Page 104 of The Song Rising

“I know how your mother died,” Warden said, “but not her name. That does not seem right.”

I hadn’t spoken it aloud in years, for fear of hurting my father. “Cora,” I said. “Cora Spencer.”

The only dead member of my family who hadn’t been killed by Scion.

“You feel that you are not as angry about your father’s death as you should be.”

“He was family,” I said. “I should be grief-stricken. Or consumed by the need for revenge, like Vance wants me to be.”

“I cannot advise you. I am nobody’s son. What I will tell you is that you cannot force yourself to mourn. Sometimes, the best way to honor the dead is to simply keep living. In war, it is the only way.”

Silence fell. It was a tense silence, but his words did ease the strain.

I thought of the cards. The Devil, the Lovers. He could be either of them, or both, or neither.

“You knew what I was feeling,” I said. “Do you always know?”

“No. On rare occasions, I have some sense of your feelings. A glimpse into your mindset. It soon fades,” Warden said. “Whatever the cord is, it remains an enigma. As do you.”

“You can talk. I’ve never met someone so wilfully cryptic.”

“Hm.”

I looked in the direction of the sea, where Vance’s warships floated. Wind rushed through our shelter, chilling my neck. The conversation had distracted me from what I had to do.

“You are welcome to my coat.”

Even my knees were shaking. “Don’t you need it?”

“Not for warmth. It would invite unwanted attention,” he said, “were I to be without a coat in this weather.”

He showed no sign of being cold, so I nodded. When he handed it over, I draped it over my jacket, trying not to be too aware of the faint scent of him that clung to its lining.

“Thank you.” I held it around me. “I’d heard Scotland was freezing, but this is something else.”

“The temperature has been lowered by new cold spots. The veils between our worlds continue to erode.”

The silence closed in again, inevitable as the tide. Tension spread through my back and shoulders.

“This is it.” I wet my chapped lips. “How long did we last against the anchor? Three months?”

“This is not the end.”

The wind tossed my hair across my face. I huddled deeper into his coat.

“Warden, there’s . . . a reason I asked you to come up here with me.” I looked him in the eye. “First, I wanted to say that—I’m sorry.”

His expressions had never been easy to read, but the shadows made it impossible.

“Sorry for what, Paige?”

I drew a deep breath. “The Sarin have made it clear that they’ll only support the Mime Order if it has strong leadership. I wanted to prove that I was the leader you needed—that I could change things. I failed.”

My thumb circled the old scars on my palm. I couldn’t bring myself to watch the fire die in his eyes again.

“You believed in me. Right from the start, you believed I was the one who could lead the Mime Order, the one who could lead the voyants out of the colony. Even I ended up believing it. But I failed. I failed them, and I failed you. So when we get back—” I made myself say it: “I’m going to give up my crown. And I want you to choose someone else to be your human associate.”

Warden said nothing. I held my head up.

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