Page 88 of A Song of Ash and Moonlight

“Tell me!” she said, tears streaming down her face, and yet that face was contorted in anger, in fear, and I couldn’t decipher its ugliness. But whatever she wanted of me, she was desperate for it. “What have you seen?” she cried. “You lie, you’re a liar! It’s impossible!”

All the magic she’d used to compel the others was now rushing right at me, pinning me to the floor, flattening me. The weight of it would crush my bones. I began to gag, choking on my own bile. In a flash of hope, I remembered Ankaret’s feather; I’d tucked it into my dress before coming to the dining hall, and now it flared hotly against my skin.Use me,it seemed to say.Call for help.But I was trapped under Yvaine and couldn’t move my arms to grab it.

Vaguely, I saw Ryder and Gareth trying to pull Yvaine off of me. Ryder had something in his hands, a vase or a pitcher. He brought it crashing down upon Yvaine’s shoulders, but that did nothing to deter her. She snarled over her shoulder at them and kept clawing at me, screaming at me. Other blurry shapes crowded into the room: advisers, guards, servants. Yvaine jerked her head at them and sent them all skidding away across the floor.

And then there was Gemma. Even as blackness crowded my vision, I could see her. Resplendent in her green gown, its copper patina gleaming, she flung her arms toward the far wall and then ripped them back toward us. Trees burst into the room, an explosion of autumn gold that shattered every window. Gnarled branches and great black roots snaked across the floor. I saw them out of thecorner of my eye, reached desperately for them. They belonged to my sister; my sister would save me. I was beginning to fade. I saw my arm, streaked with my own blood.

Then the trees were upon us, guided by Gemma’s sure hand. The roots grabbed Yvaine, tore her off of me, flung her across the room. I heard the sick crack of bone when she hit the wall, then screams of horror—her advisers, the terrified servants.

But all I knew in that moment was Gemma. She came to me and held me on the floor, cradling my bleeding body against hers. Her golden hair fell all around me, and the fabric of her dress was blessedly smooth and cool. I let her hold me, let my eyes fall closed.

“I’ve got you,” she told me, her voice thick with tears. “My brave Farrin. You’re all right. I’m here.”

As she whispered comforts to me, it occurred to me that I was extraordinarily lucky. I had Gemma, I had Gareth, I had Ryder. They were all here, and they had fought for me. I opened my eyes, though the pain of my body was beginning to bloom like fire—all the places Yvaine had clawed at me, the bones she’d smashed against the floor—and through the haze of that pain, I saw Ryder looming nearby, shielding Gemma and me from the rest of the room. I heard Gareth talking to the panicked advisers, trying to explain. The idea made me want to laugh; how could any of this possibly be explained?

Then, without warning, the room shook. Ryder stumbled, nearly losing his footing. Someone screamed; a wave of shouts crested sharply. Gemma gasped, and when I turned in her arms, I saw Yvaine tearing across the room, knocking aside quaking servants, even Thirsk in his black robes. She raced out the door with a sharp, frightened cry, and I called after her, my voice breaking.

“Farrin, you can’t,” Gemma said, trying to keep me still, but I fought her, my head reeling with pain.

“Something’s wrong downstairs,” I gasped out. “The roomshaking…that’s where she’s going. Wehaveto follow her. If the sinkhole…if she…” I couldn’t finish. There were too many terrible scenarios to imagine. I looked up, reaching for him with desperation. “Ryder?”

At once, he scooped me up into his arms. Then we were out the door, Gemma and Gareth right on our heels. A crowd surged around us. Servants ran for safety; Lady Goff shouted commands at the guards. Lord Thirsk’s panicked voice boomed distantly, giving an order to sound the lockdown alarms.

The path downstairs was strewn with bodies—guards, palace staff, anyone else who’d tried to stop Yvaine. Frightened as I was, my whole body throbbing with pain, I clung to Ryder and murmured a quick prayer to Kerezen, goddess of the senses and the body. In my exhaustion, those childhood teachings broke through all my determination to forget them.Let them live, I prayed.Please let her not have killed anyone. She is not herself. Protect her.I wouldn’t remember until later that I’d been praying to my mother.

At last we reached the third subbasement of the Citadel, where the sinkhole raged. The inky churn of it, cut into the floor and raging like storm clouds, flashed blue and white and the vivid violet of Yvaine’s left eye. Yvaine herself stood at the perimeter, arms stretched toward the high ceiling. The sinkhole’s wind whipped her sky-blue skirts around her legs, tore her hair from its pins. She was working some great power; the air rippled with it, swirling, a violent heat mirage that distorted all shapes, all colors.

Guards flooded the cavernous stone room, their swords raised and their weapons trained on Yvaine—gilded crossbows, gleaming Lower Army rifles. Thirsk, hobbling after them, held a bloody cloth to his head and shouted at them to hold their fire. Then he hunched over and retched. Gemma ran past him and knocked a cowering servant out of the way just before a section of the ceiling came crashing down.

My heart thundered like the quaking room around us. I searched for the royal beguilers and found them scattered about, dazed but alive. Yvaine had thrown them back; she was keeping them away with a shimmering wall of her own magic, which rippled past her like a river. Brogan, the beguiler who’d been appointed to oversee the sinkhole’s maintenance, crawled toward her, cradling a broken arm to his chest. Tears glistened on his cheeks. He shouted for Yvaine—I saw his mouth move—but I couldn’t hear his words. Gareth hurried to him, helped him stand.

I pressed my lips to Ryder’s ear. “Let me down,” I told him, and he did at once, though he stood just behind me, holding me up. Together we staggered toward Yvaine, struggling to keep our balance as the floor pitched under our feet. A great wind whirled through the room with the sinkhole as its eye. With Ryder’s hands on my waist, steadying me, I reached for Yvaine, screaming my throat raw. I didn’t know what I could do to help her, nor did I care that she had hurt me. The thing that had beaten me hadn’t been her. A single word spun wildly through my mind:Kilraith. Kilraith.Somehow he’d breached the Citadel. He’d sunk his claws into the queen. I fumbled at my bodice; I would use Ankaret’s feather. Surely there couldn’t be a better time.

But before I could do that, before we could reach Yvaine, everything exploded. A dark wave of shadows rushed out from the sinkhole, cold as death. The shadows flooded the room, obscuring my vision, stopping up my lungs; for a moment, I was a child back at Ivyhill, lost in a world of smoke, certain I would die.

Then a great burst of light erupted, clearing the room of all darkness and enveloping the sinkhole entirely. I screamed in terror, “No,Yvaine!” But a sucking silence swallowed my voice, and then a deafening boom ripped through the room—a hundred thunderclaps all at once. Ryder and I dropped to our knees, and he threw his body over mine, shielding me.

Silence fell. The world was dark; a distant clamor of bells began far above us. The Citadel had locked its doors, reinforced its wards.

For a few frantic heartbeats, I allowed myself to huddle under the heavy shelter of Ryder’s body—his arms around me, his breath short and hard in my hair—and then I lifted my head and made myself look.

The sinkhole was gone. In its place, a jagged seam glimmered across the floor, faintly smoking. The sight of it reminded me of the scars on Talan’s brow, on Gemma’s left hand. Remnants of the Three-Eyed Crown.

And Yvaine… My stomach dropped when I found her. She was a smoking heap on the ground, her clothes torn, her skin blistered and bloody. She wascharred.

I scrambled away from Ryder, shoving him off when he tried to stop me. I sobbed her name, ignoring the scrape of my battered hands and knees along the floor. No pain was worse than this: my friend, my queen, ravaged and still. Not moving. Not breathing.

I tried to sing—that would help her, that would bring her back—but my throat burned, and I could only rasp out a few ragged notes. But it must have been enough. As I wept, fumbling for some kind of song—any song,anything; I was a demigod, Philippa had said, sowherewas my godliness, why wasn’t it coming to help me?—Yvaine began to stir. At first I thought I was imagining it, but then she reached up for me with one red hand and opened her eyes—violet and gold, clouded with pain.

“Farrin?” she whispered. “You’re still here.”

I laughed through my tears and dashed a hand across my face. “Yes, I’m here, but you mustn’t speak, all right? You’re…Yvaine, you’re quite hurt.”

Yvaine shook her head slowly against the stone floor, a faint smile on her lips. “He will not touch you again,” she said. Her voice was stronger than the rest of her, a blade glinting in the darkness. “I promise you, Farrin, I won’t allow it. I’ll kill him if he tries.”

My blood ran cold. “Who? If who tries?” I made myself say the hated word. “Kilraith? Was he here just now?”

Yvaine’s eyes fluttered shut.

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