Page 94 of A Song of Ash and Moonlight

“And does Mhorghast have other names?” the Warden asked.

“It needs no other names!” Nerys roared, fighting hard against her chains.

The Warden opened the bottle of bright green liquid and dipped one of the feathered needles into it. “You don’t seem to be listening to me,” she said. “I’ve heard that some people call this city Moonhollow.”

The harpy spat. “Moonhollow.Your languages are as pitiful as you are.”

I couldn’t bear to listen to this exchange any longer. I didn’t know what the Warden was doing with that needle, those bottles, that gun, but I knew I couldn’t let her succeed. I ran back down the stairs, opened my mouth, drew a breath—I would sing Nerys into compliance, I would end all of this with a few well-chosen notes—but thenMara was on me, holding me back, a hand clamped over my mouth. I fought her hard, remembering everything Ryder had taught me—an elbow to her gut, a heel smashing into her instep. But Mara was a Rose and a sentinel. She grunted in pain but didn’t release me.

“Mara!” Gemma shouted, disbelieving. She pounded uselessly on Mara’s arm.“Mara!”Under my feet, the room began to tremble, as if the roots pushing against these underground walls were waking up, eager to obey Gemma’s commands.

Nerys struggled as I did, and even trapped as she was, she was a sight to behold, her feathered muscles bulging under their chains, her great claws carving furrows into the stone floor.

“Leave us,” the Warden said, loading one of the feathered needles into the gun with a practiced, chilling snap.

Mara seized Gemma with her free hand and dragged us both up the stairs, out of the room, through the winding corridors that led us back up to the priory grounds. As we stumbled through the dark, pulled by Mara’s inimitable sentinel strength, I heard the harpy begin to scream, an awful blend of avian shrieks and agonized human cries. Mara shut the door on the sound, and suddenly we were back outside with the whispering pines, and the air that shimmered silver.

As soon as I found my footing, I rounded on Mara. “How dare you,” I said, struggling to catch my breath. “You knew of our power’s influence and didn’t tell us. The moment we stepped in that room, we made Nerys our victim without even knowing it!”

Mara stood a little apart from us, not looking at either of us, her posture rigid. “I had to do it. When I realized the influence I had on her and then not long after, the two of you showed up… The Warden’s conventional torture was taking too long. This will get us answers more quickly. She won’t suffer as much.”

Gemma scoffed, incredulous. She flung out her hand toward the door. “That certainly sounded like suffering to me!”

“We brought much of her knowledge to the surface,” Mara said, still not looking at us. “The Warden won’t have to work as long now to get everything she wants. The procedure will be more…efficient. What we did is a mercy.”

“And then what will the Warden do?” I shot back at her. “Once she’s wrung all the information she can out of this poor creature?”

Mara lifted her troubled gaze to mine at last. She said nothing, but I saw the answer plain as day on her face.

My heart sank. “Mara, how could you?” I whispered.

“You don’t know what it’s like,” she began.

“What, torturing someone for information?” Gemma asked sharply, spots of angry color in her pale cheeks. “Being used for my power? Well, thanks to you, now I know whatboththose things are like.”

“You had no right to bring us to Nerys,” I told her. There was a distant ringing in my ears, some faraway bell of shock. I couldn’t silence it.

“I know,” Mara said, a note of bitterness in her voice. “But I chose to do it anyway. And do you know why?” She lifted her head high, no longer shrinking with shame. “Because the Middlemist isn’t the only thing that’s dying. My sisters are dying too. Every day, more and more Olden creatures break through the barrier between realms, bringing terror with them wherever they go. Hunting humans, invading villages, trading goods, bodies, blood, bones. A fae elixir for a child. The murder of an enemy in exchange for a pledge of subservience. Humans are disappearing, some wandering off into the Mist of their own accord, plagued by a sickness no one understands. Others vanish without warning, whisked away by shadows in the space of a blink. And nothing we do helps, and no one is helpingus.”

She shook her head miserably, turned away to stare at the Mist’s roiling border. “You have no right to criticize our methods, not fromthe safety of Ivyhill, not when you don’t have to wonder every night when you go to sleep if you’ll wake up to find that one of your sisters has been killed.”

“But we do wonder that, Mara,” I said quietly. “Every day, when Gilroy brings me the post, I feel the same jolt of fear and hope the same desperate hope.”

Still with her back to us, Mara hugged herself, bowed her head. She said nothing, and the Mist slithered quietly on through the distant trees.

The next moment, the door opened, and the Warden came out to join us. I heard no more screams as she emerged; the air was ominously silent. I had to exercise tremendous restraint to keep from knocking her to the ground right then and there. Her expression was serene, her dress spotless. She looked curiously at Gemma, then at me. I saw the question in her eyes:How did you get her to talk with no elixirs at your disposal, no spellwork, no empathic power?Maybe she wondered if Talan had taught us a thing or two about influencing others’ minds.

I approached her before she could ask a thing. Anger and grief steeled my spine. For once in my life, I wasn’t cowed by the sight of the Warden’s calm black eyes.

“We’ve come from the Citadel,” I told her sharply.From which Gareth was taken, I wanted to say, the words desolate on my tongue. “The queen closed the sinkhole in the palace and was gravely injured in doing so. I believe that had she not succeeded, many more people would have disappeared. The Royal Conclave is sending out teams to determine how many were abducted and from where. The Upper and Lower Armies are regrouping, and the Senate will postpone issuing the new draft for another two weeks while the queen heals and her advisers take stock, determine how best to address the citizenry.”

I took a breath. Only then did my courage waver slightly. “The Three-Eyed Crown will remain in the capital during this time for continued study. You will do nothing to bring it back here to the priory.”

The Warden lifted her eyebrows, looking slightly amused. But before she could say anything, I added, “I think you’ll consider this a fair exchange for the service we just rendered you with the harpy.”

I felt sick to say the words.The harpy.Her name was Nerys.

And yet Mara was right. We didn’t know what it was like to live up here, to serve the Order of the Rose. And when I tried to imagine myself in her place—fighting monsters every day, watching villages fall apart before my very eyes—I couldn’t predict what I would do, how strong I would be. Would I be so quick to balk at such tactics then? Or would I too come to accept them as a necessary evil of war?

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