 of A Song of Ash and Moonlight

Then Ryder crooned to Jet again, something that sounded so tender that I had to look away. It was too dear, seeing him like this, with this wild, unkempt horse pressing his face against him, and then there was the incongruity of such gentleness belonging to such a towering, fearsome body. My own body roiled, as did my mind, my questions too muddled and my need too searing to contend with at the moment. I was glad when we left the paddock behind and continued on our walk, though for the remainder of it, I didn’t look at Ryder. I couldn’t, nor could I speak to him. I was too enmeshed in my own confusion, my own bewildered fantasies. After all, I knew very well what it felt like to be sheltered against the muscled mass of Ryder’s body—a feeling of safety and peace, of simple belonging, that I couldn’t seem to put out of my mind, no matter how hard I tried.

***

It was a relief to return to the house, even if that meant shutting ourselves up in Gemma’s study to hear what Talan had to say.

Before he even began to speak, I could tell his report would be grave. He was thinner and paler than he had been during his last visit, with shadows under his eyes and a brittle quality to his countenance, as if whatever he’d learned had changed the very essence of him. I tried not to feel irritated that even so, he was still as beautiful as he’d ever been, with the same sculpted cheekbones, the same great dark eyes, the same full lips. Gemma had brought him fresh clothes, and even as exhausted as he clearly was, the simple dark trousers and plain white shirt looked elegant on his tall, slender body, fine enough to be worn to a formal gathering.

“The first thing I’ll say,” he began, his voice soft and solemn, “is that whatever’s happening to the Mist is not unique to Gallinor. The other rifts are changing too. In Vauzanne, the Crescent of Storms is growing. Whatever ancient magic has until now kept its stormsseparate from the rest of the continent is unraveling, and now those storms are bleeding into the surrounding landscape. And in Aidurra, something similar is happening. The Knotwood is growing beyond its traditional borders, uprooting settlements and consuming ordinary woodlands like weeds overtaking a garden.”

He paused, took a breath. The echo of the crown shimmered like faint fingers of lightning across his brow and temples, punctuated by three thumbprint scars in the shape of the crown’s three golden jewels. Gemma’s left hand echoed these scars, a web of gleaming lines that she hid under neither glamour nor glove while alone with the three of us. Sitting beside him, she reached over to take his pale hand in her scarred one. The sight stirred something in me; irritated, aching, I looked away, focusing instead on the swirling green-and-ivory pattern of the carpet until I managed to find my voice.

“We’ve learned recently that the Warden has worked binding magic on those living in the Mistlands,” I said, “magic that prevents them from sharing the true state of the Mist with others.”

Talan nodded. “It seems that the Wardens of the Knotwood and the Crescent have done something similar. The information I learned came in pieces, either through disjointed speculation or from people who clearly wanted to say more but couldn’t.”

“And have there been Anointed magicians abducted from the other continents as well?” Ryder asked. He stood quietly by the fire, a plate at his elbow on the mantel; his lunch was untouched.

“Yes, at least five in Aidurra, at least seven in Vauzanne. But the numbers could be higher. Since I cannot speak to their Wardens or to the queen, I can’t be certain.”

“We must go to her at once,” Gemma said. I felt her eyes on me and kept my own trained on the floor. “Propose the draft. No,demandit.”

I did look up at her then, a swift, cutting glare.

“I don’t like it any more than you do,” she replied before I couldprotest, “but not only would that add to the Order’s numbers, thereby strengthening our defenses at the Mist and offering further protection to the north, it would reassure the people. Their queen is acting. Their queen is unafraid.”

“Or it would make them riot in the streets,” Ryder said grimly. “I doubt the people of Gallinor want their daughters, mothers, and sisters taken from their beds.”

The memory of little Mara, sitting bravely beside the Warden as the black carriage bearing the Order’s sigil took her away from us, came with a swift stab to my heart.

Desperate to change the subject, I said sharply, “What about Kilraith?”

A coldness seemed to slither through the room at the mere mention of his name.

“I haven’t encountered him,” answered Talan after a moment, his voice carefully soft, as if he feared that speaking any louder might summon Kilraith into the room. “Nor have I met any other demons, or any creatures at all, that are bound to his service as I was.”

Ryder looked hard at him. “It’s not as though his servants wear brands or carry brightly colored banners.”

“I would feel it, if someone or something were bound to him. I’d feel it like a chill in winter. His are chains you can never fully be free of. I wear their echoes on my skin.”

A beat, and then Talan let out a soft laugh into the uneasy quiet. He scrubbed his hands over his face. “Sorry. That was ominous. But it’s true nonetheless. I would recognize a fellow bound servant of Kilraith. I would taste the same magic that once imprisoned me, feel the same weight pulling at the air around me. And in none of my travels thus far have I found anyone like me or picked up any scent of him. He’s gone underground since we fought him. Sinceyoufought him.”

Gemma scooted closer to him, squeezed his hand. “You werethere too, darling. You fought him just as hard as we did, if not harder. Remember, those awful words you uttered were not yours. They werehis. And without you fighting him from within, we might not have been able to defeat him from without.”

Talan turned toward her and pressed his brow to hers. He closed his sad, dark eyes while she kept a close watch over him with her bright blue ones, and I got the sense that he was breathing in the scent of her, letting it cleanse him.

“And there’s another thing,” Talan said after a moment. He opened his eyes and faced us. “I’ve found…something. I don’t know what it is. A forest in the far north, a place of perhaps twenty square miles, bound by magic I can’t penetrate. It’s dense and wild, very difficult to find. It’s like…” He frowned, thinking. “I think if I were less powerful, or if I had no magic at all, I’d be able to walk right through it and not feel or see anything out of the ordinary. But thereissomething there. A secret forest within an everyday one.”

“And your demon blood gives you the power to detect it?” Ryder asked.

My own blood ran cold as a horrible thought occurred to me. “You’re thinking Kilraith could be there,” I said quietly. “What you felt there is what you described. An echo of his chains on your skin.”

Talan nodded, looking grimly resolute. “I could be misinterpreting the feeling, of course, but I can’t ignore whatever it is Ididfeel. He could be there, or something else could be. Something that belongs to him.”

“The abducted Anointed,” Ryder muttered, his eyes glinting in the firelight.

“Or it could be a hidden weapon.”

“Or an army,” Gemma whispered.

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