Page 73 of A Song of Ash and Moonlight

Gemma’s quiet voice cut across the room, silencing us all. She sat on a midnight-blue divan beside Talan, who took her hand. She grabbed on to him, held on tight.

The woman, Philippa—I refused to call herMotherorKerezen, even in my own mind—lowered her head in a single sad nod. “I left when it became clear to me that something was wrong. I first became conscious of the signs when you were born, my darling. The last of my daughters, remarkable right from the start, though I know that extraordinary nature has been more a burden to you than a blessing.”

I was already losing my patience; the swift blow of Gemma’s question had cut me to the quick, destroying the fragile calm Ryder’s strength had brought me.

“Speak plainly,” I snapped. “Not in riddles or pretty language. We deserve an explanation. A proper, simple attempt to convince us you’re not lying. Because right now, I’m just wishing I could hit you again.”

Philippa raised her eyebrows, her eyes sparkling a little. “Ah, but if you did, though it would hurt me, as it did the first time, my wounds would soon heal, as you saw with your own eyes.” Then her smile faded. “You’re right though. I should get on with it. It is difficult to explain such a complicated story. But I shall try.”

She took a breath, closed her eyes, then opened them. Shock startled the anger right out of me; her blue eyes were now fully changed—a lambent gold, like Freyda’s.

“I was born Philippa Wren, but when I emerged from my mother’s womb, a kernel of greater life ignited deep inside me, unknown to me. I don’t know why I chose this body, this particular woman, to bring me back into the world. I was dead for so long, and then I wasn’t.” She shrugged. “Not even we gods know the whys of our choices.”

Suddenly, my frustrated comment about Ryndar from two daysbefore seemed eerily prescient. Gareth must have thought the same; his eyes cut to mine.

“Ryndar sent you back,” he suggested. “The Great Dominion.”

“The land beyond life and death.” Philippa nodded thoughtfully. “Perhaps. There are certainly forces more powerful than even I was at the apex of my godly glory. But whatever the reason, back I came. At first I didn’t understand what I truly was. I was simply Philippa Wren. I grew up in Gallinor’s southern heartlands, as had every generation of my family before me. In my blood ran the magic of Caiathos, god of the earth. I was an elemental, blessed with low magic. I could manipulate plants and flowers. I could coax life into dried-out husks of leaves and stems, urge them to grow faster. My power was limited but sweet. And when I was grown, I met Gideon Ashbourne, and he, mighty Anointed sentinel that he was, thought me sweet too.”

A distant smile played at her lips. “We had daughters. One a savant with a voice clear and brilliant as starlight.” She glanced at me, the affection on her face soft, terrible. I made myself glare back at her, my heart thundering painfully.

“One,” she went on, turning to Mara, who sat on a plain bench by the door, hands clasped tightly in her lap, “a sentinel like her father, with strength and agility we both knew would someday surpass his. And one”—she looked at Gemma, her expression stricken—“with abilities neither of her parents understood. Unpredictable and frightening, or so I thought at the time. The power of glamoursandthe power of elemental magic, warring for dominance in one little girl’s body. An impossibility. But my mind was still fully human then. I didn’t understand what was happening to either of us. Forgive me, Gemma. An impossible ask, I know. What we did to you—hiring that artificer, requesting that he alter you, stifle your power, sew you up tight—it was what we thought best at the time, but now I see it for the evil act it truly was.”

The sadness in her voice, the regret, was painful to hear, sincere enough to make my eyes burn with emotion. But I didn’t trust it, and the stricken look on Gemma’s face stoked a sudden raging fire in my chest. I stood, ready to fly at Philippa even though I had no weapons in hand.

“How dare you mention that right now,” I said quietly. “How dare you try to make us pity you—”

“It’s all right, Farrin.” Gemma’s voice cut me off, a quick slash of steel. “It’s my body she’s talking about. If I wish for her to stop, I’ll ask her to.”

Abashed, I returned to my seat. I put my hands flat on my thighs, feeling wild and helpless, my anger churning fast with nowhere to go. Without thinking, I looked to Ryder. He nodded once, his gaze steady.Breathe, Farrin, his grave expression seemed to say.I’m here. I understand.

I did breathe, holding for a beat after each inhale, each exhale. A sliver of calm returned to me. I wiped my sweaty palms on my dress.

“What I didn’t know then,” Philippa continued, “was that the things I was experiencing—the sleepless nights, the voices whispering to me of strange songs, beautiful other worlds—was my godly self, the twin life within me, stretching her limbs. Growing, taking her first breaths. My human body had been born with a god-seed inside it, resurrected after centuries of darkness. And now that seed was opening.” She looked once more to Gemma; her next words were heavy with regret. “That is why, daughter, your power is twofold—power of the senses, power of the elements. You can weave glamours. You can tear trees from the earth. When you were small, you choked on flowers. You are a creature of conflict because when I birthed you, I too was in conflict of the deepest kind, though I didn’t yet understand why.”

“And Farrin and I…” Mara said, after a moment. “Our abilities areless conflicted because when we were born, you were more woman than god.”

Philippa nodded, smiling warmly. Mara’s astute observation had pleased her. “And when Gemma was born, I was becoming more god than woman. Though it would be years before I understood that, and years more before I understood that I must leave you. To protect you. To protect myself, and everyone else too.”

I scoffed at that. My mind struggled with too many emotions, too many unthinkable questions. I couldn’t even look at Mara; that she was so calmly putting together the pieces of this woman’s wild tale felt like a betrayal of the worst kind.

“You left us toprotectus?” I spat. “Parents don’t protect their children by abandoning them to grief and confusion. You insult us by saying otherwise.”

But Philippa seemed unbothered by the anger in my voice and continued her story. “Sitting beside Gemma while the artificer changed her body was the first great blow to my heart. I’d thought it was the right thing to do, and yet as my daughter screamed and twisted under his magic, I knew I’d been wrong, that Gideon had too. But it was too late, and that knowledge shattered a piece of my human heart, making room for the godly one to take its place. Then,” she said, looking at me, “there was the fire.”

I stiffened; my mouth went dry. Ryder shifted where he stood, his shoulders square with ready anger.

“My home was destroyed by our enemies,” Philippa said. “All that beauty, the safety of those halls and rooms, every sprig of greenery coaxed to life by my fingers: gone. And my daughter, my eldest, my songbird, was nearly taken by the flames. There was a whole hour, Farrin, when we thought you had died. Searching the black grounds, the acrid smell of smoke—that was the second blow to my heart. I was two-thirds a god after that, and only one-third a human woman.”

I went cold, remembering that night. So many moments of those long dark hours had been seared into my mind, shaping me—the screaming wallpaper peeling away from the walls, the shining boy leaning over me in the damp grass—and then, abruptly, even memories I’d buried resurfaced: my mother on her knees in the grass, staring at Ivyhill in grief and fury as it burned. I remembered the wicked smile she’d worn, how her whole body had blazed as if some ageless fire had been lit within it.

A pit opened in my stomach. I wanted desperately not to believe her, and yet it made a sudden, perfect sense. That night, my mother had changed; a piece of her had died, and a piece of a god had found new life. I’d seen it with my own eyes, though neither of us had truly known what was happening.

Philippa’s gaze hardened, slid over to Ryder. She looked him up and down appraisingly. “Trapping the Basks in their forest was a balm to my grief, helped soothe my anger. How foolish I was, and Gideon too. How childish. But you and your parents and your sister—Alaster, Enid, Alastrina—you were all the same. Held in thrall like worms on a hook, just as we were.”

She glanced at Talan, and a flash of confused pity crossed her face. “Poor demon,” she said quietly. “Something terrible was done to you too, was it not?”

I shivered. That cutting stare, calm and still, fixed on Talan as if Philippa could peel away the layers of his very self to discover everything he had ever known.

---