Page 80 of A Song of Ash and Moonlight

The feather, pressed against my torso, suddenly felt like a brand on my skin.

I shoved back from the table and stood. “Don’t look at me like that. I am not your little bird.”

She smiled, her eyes glazed with memory. “Do you remember the first concert you gave at Ivyhill? I do. Merrida Jan-Tokka’sSonata for an Autumn Morning. What a gorgeous piece of music, though no one had ever played it as beautifully as you. And do you remember what I said to you afterward?”

Of course I did, though I hadn’t thought of it since arriving at Wardwell. It was one of many memories of my happy childhood that I had tried in vain to forget, for every recollection brought with it a twist of pain.

“Your music, little bird…” Philippa whispered, remembering.

“Will give the gods new life,” I finished. A chill swept lightly across my skin. “Did…did I…”

Philippa laughed. “Did you resurrect me? No, darling, though don’t you see? Even then, before the great changes began in me, part of me knew exactly who and what I was. And therefore part of me knew who and what you and your sisters were too: daughters of a goddess and a very human, very frustrating man.”

That last remark left me burning with fresh anger. “Don’t speak of him,” I whispered. “Don’t you dare speak of him. You don’t know what your leaving did to him. You can’t imagine.”

It was as if she’d not heard me. She leaned across the table, herhands open to me, as if hoping I’d take the opportunity to grab on. “Stay here with me, my Farrin,” she said. “Convince the others that they must too. My Mara, my little Gemmy. If anyone can persuade them to stay, it’s you.”

“Absolutely not.”

“It’s safer here, don’t you see? Whatever’s going on out there in the world, it hasn’t touched Wardwell. It hasn’t touched me. Here, I can protect you. We can learn about your powers, all of us together. I can teach you what I’ve learned. In this sanctuary, we can truly become ourselves.”

“I couldn’t possibly—”

“Remember what you saw yesterday?” she interrupted. “Remember how you struck me, my strong, angry girl? Perhaps a human would have died from such a blow to the head, but I didn’t. I healed myself in an instant, right before your eyes. You saw it. Imagine being able to protect yourselves in such a way. It’s in you somewhere, all of you, latent but alive. You are the daughters of Kerezen and therefore demigods of the body, of the senses. Fighting and creating glamours and making music—these things you can already do. But there is more buried in your power, and I can help you find it.”

Her words shook me; they seemed to me cousins of Ankaret’s earlier warnings.War is coming, she had said.Do not fear your blood’s old power, Farrin of the gods.And yet I could see no guile on Philippa’s face, nothing that told me she had even the slightest idea what had happened to Ryder and me in the forest. My heart sank. Only then did I realize that part of me had been hoping the whole thinghadbeen some sort of game, some outrageous deception designed by Philippa as a punishment for breaking her jaw.

“You already spoke to the others, it seems, and they gave you their answer,” I said sharply, biting off each word as if my very teeth and tongue could conquer the fear roiling inside me. “Well, that’smy answer too. You may be able to stay here and ignore a world that needs you, but we cannot.”

I felt lightheaded with rage, tempted to pull the feather out of my dress and summon Ankaret to me right then and there, if such a thing were truly possible.Burn this woman, I would tell her.She is hateful, she is evil. Reduce her to ashes so I never have to hear her voice again.

Blinking back tears, I stepped away from the table. “We’re leaving in the morning. I trust that with all your many mighty powers, you’ll be able to devise a way to speak to us, or come to us, if you ever change your mind and decide to be useful. But I suspect you won’t. I think you’re too selfish to do anything you don’t want to do, even for the sake of those you love, much less to help innocent strangers. If the other gods are like you, I sincerely hope they’re still dead.”

With that, I turned and left her.

Ryder was awake when I returned to my room. He still lay on that ridiculous small couch, pretending to sleep, but I could hear the truth in his breathing.

“Ryder,” I said, crying. It was all I could say. I was so angry I could hardly breathe; my chest ached with too many memories, too many fears all fighting for air. He came to me at once, joined me in the bed. He held me close to him, his hands gentle in my hair, and we slept, the feather pressed between us, thrumming its strange, quiet heat against my skin.

Chapter 17

We returned to Ivyhill over the next few days, an excruciating journey south through forest and greenway. Ryder found the horses not far from where we’d left them, grazing contentedly in a scrubby mountain meadow, and we rode them back to Vallenvoren. I traveled in a sort of numbness, punctuated on occasion by seething jolts of anger. Philippa could have made our journey home shorter, easier—of this I was certain, as certain as I had reluctantly become of her godliness. I couldn’t stop thinking about her broken jaw snapping back into place, the horrific sound of it like a great branch breaking.

But she sent us from Wardwell without aid—a punishment, I assumed, for refusing to stay. As my sisters and I walked through the slippery curtain of the ward magic—Mara silent and grave, Gemma crying quietly, the men following shortly afterward—the disturbing thought occurred to me that Philippa could have forced us to stay. I supposed I should be grateful for her mercy, but instead I felt only resentment.

When at last we arrived at Ivyhill, we were without Mara, who had returned to Rosewarren. I hoped her absence had gone unnoticed by the harried Warden; to me, the loss of Mara after days spent in hercompany stuck in my throat, an ache that wouldn’t budge. I couldn’t imagine not knowing where she was every moment of every day, if we were ever lucky enough to once again live in the same place. But then, I loved Mara. What did the Warden feel for her Roses? Surely not love, or at least not the same kind. An instinctive possessiveness of the chicks in her care, perhaps. I didn’t think the Warden was capable of actual affection.

We’d all spoken on the way home, in those strange quiet days in the northern forest before we’d reached Vallenvoren, and Ryder and I had told the others of Ankaret. Gareth was eager to return to the university and his research—of Ankaret, of the concept of godly resurrection, of theytheliadand the Three-Eyed Crown. Gemma would go with him—eager, I think, to avoid Ivyhill and its memories in the wake of so much time spent with our mother—and Talan would return to his travels, now searching for rumors that might point to the existence of other gods come back to life.

Demigods. The word haunted me with every step I took, every breath I drew. What did it mean, for the blood of a god and the blood of a human to live in one being? Had such a thing ever happened before? Were there other demigods elsewhere in the world, born of humans and gods in human shells? Gods who were only just now awakening, as Philippa was?

The weight of my innumerable questions pressed down on my shoulders, making them ache. They would need to be answered, but who could we trust with such information? The Warden? Yvaine? Gareth’s many books?

I told myself that nothing could be done until I’d slept. From the steps of Ivyhill, our weapons and supplies heaped at my feet, I watched the others in the violet-tinged evening light. A chill breeze gusted across the drive, rustling the manicured lawn edged with golden autumn blooms. Gemma and Talan were saying a tearfulgoodbye at the mouth of the hedge maze. I was glad I couldn’t hear them; I didn’t think my brittle heart could bear the added weight of their sadness.

One of Ryder’s wilded ravens, tired and homesick, had found us on our journey south. It was one of the many he’d sent off in search of Alastrina, but it had brought him nothing—no news, no leads. I wouldn’t soon forget the sound of its mournful cries. Now Ryder was speaking to the creature, preparing it for a new mission: to be Talan’s companion, to guard and guide him as he roamed the world listening for gods. He held the raven in his cupped hands as if it were a treasure. I couldn’t hear his voice from where I stood, but I could imagine it—low and gentle, the rhythm of whatever bestial language he used like a cool wind rushing through dark trees.

Then I heard a quiet cough behind me—Gareth, clearing his throat. I turned to see him standing awkwardly in the entrance hall beside Gilroy, who worried his hands together. His bushy black eyebrows were furrowed in obvious distress. My stomach sank to see him in such a state. I knew before he said a word what it must have meant: something was wrong with my father.

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