Page 96 of A Song of Ash and Moonlight

“Tell me, Gilroy,” I said. “You’ve heard of what’s happened. Are you…” I swallowed. I would not think of Gareth, Icouldnot, not now, not until I’d taken stock of my home. “Are you all here and safe?”

“No one’s been taken from Ivyhill,” came the answer from behind me. Father was descending the stairs. I noticed with relief that he looked clean and groomed; he wore a fresh suit. He looked sober, even solemn. He came to the bottom of the stairs and couldn’t quite meet my eyes. I wonder if he’d seen me embrace Gilroy, and when I tried to remember the last time I’d embracedhim, I realized with a twinge of dismay that I couldn’t. I fought against the guilty feeling; if we no longer embraced as we once had, if indeed we hardly saw each other, it was his fault, not mine.

“As soon as I heard what had happened,” Father went on quietly, “I took a count of everyone. All our staff, all our tenants, alltheirstaff. Ivyhill hasn’t been touched.”

A wave of relief swept through me. “And Derryndell?” The nearest town.

Father’s expression darkened. “Four were taken from Derryndell. Two children, a young woman, a man of seventy. None of them Anointed. The woman is a low-magic oracle with a fortune-telling shop in the center of town. Neither children nor the man possess any magic at all.”

My heart sank. So this time was different. This time, the Anointed weren’t the only targets.

“What does it mean, my lady?” Gilroy said, his voice grave.

They were both looking at me, eager for an answer. I’d just been to the Citadel and Rosewarren; surely I came with news.

But all I could do was tell them a half truth. “I don’t know.”

What I didn’t tell them was what we’d learned from Nerys—that there was a place called both Mhorghast and Moonhollow. A city where the sun never shone, ruled by He Who Is All, where Olden beings held revels and tormented humans. What had Nerys said?And humans…there they become the animals they truly are. Pathetic dregs of weak-minded gods.

Imagining what that could mean, picturing Gareth trapped in such a horror, my knees nearly buckled under me. Father must have seen my distress before I managed to mask my expression; he moved toward me, then hesitated. I couldn’t look at him, couldn’t bear his disappointment, his shame, all his feelings that had been mine to tend to for far too long. And I worried that if he looked into my eyes for too long, he would read things I didn’t want him to see—Philippa’s face, and Mara’s, cruel and cold as she regarded the harpy in her chains.

Instead I asked Gilroy to have tea sent up to my rooms and then left them both for the grounds. I would walk for what remained of the daylight and hope that the air of Ivyhill would scrub my mind clean.

***

It didn’t.

That night, I couldn’t sleep, my mind fevered, my body restless. Moonhollow. Mhorghast. Yvaine. Nerys. Philippa. The shapes forming in the Three-Eyed Crown’s shadows, pulled into being by Heldine’s spellwork and Gemma’s glamours: an egg, a goblet, a key, a black lake under a full moon. Ryder’s hands, Ryder’s mouth, Ryder’s body and warmth and strength, his voice cracking against my neck as he moved in me. A whirl of images, memories, questions. I stretched my arm across my bed and closed my eyes, trying to imagine Ryder’s weight next to me, the slash of his beard in the sputtering candlelight, the deep rhythm of his breathing as he slept and dreamed.

Osmund jumped up onto the bed with a chirruping meow, interpreting my outstretched arm as an invitation. I lifted him onto my stomach, let him purr and knead for a good half hour, then decided I’d go mad if I stayed in bed a moment longer. I kissed his head between his silken black ears, left him staring at me grumpily from the pillows, and went downstairs to the library in my dressing gown. If I couldn’t sleep, I would work. Our family’s archives were among the best in the country. Gareth was far from the only scholar to regularly visit our collections. I would read everything I could about the gods. I would search the reference catalog for any mention of significant goblets, keys, eggs. I would make a list of every lake in Gallinor, in Aidurra, in Vauzanne, and make note of any folktales, legends, and customs born on their shores. I was no scholar, but I could read, and I could use a reference catalog. I could dosomething.

But Gemma was already there, Una curled up at her feet. She sat at a candlelit table in the library’s heart, books and maps spread out around her. A silver kettle of fresh coffee steamed at her elbow. She was barefoot and distracted, chewing on her pen. The book she wasreading was bigger than her entire torso. She was rapt, squinting at it. She drew the candelabra closer, then scribbled something on the piece of paper at her elbow.

My heart ached to see her there. She hadn’t gone to Wardwell, as I’d suspected she wouldn’t, but she hadn’t come to tell me that herself.I’m home, Farrin. I’m safe. I thought you’d want to know. And you’re right. Whatever Philippa may be able to teach us? I don’t want it.

I should have never even considered that she would leave home in such a way. I stayed in the shadows for a moment, watching her, all the words I wanted to say held tight behind my teeth. I could sit with her, read along with her. We could take notes together, maybe even begin to whisper our questions and fears aloud. What did it mean, to be a demigod? We believed Philippa, didn’t we? Could we teach ourselves without involving her at all? Explore our powers together with Mara and let Philippa rot up at her precious Wardwell?

But I knew that wouldn’t happen. Instead I’d snap at Gemma, say something nasty about Philippa, bristle at anything and everything. I’d disrupt Gemma’s peace simply by being there; all my seething thoughts would seep out and infect her. And she already had so much to bear—Talan, her panic, her pain—without me around to make it worse.

Una was watching me with her great dark eyes, though she hadn’t yet lifted her head. I sent her silent thanks for her discretion and left them. I wandered the quiet house like a specter might haunt her place of death—untethered, agitated.

Morning came, and with it at least one decision, a pinprick of light in a roiling black storm. I couldn’t wait five more days to see him again. No, I needed him now.

I needed Ryder.

***

I used the lagoon’s hidden greenway and emerged shivering and wet inthe forest of Ravenswood, cursing my past self for not planning ahead. I could have left fresh clothes tucked away in a thicket somewhere for just such an occasion. I could have done that; I should be dry and calm. I could have, I should be.

The words rattled through my head as if pulled on a noisy chain. A chain as noisy and cruel as those that had bound Nerys in her chamber? Or those that perhaps held Gareth in whatever prison he now found himself in?

I shook myself, wrestling for calm I knew would not come, and marched on through the forest for an hour, then two. The sky rumbled. It was only midmorning, yet everything was dark. Black clouds roiled overhead, tinged with green. Distant lightning flashed. The air was acrid and stark, as if shot through with the ice of angry magic. Some foul energy prickled at me, raising the hair on my arms. I felt as though I were being watched, like the storm cloaked a hundred seeking eyes. My exhaustion was making me imagine things; a storm was simply a storm, I told myself, even knowing it was a lie. Nothing was simply itself in these northern lands, with the Mist spreading ever outward.

Finally, I reached the stables where I’d trained with Ryder, just as fat, cold drops of rain began to fall. I held my breath, searching the yard, the surrounding trees. My muscles ached; my heart ached. Was he here? Was he up at the house? Had he gone to a village somewhere in the Mistlands?

Then a flicker of movement caught my eye, and I saw him. He was leading two horses into the stables, perhaps after having worked them in the yard. They followed him eagerly, like ducklings trotting after their mother, and once they were inside, Ryder began shutting the stables’ doors and windows, closing out the storm. At the final door, he shot a look up at the clouds, then began to shut himself into the stable. So, he would not be going back up to the house. I was glad; I didn’t want to set foot in that place.

I found my courage and hurried over to him before he could fasten the door. He saw me slipping through the gate and waited for me, then closed the stable door once I was inside, where everything was warm and strewn with clean hay, the air sweet with oats and horses. I turned to him, my mind racing as I tried to figure out how best to explain myself.I couldn’t sleep last night. I’m so angry at everything—the world, my parents, myself—that I can’t concentrate on anything but that.

---