Page 102 of A Song of Ash and Moonlight

A white light rippled sharply across her body. “You should not go. You are needed here.”

“Do you have no pity for the humans held prisoner there?” Ryder spat. His blue eyes blazed almost as brightly as hers.

She watched him, uncowed. “Of course she pities them. She is no monster, like the storm that rules such an awful place.”

“The storm that sometimes lives in the walls and sometimes in the sky?” I said slowly.

She looked to me sharply. “That is what she said.”

“Does the storm have other names? I have heard of a being named He Who Is All. Could they be the same?”

“She has heard this name too,” Ankaret replied. “In the winds and in the whispers. They call him storm, they call him He Who Is All, they call him…”

She trailed off, her light flickering once more. The brilliant column of her body seemed to shrink, as did the flaming blue pinpricks of her eyes.

“Do they also call him Kilraith?” I whispered.

The woods went deadly quiet, the only noises the rain dripping from the trees and Ankaret’s crackling heat.

Her answer came thinly, a mere quiver of sound. “She hates that word.”

A chill skipped down my arms. I would take that as a yes.

Ryder spun back around. “Well, where is it, then? Tell us or leave. And do it plainly, not in riddles.”

In an instant, Ankaret stretched to her full incandescent height. A crest of fresh red feathers poured down her body like a waterfall. Her face was bright as the sun.

“You dare to make such demands of her?” she roared, her voice suddenly a torrent of rage. Behind us in the stables, the horses shrieked, terrified anew. She grew and grew, her wings spanning a hundred feet, the white-blue core of her body stretching half as tall as the nearby pines.

“She is Ankaret!” she howled. “Old as the mountains and vast as the sky. She saw the making of the world and will see its unmaking. And here you stand, Ryder of the House of Bask, speaking to her as though she is one of your horses, a simple beast who falls prey to your magic as a tree does to an ax. Presumptuous. Foolish!”

My mouth went dry, my eyes burning from the furious heat of her. All at once I was back in Ivyhill all those long years ago, with the house crashing down around me, the sweltering air pressing my lungs flat. I reached for Ryder, pulled at his arm, tried to find my voice.

“Ryder,” I croaked. I coughed, searched my frantic mind for a song,anysong.

But Ryder wouldn’t move—not for me, and not for her. Unflinching, he stared up into Ankaret’s inferno, and when he spoke, his deep voice boomed, easily heard above the spit and roar of flames.

“Will you burn down the forest now, and all the life inside it?” he called out. “And here we thought you could be a friend. We hoped we could trust you, but I suppose we cannot.”

Ankaret’s wings beat three times, thunderous claps that sent showers of sparks raining down upon the wet black ground. But Ryder stood firm.

“You remind me of my father,” he said, his eyes reflecting the glint of Ankaret’s fire. “He too has no control over his temper. He often uses his anger to hurt innocents, even children. Is that what you do as well, Ankaret of the ages?”

For a moment longer, she glared down at him with her lightning eyes, and I felt certain with each beat of her wings thatthishot rushof air would send us flying to our deaths, thatthisone would hurl a wall of flames at us, reducing us to ash. I held on tight to Ryder, hid my face in his arm.

Even with my eyes closed, I knew the moment she decided to calm. The light burning through my eyelids paled; the roar of fire quieted. I dared to peer past the angry tower of Ryder’s body. Ankaret shrank to her former size—taller than us, taller than any human, but herself again, at least the self I knew. I let out a shaky breath of relief.

“Trust,” Ankaret said quietly, as if musing to herself. Her gaze flicked to mine. The bright white flames of her beak sprang open and then slammed shut. “You hoped you couldtrusther.”

“Indeed we did,” Ryder replied. “Were we wrong to do so?”

A shudder went through her; she shook out her feathers like a bird might after a bath. “Such a mouth on you. Such insolence cannot be borne. But she has a question now: Canyoube trusted, Ryder Bask?”

“Of course I can,” he spat. “We’re talking about you, not me. Don’t lead us down another road of riddles.”

She stood very still, considering us both. “You want her to tell you the way to Moonhollow, do you not?”

“Yes.”I thought Ryder might snap in two with sheer impatience. His arm under my palms was like a hammer, poised to strike.

---