Page 53 of A Song of Ash and Moonlight

“At least your anger was righteous. Mine was childish.”

“No. You’re right to keep reminding me of that day. Trina and I were fools, and it’s good to remember it. The more we remember, the less likely we are to do it again.” He paused, then gave me a small, rueful smile. “No matter how badly our parents may want us to.”

I laughed, so relieved that I felt shaky at the knees. Then Ryder came closer and held me, carefully, giving me time, perhaps, to pull away. But I could think of nothing more awful than pulling away from him, nothing more wonderful than his touch. I closed my eyes, letting myself sink into the strength of him, relishing the solid warmth of his embrace, the impossible sweetness of his head bending over mine. And again came that stitch of familiar feeling in my breast. It felt right, to be enveloped within the shield of his arms. It felt like returning to a place I’d known and missed, terribly.

In this moment of stillness, I was finally able to put a name to the sensation, and my eyes snapped open with sudden shock.

The shining boy. My heart pounding, I summoned his memory:pale skin, messy dark hair, taller than me, and, it had seemed, a few years older too. And Ryder had pale skin and dark hair, and Ryder was twenty-eight years old to my twenty-four. The shining boy had held me as we dashed out of my burning house. He’d carried me through the flames to safety. And here was Ryder, now, holding me, and only the night before, when he’d lifted me into his arms, I’d felt the same pull of belonging, the same ache.

Then Ryder was kissing my hair and releasing me, and I watched him hurry down the stairs and stride outside—to visit Jet, I assumed, and get his fill of the horses before the morning. I watched him through the stained-glass windows as he marched swiftly across the lawn, which our elemental groundskeepers were magicking a glittering gold in honor of the coming autumn. His coat snapped in the cool breeze; his hair whipped around his face, dark and wild as the animals he so loved.

Absently, I touched my hot cheeks, feathering my fingers across my skin. In Ryder’s absence, reason returned to me. I shook myself, leaning hard on the banister. Ryder, the shining boy? Alone on the landing, I nearly burst out laughing. The idea was preposterous. Worse than that, it made me doubt my own sanity. I could hear Gareth’s gently teasing voice even now.Darling, just because you’ve been held by only two men in your life besides me and your father doesn’t mean that those two men are in fact the same man. Especially when one of them might not ever have existed! Don’t look at me like that. I believe you, I always have, but we’ve got to at least acknowledge the possibility that that boy was a hallucination. You were three breaths from death, after all. Come on, now, let’s get you to bed. Clearly you need some sleep. I know, I’m being an ass. I don’t deserve you, really.

I rubbed my forehead hard, as if I could physically force my buzzing mind to fall silent, and gazed after Ryder until I felt eyes on me from below. I searched the room, the landings, and froze.

Father was there, halfway up the other set of stairs across the hall. He wore his training clothes and had a towel slung around his neck, and even from where I stood, I could feel the anger radiating off of him as he glared at me. His face was red from exertion and his hair was damp with sweat; he was fully alert, his sentinel power stoked by his exercises, and his eyes flashed. I knew what he would say. Training with Ryder was one thing, though it was hard to tolerate, but beingheldby him? And so tenderly?

I looked right back at him, coolly, though my heart was suddenly racing, and walked away before he could beckon me over. Once I was in my rooms, I shut the door, locked it, and sank slowly to the floor. Osmund trotted over with a chirp, and I welcomed him gladly. I tried not to think about how frightened I was of my own father, or about the sinking fear that he would never accept Ryder, never accept any of them. He would fight peace until the end of his days and die an angry old man. The thought made me terribly sad, terribly angry, and expanded ferociously until I had an awful headache and could think of nothing else. I held Osmund against my chest, pressed my face between his sweet silken ears, and let him purr my weary heart to something like calm.

***

My calm didn’t last. When Gemma, Ryder, Talan, and I arrived in Fairhaven the next morning, I knew at once that something was wrong. We stepped out of the greenway that began in the game park at Ivyhill and ended in one of the city parks abutting the university, and even there among the stately trees and the rolling lawns of gold-tipped autumn grass, the air thrummed with panic.

I saw the smoke first: a long black furl twisting up into the sky from somewhere in the city’s central district.

“Is it coming from the Citadel?” Gemma murmured.

No one knew the answer. We glanced at each other. The sight of Talan in disguise beneath a glamour that made him look like a mild-mannered, pale man of fifty, well-dressed and bespectacled, left me uneasy, even though I knew it was for our safety as well as his.

Talan shook his head at my unasked question. “I don’t sense Kilraith anywhere nearby.”

But I was not reassured, especially when we reached the university. Its buildings of pale brick were as stately as ever, capped with bell towers and clock towers and godly sculptures reaching toward the skies, but its broad, sunny streets were quiet, the air tense. Students and professors and groundskeepers were everywhere in their spotless robes and dirt-smudged coats, huddled in urgently whispering groups or walking quickly, eyes down, expressions grim. They held books in their arms, rakes in their hands; everything was ordinary at first glance. But the undercurrent of unrest was obvious, the air tight and hushed. I kept glancing fearfully at the curl of smoke, as if it were some sky beast that might launch itself at us without warning.

We hurried into the main library and up the stairs to Gareth’s office, and we’d barely reached the landing outside his door when it flew open to reveal his assistant, Heldine. She looked as prim and sour as ever, which comforted me; I’d always appreciated how no-nonsense and unpleasant she was, especially since it meant Gareth would never be tempted to flirt with her. I’d held his hand through the aftermath of many a horrible romantic mistake, but breaking the heart of a woman in his employ would be a difficult scandal for me to abide.

“Well, hurry inside, won’t you?” Heldine snapped, waving us past her and into Gareth’s private study. Bookshelves covered every wall, sagging with the weight of far too many volumes crammed onto them in haphazard piles. As soon as we entered, Gareth jumped up from his desk and ushered us inside.

“All the doors are locked?” he asked Heldine breathlessly.

Instead of looking annoyed at the implication that she hadn’t done her job properly—which I fully expected her to do—Heldine only nodded briskly. “Yes, Professor. And I’ll put the outer wards back in place at once.”

“Good, good. And the—”

“Yes, and the inner wards too.”

“Excellent. Thank you, Heldine.”

Then Gareth shut the door in her face and spun around to face us. His face lit up with excitement. “Follow me. I’ve got something marvelous to show you. But I don’t keep it in here, of course. You get all sorts of passages commissioned for you once you’re a seated professor. It’s reallyquitefun, in addition to being practical and necessary.”

I grabbed his sleeve before he could dash away. “Hold on a minute,” I said, exasperated. “What’s going on here? Why is everyone acting so odd? And the smoke—”

Gareth nodded gravely. “Yes, the smoke. Well, that’s part of what I want to show you. You see, since the abductions”—he threw a sympathetic look at Ryder and clapped a hand on his back, at which Ryder grunted in wordless appreciation—“there’s been a good bit of unrest in the capital, as you might imagine. Nothing too turbulent, not yet, but everyone wants to know what’s going on, of course, and what the Upper and Lower Armies are going to do about it, and what thequeen’sgoing to do about it, and, well…”

Then he looked at me carefully, and I thought I knew what he was going to say. My heart sank.

“She hasn’t shown herself, has she?” I said quietly. “She’s been locked up in the Citadel?”

Gareth nodded. “Unfortunately, yes, which makes me suspect that whatever sickness ails her has grown worse. Some have gathered at the Citadel gates to protest the silence of the queen and the Senate, the perceived lack of action, and I don’t blame them. They’ve beenlighting fires, camping out at the gates, marching along the promenade surrounding the Citadel. Nothing. The gates remain closed, no one knows if the Senate’s in session, and the queen hasn’t been seen for weeks. Butsomething’shappening in the Citadel, whether it relates to the sinkhole or the queen or something else entirely, because look at this.”

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