Chapter 21
I woke with a chill of warning on my neck. Something was near.
I lay still in Ryder’s arms, listening. The room was quiet, soft. Our clothes lay scattered across the floor. The fire in the stove had burned down to embers. Was the feeling merely a remnant of a dream?
Ryder’s arms tightened around me. He was awake too. Even in my watchfulness, I couldn’t help delighting in how sweetly we fit together. I was naked, and so was he. Our tired bodies were curled around each other, cocooned under the blankets—him flat on his back on the pillows, me tucked against his side. His arms were warm around me, one hand cradling my head protectively against his chest.
I silently cursed whatever had woken us. How dare it disturb such a perfect peace?
Then I noticed a glint of light in the room’s corner, where I’d hung my sodden clothes to dry. Ankaret’s feather gleamed in the pocket of my jacket. Each of the feather’s fibers—scarlet, gilt tangerine, rich violet—glowed with its own inner light and stood alert, trembling, as if awakened by a static charge.
Ryder noticed it the same moment I did. “Ankaret?” he murmured. “Maybe she’s close.”
“Or something else is, and the feather is frightened of it.”
“Stay here.” Ryder brushed a kiss across my forehead and released me, rolling out of bed with a lion’s grace. I watched him dress for a moment, admiring the lines of his body in the dim light, and then rose and put on my plain slate-blue dress, my tights, my boots. Quickly, my fingers shaking, I tucked the feather into my bodice. I could have sworn it curled happily against my skin.
Before Ryder could protest, I said, “Whatever it is, I’m hardly defenseless. You’ve taught me a few things, and besides that, I have my voice. My old power, remember? Ankaret said I shouldn’t be afraid of it, and she was right. I can help.”
He looked unhappy about it but nodded sharply, opened a drawer in the bedside table, unfolded a piece of velvet cloth, and withdrew from it four polished knives. He slid two into hidden sheaths in his boots, gripped a third serrated blade in his right hand, and handed me the fourth—an elegant dagger with a smooth obsidian haft. I followed him out, creeping quietly down the hallway just behind him.
Out among the stalls, the horses were restless, tossing their heads and prancing uneasily, snorting out warnings. A soft word from Ryder soothed them, but they were still alert, their ears pricked, their gleaming bodies poised and ready. I shivered to imagine what they could do at Ryder’s command—charge any enemy, kick an attacker’s chest in, tear off ears and fingers.
I wondered if they had done such things to Lord Alaster, ordered to violence by little Ryder or little Alastrina. I wondered what Lord Alaster had done later as punishment.
Pushing those dark thoughts out of my mind, I kept to the shadows as Ryder patrolled the main broad hallway, where we’d punched our leather targets what felt like ages ago. I breathed deeply, readying my voice. I would sing down the entire forest if anything tried to hurt him.
At the far end of the hallway, he paused at the door for a moment before flinging it open, knives at the ready.
Out in the woods beyond the stable yards paced Ankaret, a dazzling figure of feathers and flame. And before either of us could move to greet her, she flung two bursts of fire right at us.
We were ready and dodged the fire easily, but it landed squarely on the stable wall, and suddenly the horses were shrieking in terror. The flames spread fast, even though everything was storm-soaked.
“Go!” I shouted at Ryder. “Help them!”
Then I ran for Ankaret, dodging more knots of flying fire that raced past me, singed my dress, and struck the stable again and again. As I ran, I sang—another of the Gallinoran battle chants from the War of the Isles—and though my heart raced with fear, my voice came out strong. As I sang, I thought only one thing, a single word: Stop . I let the familiar notes bring the thought into sharp focus. Stop. Into my voice I imbued images of a doused flame, a fresh downpour snuffing out the stable fire, the faint hiss of steam.
Distantly, I noticed that the fire bursts wheeling through the air were growing dimmer, smaller. They no longer reached the stable, instead plopping harmlessly to the drenched earth. And by the time I reached Ankaret—livid with anger, buzzing with power—her glorious firebird form had shrunk to a mere peacock-size chick in the moss.
I stood over her, trying to catch my breath. “Can you stop the fire?” I snapped. I gestured back at the stable, where the flames were climbing high and Ryder was frantically throwing pails of trough water.
Ankaret looked up at me with those strange unblinking eyes, bright as stars. As before, I could not read her expression, but when she spoke, her strange multi-tonal voice sounded pleased.
“Farrin of the gods, Farrin of the old power,” she said, her face a knot of fire, her mouth a snapping disc of bright light. “You did well just then.”
I did not allow myself to savor the strange delight that blossomed inside me at her words. I flung out my arm sharply at the stable. “Stop the fire, Ankaret. Now. You’ve proven your point.”
She obeyed with a slight sweep of her left wing. In an instant, the flames vanished, and the stable stood unburnt, undamaged. Ryder froze mid-stride, water sloshing from the pail in his hands. He whipped around to glare at Ankaret, murder on his face.
She rose on long legs of fresh fire and began to pace. The flames swept her along like a dancer across a stage. “She is sorry,” she began, her voice troubled, crackling. “She doesn’t want to do these things, to frighten you. Either of you. But she must prepare you. Do you understand?”
I nodded, watching her pace. Eerie, and beautiful, to see her flitting back and forth, quick and restless now, obviously perturbed. Her feathers stood on end, a brilliant conflagration falling around her body like a gown sewn of flames. With each movement, she shifted into a new shape. First, a fiery outline of a woman, then, in a flash, a fearsome crimson bird. The ground sizzled beneath her; each darting footstep dried the leaves she trod upon, but nothing burned.
“I understand,” I said, “but the horses don’t. Next time, don’t terrorize innocent bystanders in the name of helping me.”
Perhaps that was too bold of me, but Ankaret was seemingly too preoccupied to care. Her footsteps drew sparks along the ground, and she shook her head, muttering to herself.
I hesitated, then placed a hand on my stomach, as if to remind us both that there had been an exchange between us—a pledge of duty, if not outright friendship. The feather pulsed beneath my dress, warming my palm. “Why have you come here?”
“Because she can go where she likes,” Ankaret snapped in response. She seemed to speak more easily now, as if she had been diligently practicing human speech since our last meeting. “And here is where she would like to be just now.”
Ryder, glaring, came up beside me. Ankaret’s white-blue gaze flew to him. “Apologies, Ryder of the House of Bask. I am glad to see you both.”
Ryder gave her a hard smile. “I’m not. I don’t trust you.”
She tossed her head with a harsh laugh, throwing off sparks. “Has she given you reason not to trust her?”
“Well, you did pretend to burn me, and you just scared my horses into a panic, and beyond that, you are a mystery whose origins and motivations remain unclear to me. Anyone would distrust such a creature.”
Ankaret paused in her pacing and fixed her blazing eyes on me. “Farrin trusts me,” she said. “I see it on her face.”
I felt Ryder glance at me, but I kept my eyes on Ankaret. “I think that if you wanted to hurt us, you would have done it long ago. You would have let your fire burn true and killed Ryder. I think,” I added slowly, “that you could someday be a friend, and I hope I’m not wrong.” I tried and failed to read some sort of expression in the flames, a face I could understand. “What have you come to tell us? Or did you simply come to test me again?”
She resumed her pacing, the air between us shimmering with heat. Curls of steam drifted up from her feet.
“You asked her, what is Moonhollow?” she said, her voice harder now, a little angry. “And she said she would find out for you, since you released her from your arrow, sparing her life and her dignity. And she did find some things. She asked and she watched, she pulled it from tongues and plucked it from the air. Moonhollow, here in your world. Mhorghast, in theirs.”
I remembered Nerys’s words. Moonhollow. Your languages are as pitiful as you are.
“Their language,” I said. “You mean an Olden language? Is that where Moonhollow is, then? In the Old Country?”
Ankaret nodded, her feathers fluttering. “It is a city and it is a palace, hidden in Olden lands, and there are gardens that stretch for miles, all of it ruled by a great storm. The storm lives in the walls, and sometimes in the sky. The storm is not like others. It has a will, and a hunger. It does not simply storm; it seeks. It has many arms, and they travel far.”
My mind raced as I listened to her, trying to tuck away her every word so I would remember it later. The sky overhead, thick with its own waning storm, seemed newly ominous. Ryder was tense beside me, held as rapt as I was.
“There are many beings there,” Ankaret continued, speaking faster and faster, as if she would soon run out of breath. “Blood eaters and glittering tricksters, old winds with mischief in their eyes. Beasts made of many other beasts. Lady Winter and Lord Summer, and the forest folk with their smiles and charms. Some go, some stay. There is music that never stops and a moon that never sets.”
I deciphered the riddles, each one making my stomach twist in fear. Blood eaters. Vampyrs. Beast made of many other beasts. Chimaera. Forest folk. Fae. Mara had said the Olden races were isolationists, loath to cohabitate. But first Nerys and now Ankaret had said otherwise. I tried not to linger on how disturbing it was that my sister, soldier of the Mist, possessed outdated knowledge.
“And are there humans as well?” Ryder said tightly.
Ankaret paused. Her light sputtered. “Yes. Taken humans are there in chains and cages, on tables and stages. They are not themselves. They are made to do things they don’t want to do.”
Ryder let out a breath, turned away in despair.
I ached to touch him but instead took a step forward. I would remain calm, clearheaded, for both of us. For Alastrina. For Gareth. I would not grieve for them now, not yet.
“Where is this place?” I asked. “How do we get there?”
Ankaret cocked her head. “You do not wish to go to this place.”
“I do. My friends are there. Many people of my country are there. They are in chains, you said, in cages. They are prisoners, and we must free them.”
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, any song.
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 that this hot rush of air would send us flying to our deaths, that this one 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 could trust her.”
“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: Can you be 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.
Ankaret drew herself up into a quiet column of light. Her feathers gleamed as if freshly polished. “She will tell you where it is if you tell a truth to this woman whose love you think you deserve. A truth you have kept inside you for far too long. A truth she has the right to know. Refuse, and I will leave and take all knowings of Moonhollow with me.”
With those words, with Ankaret’s eyes trained on him as if they were in silent, private conversation, something in Ryder changed. The tension bled from his body; his shoulders seemed to sag. He said nothing.
I looked back and forth between them. “What truth? What is she talking about?”
“How do you know?” he said dully.
“She doesn’t know all, but she can find what she wants to,” Ankaret replied. I thought I heard a twinge of regret in her voice. “She listens and asks, she reads and seeks. She cannot hold all things in her thoughts, but some things she will never let go, once she uncovers them.”
“That doesn’t really answer my question,” Ryder muttered.
“Then you are not listening.”
It was as if I were no longer there. They glared at each other, the man and the firebird. I looked angrily at each of them, willing them to look at me.
“ What truth ?” I asked again.
“Do we have a bargain?” Ankaret asked, still ignoring me. “A fair one, she thinks. You would be a fool not to take it.”
“Of course we have a bargain,” Ryder said sharply. “And after you’ve fulfilled your side of it, I hope you’ll return to whatever ancient pit you crawled out of.”
Ankaret’s flames didn’t so much as ripple at his furious tone. “It is best, Ryder of the House of Bask,” she said solemnly, “that this should happen. It is a kindness. Would you never have told her on your own? A coward does not deserve such a love.” Then she seemed to soften a little. The brilliant snap of her fire dimmed to something cooler, more bearable. “Here. Poor heartbroken boy, frightened and alone. I see him inside you, that child. We will do it together.”
Ryder didn’t answer, looking miserably at the ground, and Ankaret turned her full attention to me. “When you were small,” she said, “a child of eleven, you nearly died. A nefarious plot, one of many your families dreamed up for one another. For who else besides your mortal enemies would have been so bold as to burn down the House of Ashbourne?”
My blood ran cold at her words, more with shock than anything. The last thing I’d expected her to say was this. I braced myself against the inevitable rush of memories: the smoke, the fire, Osmund clinging to my chest, the certainty drumming through my mind that I would die.
“You tell me something I already know,” I said coolly. “You speak to me of a fire while standing there blazing with flames yourself, looking hungry and unkind. Do you mean to frighten me? To reopen old wounds?”
The stars of her eyes disappeared into the fiery swirl of her face before reappearing—smaller, paler.
“No,” she said, her tone uncanny, multipronged, but gentle. “She means to tell you the truth.”
With that, she looked at Ryder, who looked so tensely despairing that I could hardly stand to look at him.
“Ryder of the House of Bask?” Ankaret said.
After a long moment, his jaw working, Ryder said quietly, “A boy saved you that night, Farrin.”
“The shining boy, you call him,” Ankaret added. “And he did shine, for he wore spellwork meant to persuade you to run. A spell to coax you beyond your fear. And he wore a mask to hide his face from you. For if you’d seen it, you would not have trusted him.”
“You would have seen an enemy,” Ryder said. Still he would not look at me. “You would have run away and died. The mask was necessary. The spellwork too.”
My heart pounded, each of their words falling through me like a clap of thunder. “What?” I whispered. “What are you saying?”
“He is telling you a truth you should know,” Ankaret replied. Her brilliant eyes were fixed on me. Her scarlet feathers gleamed in the light of her own fire. “He should have done it long ago but has been too afraid.”
Her eyes cut past me, and I turned to follow her gaze, my whole body tingling with slow-blooming shock. Ryder stood still and silent. He finally looked at me without defiance or shame, with only a sort of tired acceptance. He was expecting a blow; it seemed he would welcome it.
Every moment I’d spent considering the impossible—Ryder, the shining boy; the shining boy, Ryder—unfurled anew inside me. My mind whirled with memory as I recalled the shining boy’s pale skin, the dark hair curling out from under the crude mask with the blacked-out eyes, his voice—rough, but kind—his strength and courage. Once we were outside and safe, he’d held my hand. He’d kissed my knuckles. Star of my life , he’d whispered, and then he’d heard my family coming, and he’d gotten angry. I have to go. I’m so sorry. They’re coming now. You’ll be all right.
With Ankaret’s words ringing in my ears, each piece of the memory rearranged itself and fell into its rightful place. I could no longer deny the truth I’d long convinced myself was laughable, that even Yvaine in all her kindness had implied was far-fetched. My sight, at last, was clear, my understanding horribly complete. Suddenly I recalled what Ryder had said that night in the Citadel, when I’d asked him to kiss me, to bind my wrists, to claim my body with his. Star of my life , he had murmured to me, and I’d thought the words familiar, but out of my mind with pleasure, comforted by Yvaine’s promise— Don’t you think I would have told you, long ago, if that were the case? —I’d forgotten to care. I’d decided not to care.
But Yvaine wasn’t well, and I was the worst kind of fool for accepting her reassurance so easily, for ignoring my own instincts, all because I was desperate for the affection of a man.
I felt sick and cold, as if I’d woken up from a restless night of sleep to remember something I’d forgotten to do the day before, something that had slipped through the cracks despite my lists and routines, something that would disappoint someone or anger Father or make a servant’s life more difficult. Something avoidable if only I’d been sharper, more disciplined. Except this feeling was a thousand times worse than that. Tears gathered behind my eyes.
If Ryder had kept this from me—the truth of this pivotal moment in my life—what else had he decided not to tell me?
“It was you,” I whispered, staring at him. “You’re the shining boy.”
For one desperate moment, I hoped they were lying, that I was wrong and Yvaine was right, that this was some cruel game Ankaret was playing with us for an unknowable Olden reason.
But my hope died quickly. Ryder nodded, solemn. Resigned. Surrendering.
“It was me,” he answered quietly.
I laughed a little, a harsh breath of disbelief. “I don’t understand. You wore spellwork? You came to find me? But it was your family who—”
“No, it was my father and my father alone.” Each of his words fell heavily, as if it came at a dear cost. “Mother tried to talk him out of it, but he wouldn’t listen. It was time to end this, he said. It was time to show you whose family was truly the mightiest. It was time to show the Man With the Three-Eyed Crown,” he added, his voice darkening with anger, “which family was truly deserving of all his many splendid promises.”
Everything was becoming clear too quickly. I felt like I was kicking hard to keep my head above water. “And the spellwork you wore, the spell that made you shine…” I found the answer before I even asked the question. Was there no end to how foolish I could feel? “Of course. Your mother—a beguiler with a talent for persuasion. That was her doing.”
He nodded. “When I came to her, pleading with her to change Father’s mind, she said she couldn’t, that she had tried. Her eye was black, her lip swollen. She’d tried, and he’d beaten her, nearly pounded the life out of her. But she could do this one thing. She could grant me a spell that would help me do something , save someone , anyone I could find.”
He drew in a deep breath, his fists clenching. “And of course I went to find you. I was fifteen and stupid. I didn’t care about the others, I’m sorry to say. Your sisters, your staff—maybe I would have helped them if I’d come upon someone and felt I had the time. But all I could think of was finding you. I waited until Father left, then took the greenway. He and the elementals he’d hired worked quickly. By the time I arrived at Ivyhill, the house already burned.”
“Wait,” I said, cutting him off. The world around us had shrunk to him and me, and the faint glow of Ankaret in the corner of my eye. “Why did you care about finding me? We hated each other, all of us did. Why didn’t you just stay at home and let everyone burn?”
That made him look away once more. His mouth twisted. “Father often sent me on reconnaissance missions. I surveyed your estate, used your animals to gather information. I skulked around and observed. At first I felt proud to do it. Father hadn’t picked Alastrina for this—he’d picked me. I hated him, and he hated me, but maybe this would change something. Maybe he would be proud of me at last; maybe this would end the war. And without the war, perhaps his tempers would fade, and I wouldn’t have to be afraid anymore, and neither would Trina or Mother. But then one day, I came to Ivyhill and heard you singing.”
He paused, took a breath. His gaze lifted back to mine. He looked miserable, his resigned calm shattered. “I’d never heard anything so beautiful,” he whispered. “I knew you were a savant, that your talent was music, but I’d never witnessed it for myself until that day, and it…” He put a fist to his chest, clearly struggling for words. “It unlocked something in me, Farrin. It was like the ringing of some bell forged by the gods, chiming all the fear and anger out of me, and for the first time in my life, I understood that the Ashbournes were not just faceless foes to strike at however we could. You were people, like my sister and me, like my mother. People who had been blessed by the gods, just as we had.”
He shook his head. “It shouldn’t have taken me so long to reach that conclusion, but as I said, I was fifteen and stupid, raised in a house of anger and violence and plots. I’d seen you and your sisters before, of course—at the Citadel, at the parties both our families attended, all of us prowling around like wolves, plotting how best to attack. But as I listened to you that day—you were singing something new, I think, learning the notes; every now and then, you faltered and started again—as I listened to you, I truly saw you for the first time. I understood what we were doing—really understood it—as I never had before. We were trying to destroy each other. It seemed suddenly like the worst thing I could imagine, for the world to no longer have you in it, for such a voice to be struck silent.”
I took a step back from him, from Ankaret, toward the black forest soaked with rain. My voice cracked all the way through. “How many times did you sneak around my house, listening to my music without my knowledge, without my permission?”
“Only when Father forced me to, I swear it,” he said fiercely. “I wouldn’t have kept coming if I’d had any choice, even if it meant giving up the chance to hear your voice again. I wanted to stop; I wanted it all to stop. Don’t you see? Hearing you sing was a revelation. We can’t choose when and how such epiphanies come. But that was mine, and from that day on, everything changed. Everything except Father.” He took a step toward me, imploring. “You’ve seen him for yourself, Farrin. You know how he is. I’ve told you what it was like for us—”
“Yes, you’ve told me many things, and now I question all of them.” I hated how brittle and fragile my voice sounded, but most of all I hated having to wonder if any of what had passed between us was true. A memory resurfaced of the Bathyn tournament, months ago.
“The tournament,” I whispered. “The song I played, I wrote it for you. For the shining boy. And you were sitting there listening to it, and you rushed the stage, yelling things in some northern tongue…”
“Talan and I have talked about that,” Ryder said. “I’m so sorry for that day. He and Gemma were looking for ways to humiliate Trina and me in front of everyone, and he sensed my feelings for you without really knowing what he was sensing, and he brought them to the surface, and I—”
“And you couldn’t control yourself,” I said flatly. “You ran at the stage, scaring the life out of me.”
“I wouldn’t have hurt you,” he whispered. “Even though I wasn’t myself, stirred to madness by Talan’s influence, I wouldn’t have hurt you. I would never hurt you.”
“But you have hurt me,” I shot back, a sob stuck in the back of my throat. “We’ve become friends, and we’ve…” I gestured at the stable. “We’ve loved each other, Ryder, and all this time, you’ve known things I haven’t. You’ve kept this secret from me when I’ve bared all of myself to you, everything I am, everything I feel. I trusted you,” I said hoarsely, “and now that trust has been destroyed. What else are you keeping from me?”
“Nothing, Farrin, I swear to you,” Ryder said, his voice thick with emotion I didn’t want to hear.
Cruelest of all, it occurred to me with vicious suddenness that I had come here and spent hours in the bed of a liar when I could have used that time to search for Gareth. What a selfish, senseless woman I was.
I could no longer contain my furious tears. My mind was spiraling to all sorts of horrible places, most of which were completely irrational—products of my wounded pride, my embarrassment—and yet I could do nothing to stop it. When Ryder stepped toward me as if to comfort me, I stumbled away, flung out my arm at him to ward him off. “Don’t touch me. Don’t come near me.”
He froze at once, his entire countenance crumbling. “Farrin, I’m so sorry. I should have told you the moment we started becoming friends.”
“Yes, you should have, but you didn’t.” I took two more steps back from him. “And I’ve been mooning over you all this time without understanding the true imbalance between us. You knew the truth, and I knew only a lie. What a fool you must have thought me. How smug you must have felt, knowing that you’d finally gotten your prize after all these years.”
“No,” he said in horror. “Absolutely not.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because by the time I realized that I should have, it was long past the right moment. For all those years, trapped in my house behind that cursed forest of your parents’ design, one of the only things that brought me solace was thinking of you, and your music, and the hope that by saving you that night, I’d helped you find the peaceful life you deserved. Every night, I went to sleep hoping I’d wake up to find the forest still there, still trapping us. I prayed that the curse would never fade. As long as were trapped, there was no war. As long as we were trapped, you were safe. But the curse did fade, and everything returned to what it had been before: more fighting, more hatred. You know what it’s been like. Your father has his own temper.”
“Don’t speak of him,” I whispered.
“And then there was the midsummer ball, and the chimaera attack in the Citadel, and fighting Kilraith in the Old Country. It all happened so quickly, and suddenly we were part of each other’s lives in a way I’d never imagined. We were even becoming friends. And then… gods …”
His voice fractured. He looked away, dragged a hand across his mouth. Even in my anger, my heart ached for him; he was desolate, hopeless.
“I fell in love with you,” he said quietly. He looked up at me, his eyes blazing and bright. “I am in love with you. In truth, I think I’ve loved you for years, ever since I first heard you sing, even before I dared to say it out loud. And every moment I’ve been with you these past few months has been a happiness I’ve never known, a dream become real, a peace I’ve never dared to imagine for myself. And I’ve been godsdamned terrified to lose it, to lose you . Ankaret is right. I have been a coward.”
His gaze flicked to her, then back to me. “But I have not for a single moment ever thought you a fool. Not for even a fleeting second have I felt proud or smug or pleased with myself for keeping this secret from you. I’ve been the fool, too in love with you to think straight. Too afraid to lose you to do the right thing. You’re right, I should have told you that very first day when we started training together. I should have told you, and I’m sorry I didn’t. I’m so sorry, Farrin. If I could go back and do it over again, I would.”
I did believe he was sorry. I’d never seen such raw devastation on his face, such miserable, biting shame. But no matter how insistently the rational part of my mind warned me to take a breath, to put space between us until my shock had faded, I couldn’t think of anything but how angry I was, how humiliated. I’d been lovestruck, lovesick, distracted by my anger at Father and my unending collection of worries.
And then, as if flung at me like a spear from a merciless attacker, the night we’d spent together at the inn in Vallenvoren came roaring back to me, bathed in a new, garish light. One of the most beautiful nights I’d ever known, and now my stomach turned to think of it.
“But can you be sure of what you’re saying?” I whispered. “You say you’ve loved me for years, ever since you first heard me sing.” Saying it aloud felt as if someone had clamped their fingers around my throat. “How can you know that you truly love me , then, and not just my music? How can you know that you’re not like everyone else? And how can I ever believe that you’re not just trying to worm your way inside my heart so you can keep my music close to you, like a hoarder of treasure?”
Ryder opened his mouth to speak, but I hurried on before he could. “That night in Vallenvoren,” I said, “when you touched me, and then I sang to you. I gave that song to you out of love, and I convinced myself that doing so was a triumph. I wasn’t brave enough to let you fuck me, but I’d sing to you, and that was something no other woman could give you.”
Looking back at the moment made me feel unclean, as if I’d given away a part of myself under false pretenses. I drew in a ragged breath, dashed a hand across my face.
“Maybe that’s what you wanted all along,” I whispered. “My music. Maybe that’s what you’ve really wanted ever since you heard me sing all those years ago. And you took me to bed hoping I’d freeze with nerves, hoping I’d feel guilty and embarrassed and sing for you instead.”
The words were awful, cruel, and even as I uttered them I didn’t believe them. It was my fear talking; it was the ecstatic mob from that long-ago concert ripping me to pieces. Ryder wasn’t like that; Ryder thought I was brave, that I was strong, a devoted sister, a patient daughter. I was so much more to him than a pretty voice. At the tournament, he’d been a victim of Gemma and Talan’s scheming. He would never hurt me, never .
But I was lost in the mire of my dread, all the worst things I’d ever thought about myself bubbling up to drown me. The words had been said, and I couldn’t find the strength to take them back.
It was as though I’d struck him. He slumped a little, his eyes bright with tears, and then he came toward me, his hands out, beseeching. “Farrin, I swear to you—”
Quickly I stepped away. “I trusted you. I exposed myself to you. And for what?” I put a hand to my throat; I felt like I would be sick. “So I could follow you around for the rest of my days, oblivious, like putty in your hands?” I spat the words. Anger was my only defense, my last gulp of air. “You love my power. It’s had its hooks in you since the day you first heard me sing. And that’s what you love, not me. Not me .”
I turned away from him before he could reply, my whole body burning with tears I fought to contain, and went to Ankaret. As I looked up at her unreadable face, her overwhelming heat licked at my fingertips, but I was too furious to be afraid.
“Where is Moonhollow?” I demanded. “He told me the truth, as you requested. Now give us the information we need. Or are you as much a liar as he is?”
Ankaret’s flames were a subdued yellow glow, her eyes wide and pale. “All the storms that now live belong to him,” she said quietly. “Follow them to the place where they are born, and you will find his city.”
Another riddle. I couldn’t even find the will to be angry at her for that, and anyway, her answer seemed genuine. This was the best she could do. I simply nodded, her words held tight in my mind, and left both her and Ryder. Each step away from him was like tearing off a piece of my own skin, but I pushed onward, my chest aching, and neither of them came after me. I was glad; I was grateful . I headed straight into the woods, toward the distant greenway to the hidden lagoon.
It was dark at Ivyhill, the smell of rain in the air. The sky teemed with the same rumbling storm clouds that had churned in the north. I couldn’t bring myself to care. I walked in a daze, drenched and shivering, so lost in my own unhappiness that I didn’t see the raven flying toward me until he was right in my face, flapping wildly.
I jumped back with a yelp, and the poor thing fell to the ground. He had expended the last of his energy flying toward me, and when I realized what I was seeing—one of Ryder’s wilded ravens; it had to be—I knelt and lifted him carefully. His tiny heart pounded hard and fast, and one of his wings was broken. How he’d managed to fly at all, I didn’t know. Winded as he clearly was, he still flapped out of my hands and then away toward the hedge maze—half flying with one wing, half hopping on tired legs.
I followed him into the maze, readying myself for whatever I would find. The raven was most likely Ryder’s, but it also could have been a trap. I forced my breathing even, tried to slow my racing heart; if I was going to sing for defense, I needed calm, I needed air.
But singing wasn’t necessary, because now I saw what the raven was leading me to. He hopped toward a heap on the ground, clicking with his great curved beak, letting out strange rasping cries that sounded eerily like the word help .
The heap groaned, struggling to turn over, and a beautiful pale face came into view, framed by dark hair. His neck and arm gleamed black with blood.
My stomach dropped. Talan.
I hurried to crouch on the ground beside him, the raven hopping pitifully at my elbow. Help, help.
“Talan, hold still.” When I touched his coat, my hands came away wet. “Oh gods. What happened? Please, don’t move. I’ll get Gemma, Madam Moreen.”
But before I could rise, he caught my arm, holding me back. In the dim light, the tendons in his neck strained with the awful effort it cost him to stay conscious The crown’s scars glittered faintly on his forehead.
“I found it,” he whispered, a small smile playing on his lips. “I found Moonhollow.”