Page 56 of A Song of Ash and Moonlight

Heart in my throat, I quickly looked over the portraits. There was young Dornen Lerrick, and not far from him were two handsome men—one with pale skin, one with brown—wearing fine robes and beautiful smiles. I wondered if they were Lords Wynn and Moris from the village of Devenmere.

And then, after a few more portraits—a gangly young man, an elderly woman, a grinning, ruddy-cheeked farmer—was Alastrina.

Whoever had commissioned this portrait clearly viewed Alastrinawith reverent awe. The portrait had been done in charcoal, all black except for her pale skin and the blue pinpricks of her eyes. Her expression was mischievous, haughty, and her gown and hair were bursting with black feathers.

I looked for Ryder, part of me hoping he hadn’t seen it, but of course he had. He stood very near me, staring hard at the portrait with an unreadable expression.

Suddenly all my wild speculation about the shining boy seemed foolish, even outrageous. Ryder was not some phantom of my childhood; he was a man who had lost his sister, a man trying very hard not to let his grief consume him.

I reached for him. “Ryder…”

He grabbed my hand, squeezed it, then released me. “Not right now. This way.”

He pushed his way gently through the crowd, clearing a path for us, but when we reached the gates, I felt the pointlessness of what I would say even before I opened my mouth. On the other side stood ten stone-faced guards. One of them recognized me—I saw it flash across her face—but when she whispered something to one of the other guards, the response was a firm shake of his head. The first guard glanced at me with apology, then fell back into line, her expression returning to its previous watchful blandness.

I tried anyway. “Excuse me,” I said, shouting to be heard over the clamor, “I’m Farrin Ashbourne, a friend of the queen’s. I’d like to see her, please. She’s always happy to—”

“We know who are you, Lady Farrin,” said the most senior guard, a broad man with dark brown skin and a red sash across his uniform. “But our orders are to let no one through these gates. Not even you.”

The specificity of the orders startled me. “You were told to look out for me?”

The guard nodded. “By Lord Thirsk himself. His instructions were clear.”

Thirsk, Yvaine’s principal adviser. My shock left me speechless.

“However,” the guard added, not unkindly, “I’m certain that if you sent the queen a letter, she would be glad to hear from you.”

“Yes, I’m sure she would,” I said drily before turning away. If Thirsk didn’t want me to see Yvaine, I doubted he would allow my letters through either.

We regrouped at the edge of the protesters, not far from Alastrina’s portrait and shrine.

“What should we do now?” Ryder asked. He glanced only once at Alastrina’s portrait, his shoulders tense, his hands in fists.

“The question is,” I said, “has Thirsk decided on his own to keep us out of the Citadel, or has the queen requested it?”

“It is absolutelynotYvaine’s doing,” Gemma said. “It can’t be. She loves you, Farrin, and considering everything she said last time we were here about how all of us are important to whatever’s happening—”

Suddenly Talan spoke. He wore his glamour again—the mild-mannered, bespectacled man of fifty—and it was as strange as ever to hear his smooth, familiar voice coming out of a stranger’s face.

“I can get you inside,” he said quietly, “if you can take me somewhere less crowded, where there might be fewer guards.”

I met Ryder’s eyes at once. “The gardens near my music room,” I said. He nodded in agreement. “There’s ward magic there,” I went on, “but it’s designed to admit me, at least. Unless it’s been altered, though hopefully Thirsk’s influence doesn’t reach that far. And with everyone so distracted by the sinkhole, the protests, Yvaine’s illness—”

“Maybe the ward magic is unstable enough right now to admit me too,” Talan finished, nodding. None of us remarked on the darker side of that hope: if the ward magic was unstable, that would leave the Citadel even more alarmingly vulnerable.

Gemma grabbed Talan’s arm. “Wait a moment. What if Kilraith was the one to make the sinkhole? What if its existence gives him a sort of foothold here? You’ve evaded him thus far, but could using your power so close to a magical aberration of that size draw him to you?”

Talan folded her hand into his and gave her a small smile. “Not if I’m careful and quick.” He glanced at me. “Farrin?”

I swallowed my doubts, trying not to meet Gemma’s worried gaze. “This way.”

***

The western gates were far less crowded. Through them, I could see the sprawling gardens that abutted my music room. They were not so grand as those outside the Pearl of the Sea Ballroom; they were smaller, humbler, with far fewer sparkling fountains and elaborately pruned topiaries.

A small crowd of protesters had gathered at the gates, but though they shouted the same complaints as the others—where was the queen, what was she doing to protect us and recover those who were lost?—the mood here felt much less volatile. Ryder and Gemma lingered at the crowd’s edge as Talan and I approached the gates. I held my breath, fluttery with apprehension. Talan was one of the greater demons—a descendant of both the goddess Zelphenia and the god Jaetris—and therefore possessed tremendous powers of both the mind and deception. He could disguise himself, sense others’ moods and alter them, and convince them that the truth was a lie, that a lie was the truth. I hoped his power wouldn’t attract Kilraith to him like a fly to honey.

“Good afternoon,” Talan said cheerfully to the five guards keeping watch beyond the gates, his appearance that of the innocuous bespectacled man. “I wonder if you could help me with something?”

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