Page 67 of A Song of Ash and Moonlight

The thought was amusing enough to distract me from the doubt creeping in at the edges of my mind.Ryder just pities you, that’s all. That wasn’tactuallysex; it doesn’t count. It was a fluke; you won’t manage this again. You’re as cold and strange as everyone thinks you are. Keep singing. Maybe that will help ease his disappointment.

I fought the wicked thoughts hard, sent a silent apology to Mara for taking over our room for the night, and turned into Ryder’s body, hiding my face against his chest. He understood the silent request and held me just as I’d hoped he would, kissed my brow, rearranged the quilt to ensure I was properly covered. My unfinished song hung in the air, but Ryder didn’t seem to mind. He hummed a little, a deep, satisfied sound. Primal, contented. I smiled into his jacket and let his caresses lull me to sleep.

***

The next morning, we left Vallenvoren after purchasing horses from a trader who owned several stables along the oft-traveled road north to the Altivar Cloisters. Ryder spoke to each of them before we got underway—four tired geldings and two soft-eyed mares, all of them shaggy and stocky, good mountain horses far more used to this lonesome part of the world than even Ryder was.

I tried not to pay too close attention to him as he went to each of the horses in turn, his deep voice murmuring in some bestial languageI was too distracted to remember the name of. I kept thinking about the night before, images and sensations returning to me in waves—Ryder’s hands on me,inme, his lips blazing a hot path across my skin, my body twisting in his careful, firm grip.

I turned away from the group, stroked the thick brown mane of the gelding nearest me, whom Ryder had already visited and who now stood with his old ears perked up and his eyes alight with new excitement as he watched Ryder walk through the clearing. I knew the feeling. I touched my lips, smiling to myself. If I closed my eyes, I could feel it all over again: the bed, Ryder’s arms, the unthinkable pleasure of coming apart under his touch…

Suddenly Gareth appeared beside me, under the guise of loading the gelding’s saddlebags with supplies. But I saw the look on his face and felt all the goodness of the previous night flood out of me on a tide of embarrassment.

“So,” he said, grinning, his glamoured eyes sparkling behind his glasses, “I heard there was some excitement last night.”

I shot him a withering glare. “I’m surprised you’ve managed to pay attention to anything besides your dreadful fixation on my sister.”

His smile faded. He looked sheepishly at the dirt. “I’m sorry about that. Truly I am. I apologized to Mara too, and to the others. I don’t know what came over me.” He ran a hand through his hair and glanced over his shoulder, perhaps searching for Mara, then looked back at me with an expression of genuine regret. “Really, Farrin. I’m a scoundrel in many ways, I know, but I’m not a fool, and I have the utmost respect for Mara and for the Order. But I can’t help but be fascinated by their existence. They’re an impossibility, a marvel in an otherwise mundane world. And the way Mara transformed that day at the priory—fearless, unflinching. The sheer power of her as she called to her sisters and went tearing off into the Mist to face gods knew what…”

“You’re not doing much to convince me of your remorse,” I remarked drily.

He shook himself a little. “No, you’re right. It doesn’t matter that they fascinate me. They’re people, real people who deserve respect, no matter their extraordinary abilities.”

He’d stopped packing the supplies, too distracted by his own nonsense to continue working, I supposed. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at him. He was being sincere enough, but he’d interrupted my daydreaming, and I felt strangely guilty being this close to him with the memory of Ryder’s kisses so near. I picked up where he’d left off, shoving wrapped food into the saddlebag.

“The day you actually start showing women respect,” I said irritably, “not individual women you actually care about, mind you, like Heldine and me, but all women, no matter who they are—that’ll be a day to remember. Or else a sign that I’ve died and stumbled into a fever dream on the way to Ryndar.”

Gareth looked at me curiously, apparently unperturbed by my harsh words. “I haven’t heard you speak of Ryndar in quite some time.”

Ryndar: the land beyond life and death, where the gods were born. A realm made of pure aelum, the basis of all magical life, and sinaelum,the basis of all life without magic. Otherwise known as the Great Dominion, where many people of Edyn believed they would go after death—to either join the gods in whatever new forms they’d taken, or to return to the worlds of the living as new beings, reborn and remade.

Now I rolled my eyes at myself. “You know, one of the most annoying things about being your friend,” I said, “is the fact that every time I even think of something about the arcana, my mind can’t help but recite all the relevant facts. It’s like you’ve trained me over the years as you would one of your students.”

“You’re welcome,” he said cheerfully, then watched me work for a moment longer before stopping me with a gentle hand on my arm.

“Did you really go to bed with Ryder?” he asked. His voice was softer now, tender in a way I hadn’t heard him speak in a long time.

I made myself look at him, my chin jutting out in defiance even as my cheeks burned. “I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

“It’s not,” he conceded, “except that you’re my friend, and I want you to be careful. I know you’re not…” He paused, glanced around, lowered his voice. “I know you’re not experienced in such things. Do you have medicine with you to protect yourself from pregnancy? Does he?”

The questions made images flash through my mind—Ryder and me, naked bodies, legs and arms entwined. I shoved the images away hard. They were half formed, anyway; it had been a long time since I’d looked at my naked body, and when I tried to recreate it in my mind, the shape was blurry, formless. What a child I was, unable to stomach even looking at myself in the mirror. The doubts from the previous night crept back into my thoughts.Ryder just pities you, that’s all.

You’re as cold and strange as everyone thinks you are.

“Don’t trouble yourself about me,” I snapped. “We didn’t actually have sex. We did other things, and I sang for him, and it was wonderful. I felt lovely for once, and wanted, and afterward, I fell asleep in his arms, and when I woke up, he was gone, and all of you were still down in the tavern, I suppose, and there was a little plate on the bedside table with a sandwich wrapped in a napkin. It was the sweetest, most wonderful night of my life, but now I’m doubting every moment of it. How stupid he must have thought I was, to not want actual sex and instead just want…”

I waved dismissively at the saddlebag, then resumed fumbling with one of the straps. I couldn’t figure out how to buckle the horrible thing and tried three times before giving up and realizing, with quiet horror, that I was crying.

“Hey, hey,” Gareth said quietly, coming around to shield me fromthe others’ view. “First of all, sex encompasses many acts of love, not just the one you’re thinking of. And secondly, you’re not stupid, and I know for a fact that Ryder didn’t think that of you.”

“For a fact?” I glared at him through my tears. “Have you spoken to him about it? Did you ask Talan to probe him for information?”

“All right, not for a fact, then. But as a man, and as someone who knows you—and who in fact made love with you once upon a time, albeit disastrously—I can assert with great confidence that Ryder Bask does not think you stupid, or undesirable, or disappointing in any way.”

Gareth pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and gave it to me. I wiped my face, desperately hoping no one else had noticed my distress. From behind me came the sounds of the others mounting their horses, the clatter of coins as Gemma—glamoured, as we all were—paid the trader.

I couldn’t help my next question, though the setting was the furthest thing from appropriate. “When we…” I trailed off, tried again. “When we had sex all those years ago, it wasn’t bad because of me, was it?”

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