Chapter 25
When we arrived at the palace, two royal guards were waiting for us in the queen’s tower. One of them was Captain Vara, the guard’s golden-sashed commander.
“Ah, Lady Farrin,” she said, striding forward. “Lord Ryder. She’s been expecting you.”
That surprised me, though perhaps it shouldn’t have. “She’s been expecting both of us?”
“Well.” Captain Vara cleared her throat. “I suppose I should say, she expected you would bring Lord Ryder, my lady. This way, please.”
I hesitated. Captain Vara was startlingly calm, even pleasant—not at all what I’d expected. In fact, nothing here was as I’d expected. Besides the protesters gathered at the gates and the general unrest in the air since the second wave of abductions, the mood of the palace itself was almost serene. No one was running through the marbled hallways bemoaning the tragedy of losing their queen.
I glanced up at Ryder, who was glaring around the corridor with a furrowed brow, like an angry watchdog determined to sniff out an intruder. His hand hovered at the small of my back; I was glad for it, and for the knives hidden up our sleeves and in our boots, the dagger tucked into his jacket, and Ankaret’s feather tucked into mine. I held a song at the ready in my throat. This practice of preparing a melody with intent—like Ryder nocking one of his arrows, ready for battle—was easier each time I tried it. You must practice this , Ankaret had told me. You have let it sit idle for too long. She had to remind you . And remind me she had, with her fire and her lightning eyes. The memory of her unreadable face of flames was a strange comfort.
We followed Captain Vara through the tower’s winding hallways until I suddenly realized where she was taking us—a winter garden in a small atrium tucked into one of the queen’s receiving rooms. I knew it well.
At the room’s entrance, Captain Vara stepped aside and gestured solemnly at the atrium’s lush greenery. “Don’t worry, my lady, we’ll stay on this side and guard the passage.”
“What is the meaning of all this?” Ryder growled under his breath. “Where is the queen?”
“She’s at the Green House,” I murmured, starting to put together the pieces of this bizarre puzzle. “My family’s cottage on the edge of town. This is a greenway that leads to it.”
“Her Majesty enjoys spending mornings at the Green House, my lady,” Captain Vara offered. “She thinks it a peaceful place.”
I sensed Ryder’s surprise, though he bit his tongue and kept quiet. I slipped past the captain into the atrium and let the greenway’s magic carry me gently through its passage. This greening magic was particularly fine; the crossing was quick and soft. Two seconds later, I stood in the gardens of the Green House, sheltered from the morning sun by a canopy of golden flowers. All around us, tall autumn grasses, white with puffy fronds, whispered in the wind.
Ryder was right behind me, and he stayed close as we crossed the quiet lawn. The house stood unlocked; no ward magic rippled at our passage, and the dining room doors had been thrown open to receive the morning air.
“There you are!” Yvaine burst through the doors and hurried across the veranda to embrace me. She wore a diaphanous gown of brilliant purple chiffon, the bodice spangled with diamonds, the iridescent sleeves trailing the ground. Her hair was loose, unornamented, her arms thin but fierce around my neck, but when she pulled back to look at me, I saw the gray under her eyes, the gray of her cheeks. Even the pink scar on her forehead had changed and now shimmered silver.
But she was alive, and for a moment all I could do was exist in the wash of my relief. I drew her back to me and put my hands on the silken down of her hair. I felt the wild pounding of her heart against mine and blinked back tears, trying to find my voice. She was alive, she was alive.
“What’s happening here?” Ryder muttered behind me. “Farrin received a note that you were dying, bedridden, that you had only days left in this world. And yet here you are, looking more or less as you always have.”
Yvaine looked up at him, her eyes sparkling. “Oh, Ryder. I do love your bluntness. No, I’m not dying. At least, not today. And I’m certainly not bedridden. I just…I wanted you to come quickly, both of you, and I knew that would do it. I wasn’t sure where you’d be—these days, it’s far too exhausting to use my power to locate anyone—so I sent one note to Ivyhill and another to Ravenswood. Hopefully no one in your family will open it in your stead, Ryder, and fly into a panic.”
I stared at her, horrified. “And would you blame them for that? A message from the capital telling them their queen lies near death?” I stepped back from her, detaching myself from her embrace. “You sent me into a panic. I thought…” I struggled to collect myself. “Why didn’t you just send for me as you normally would? Of course I would have come to you.”
For an instant, Yvaine looked crestfallen. Then she lifted her chin. “The last time we saw each other, I attacked you. I was badly hurt. I wasn’t myself. I wasn’t sure that you would come unless I resorted to drastic measures. I thought you might be afraid of me after what happened.”
“Honestly, I’m more afraid of you now,” Ryder said drily. “That you would think it reasonable to lie about your own death speaks to its own kind of unsoundness.”
Yvaine shot him a look, started to respond, then stopped. She let her thin shoulders fall. “You’re right, of course. I’m sorry. I truly am. It’s just…” She ran a hand through her hair, her fingers trembling. “Things are so strange now. Even stranger after I healed from my burns, as if parts of me were seared away and never quite came back. Some moments I feel wholly myself. Other moments are entirely lost to me, or else some mad idea comes into my head that I think is brilliant but is in fact reckless or nonsensical. Thirsk has been hovering over my shoulder like a fussy mother. He wouldn’t have let me send such a message to you, of course. I managed it while he was sleeping. I exhaust him. I exhaust myself.”
The bleak tone of her voice frightened me. I reached for her. “Never mind how you did it. Why did you send for us? Do you need help? Do you have news?”
She took my hand. “I need company,” she said simply. “People I like, people I trust. People who aren’t fretting old men or hard old women. Will you both sit with me and eat?”
***
The day passed strangely, Yvaine flitting about the house like a nervous hostess. She stuffed us with food and drink, all of it fine and delicious, cooked by her own hands using ingredients from the royal kitchens. Over all the years of her life, she’d become a splendid chef. She fed us puff pastries stuffed with goat cheese, bright green sprigs of parsley, and thinly sliced ham; roasted chicken garnished with dates and orange zest and served on a bed of crisp shaved greens, the meat so tender it seemed to melt in my mouth; a chocolate cake drizzled with raspberry syrup and dusted with icing sugar. Divine, all of it.
She bade me play the piano, which I did, haltingly and then with relief, for while my hands danced over the keys and my feet worked the pedals, I didn’t have to look at her, didn’t have to hear her shrill voice going on and on about meaningless palace gossip, the new gown her stylist was working on for the annual winter solstice gala, the renovations being done on the palace’s north wing. It was all idle chatter, and whenever Ryder or I tried to bring up the abductions, the draft in the Senate, what we’d seen in Mhorghast, the impending invasion, she silenced us with a look, a word, a tap of her fork against her crystal goblet of sparkling lemonade. They were only little pings of magic butting against us, but she was High Queen Yvaine Ballantere of Edyn, and even little pings of her magic were enough to reshape our words and make us forget what we meant to say.
In the late afternoon, Ryder went upstairs to rest, claiming aches from his healing wounds. Our gazes locked for an instant before he left me. I had no doubt his body was indeed demanding a rest, but I couldn’t imagine he would actually relent to one.
His absence did the trick; a few minutes after he went up, Yvaine paused her chatter to listen for him. Everything was quiet save for the breeze outside and the wind chimes Gemma had helped Philippa hang in the gardens when she was small.
Satisfied, Yvaine sank back onto the couch and closed her eyes. “Finally, some quiet.”
My eyebrows shot up. “You’re the one who’s been talking without pause ever since we arrived.”
After a moment, she opened her eyes to look at me. “I’m sorry I kept silencing you. All anyone ever talks to me about is how horrible everything is—the people taken, the Middlemist deteriorating, how everyone is afraid. And they’re not wrong to do so. But I’m tired, Farrin.” She drew in a shaky breath and gave me a thin smile. It was as if some dam within herself had been opened. She curled into the sofa cushions, drew her knees up to her chest. No pretense, no false bright smiles for the benefit of Ryder or her advisers. No, this was simply Yvaine, weary and too thin, drowning in her dress.
“And I wanted a day with my friend is all,” she said quietly. “A day—a single day—of only good things and nothing bad. Before everything changes. Because it will, don’t you agree? I taste it with every breath I take. Every time I move through the castle, I feel like my next step will send me plummeting over the edge of a cliff into a raging sea. I hear it rumbling always, in the air and even in the ground. Even now, with the sinkhole closed and my palace intact. All those storms in my skies, churning and growing, more and more every day.”
There were so many things to address in what she’d said that I hardly knew where to begin. The exhaustion in her voice terrified me, as did the sight of her curled up on the couch. She looked alarmingly vulnerable, not a queen chosen to rule the world but instead a young woman who could easily be snapped in two by any number of monsters, man and beast alike.
“I do feel that,” I answered truthfully. “And I think we’d be better prepared for that change, when it comes, if you’d let me talk to you about some things that have happened.”
She closed her eyes, her mouth thinning. “Please don’t. I don’t want to use my power to quiet you again, but I will if you force my hand. I just want to talk about ordinary things, earthly things. Nothing Olden, nothing violent.”
“But you yourself are Olden,” I pointed out.
As am I , I wanted to say. A confession hovered on the tip of my tongue. I wondered if Yvaine remembered anything of that awful day in the dining room when she’d attacked me. What do you know about demigods? I’d shouted at her, the question pulled out of me by the seeking tongues of her chaotic magic.
But there was nothing in her eyes now except for a fond softness. She rested her cheek on her knees and smiled at me. “When I’m with you, though, I’m not Olden or mighty, not a queen chosen by gods. I’m just…whatever I was before they plucked me from whatever field or town or valley I lived in. I’m just a person when I’m with you. Just a friend talking to a friend.”
I let out a frustrated breath, determined not to be charmed by the simple candor of her words. “And what about after today? When you go back to the palace to resume your duties, what will you do then? Will you let me come with you? Will you listen when I tell you what needs to be said?”
“Of course.”
“People are dying , Yvaine,” I continued sharply. “I’ve been there. I’ve seen it. They’re being preyed on by a monster and his followers, forced to entertain and fight and seduce, doing things they would never do if they were in their right minds, and…”
I trailed off, shaking my head. The nerves that had been bubbling inside me for the entire strange day spilled over at last. I looked out at the garden, tears blurring my vision and turning everything into a shimmering wash of gold and green.
“Gareth’s there somewhere,” I whispered. “And countless others who are dear to their own families and friends. And you call me here, trick me here, to lead Ryder and me through some strange song and dance, and then go on and on about how nice it feels to spend time with me, as if there’s nothing else happening in the world, as if it’s only you and me, friends idling away an afternoon.”
I looked back at her, gratified to see her expression of quiet shame. I fought the instinct to comfort her or apologize. She was my friend, but in that moment she deserved neither thing.
Finally, something in her seemed to give way. She nodded, her mouth thin, and sat up straighter, legs crossed neatly on the cushion.
“You’re right, of course,” she said quietly. She gave me a small smile. “You’re always right, and I seldom am these days, it seems.” Her gaze turned distant. “It’s selfish of me, isn’t it, to want escape and distraction, when so many are hurting?”
“It’s more complicated than that,” I said, but she shook her head.
“Not for me it isn’t. Not for the queen of Edyn.” She sighed a little, looking at me with quiet resolve. “I’ll return to the palace, let you have some peace this afternoon, and if you’ll join me there for dinner tonight, both of you, we can discuss everything you’ve seen. Privately, or with the Royal Conclave, if you wish. But first…” She folded her hands in her lap. “Can we talk for only a few minutes? We’ve not talked in so long, you and me. I know so little of what’s happened to you in recent months.”
Then she glanced upstairs, the tiniest bit coy. “Tell me about Ryder. Is he as handsome in bed as he is outside of it?”
The abrupt change of subject made me laugh in surprise. “He…I…”
“Does it embarrass you to talk about it?”
“No, it’s not… I mean, yes, I suppose, a little.”
“You don’t have to answer, then, if it’s a private thing. It’s only that…” Yvaine sat very still for a moment, then looked away with a rueful sigh. “You’re going to think this is silly.”
“I’m too curious to think it silly,” I replied.
That amused her. She brightened, then almost as quickly grew quiet again, subdued. She picked at the sofa’s embroidery.
“I was in love once,” she said softly. “It was a very long time ago, I think, years and years before any of you were born. I think this is true, anyway. Lately, these peculiar memories have been floating to the surface of my thoughts. Memories that are clearly mine, and yet they’re strange to me, unfamiliar, but dear at the same time.” She looked up at me. “Does that make sense?”
It didn’t, but I hated to discourage her. “I think so.”
“I know it sounds ludicrous—memories that aren’t mine and yet are? But whatever they are, I know what they’re telling me, and what they say is that once, long ago, I was in love. I can feel it right here.” She touched her throat, her chest, then her belly. “And here too. I feel the rightness of these ancient echoes. I was in love, and what I can remember of it warms me, makes me feel less…extraordinary. Love—that’s a thing everyone understands. And I’m a thing no one understands, not fully. Do you see what I mean?”
Her eyes were beginning to fill with tears, a sight that broke my heart. She looked so lonesome there amidst the cushions, so small and tired. When I offered my handkerchief, she took it without a word and held it bunched in her lap.
After a moment, she cleared her throat. “So I thought that if you could tell me a little about you and Ryder, about what it feels like to you, to be in love, I thought…” She shrugged helplessly. “Maybe it would help me remember more of what I’m trying to remember. Maybe there’s something in this memory struggling to surface within me. An explanation for everything—my sickness, the Mist’s sickness, the abductions, the sinkhole. Everything. Is that mad?” She held a silent plea in her eyes. “Is it mad to think that understanding love might explain so many terrible things?”
“No,” I whispered. I knew for certain that was the right answer, though I couldn’t have explained why. “No, I think love lies at the root of most things, both good and evil. And if you think it will help you…”
“It might.” She smiled a little, her hope painful to look at. “Do you think it might?”
“It’s certainly worth a try.” I drew in a breath carefully, held it around the feeling of Ryder in my heart. “To warn you, I’m not good at talking about these things.”
“Shocking information, since I’m only meeting you for the first time today.”
I made a face at her, trying not to smile. “I suppose I’ll start by telling you about the night of the fire.”
“At Ivyhill?” She looked surprised. “When you were small?”
I nodded. “I’ve told you about the boy who saved me that night. But what I haven’t told you—what I’ve only just learned myself—is that the boy was Ryder.”
I watched Yvaine closely. Would she remember what she’d told me, reassuring me that Ryder couldn’t possibly be the shining boy?
But the only thing I saw on her face was rapt, astonished interest. “Extraordinary,” she whispered. She found a pillow and held it to her stomach like a girl at a party, then waved at me in encouragement. “Go on, darling. How did you find this out?”
My heart sank. It was clear she remembered nothing of what she’d told me that day, and the horrible thought came to me that, given her sickness, and the fire that had burned her, it was impossible to know how fractured her mind was or wasn’t. What pieces of her had been seared away? What precious memories had been lost?
My despair came on so fast that I nearly stopped my story then and there. But Yvaine looked so eager, so happy to listen to me, that I somehow found my voice, and once I started the story in earnest, I found I was glad to tell it. I’d been bursting to show someone the wound of Ryder’s lie of omission, which had felt to me like nothing short of betrayal; how fresh and mean that felt, how mean I’d been in my anger and shock. How even though my rational mind insisted it wasn’t true, I was terrified that whatever he felt for me couldn’t be trusted—that he loved a power, not a person. And how impossible it felt to reconcile all of this with the sheer breathless truth of how much I loved him.
I stared at my hands. For a moment, I couldn’t speak; if I did, I would start crying, and the thought of that was too exhausting to contemplate. Then Yvaine put her hand on my arm—the lightest touch, warm and unwavering—and so steadied, I found the strength to continue.
***
When I woke, it was to a world of confusion.
I didn’t remember falling asleep, or taking off my shoes and curling up on the sofa beneath a blanket. The last thing I recalled was talking to Yvaine about Ryder—his strength, his tongue, his hands, the surprising gentleness of him, the endearing gruffness of him, how safe I felt in his arms, and how when I was with him, I felt utterly seen, utterly cherished. I remembered Yvaine hanging on my every word as if I were a master storyteller, gasping and laughing, and looking suitably impressed—and delightfully scandalized—in all the right places. Her sympathy was a balm, her attention addictive.
But now the room was black, and my body was prickling, drenched in a cold sweat. The wind outside was roaring. It had blown back all the doors and pinned them to the walls.
I bolted upright and nearly ran upstairs for Ryder, but then my foggy mind understood what it was seeing. A storm had come as I slept, and now it stretched across the sky on dark wings.
I hurried outside for a better look, and my heart stuttered when I saw the vastness of it. The Green House was situated on a hill along the capital’s perimeter, a normally lovely vantage point that was now horrific. Towering clouds, black with tinges of purple and green, loomed over the city, spitting sheets of driving rain and torrents of hailstones. The wind howled, churning like some great herd of beasts stampeding across a plain. The clouds blocked all daylight, making it impossible to tell how much time had passed since I’d fallen asleep, but I could still see everything as clear as day, for the air crackled with lightning. Bolts lashed out of the clouds, a whole bright forest taking fiery root among the city’s sparkling towers and winding streets. The thunder was deafening, immediate. I watched the destruction in horror. Lightning tore through the streets, knocking down buildings and carving the university’s lush green parks into canyons. This was not ordinary lightning; these bolts were weapons, unleashed with intent.
And then, in the midst of the clouds, a shape unfurled—a great bird, wings spreading wide as if to envelop the entire city, with flashing eyes and a gaping chasm of a beak that roared wind and fire. It shifted as it flew across the sky, breaking apart and reforming. It was a bird, then a thunderhead, then a monstrous chimaera with reaching human arms and a long serpent’s body.
My blood ran cold as I stared down the hill at its grotesque hugeness, the unthinkable horror of it. Ankaret’s words rang in my mind, clear as bells. They call him storm, they call him He Who Is All, they call him…
Kilraith.
The storm reared up high and then dove into the streets, flooding them with darkness. I couldn’t hear anything over the fury of the rain and thunder, but I could imagine the screams underneath it from the people now trapped in their houses, pinned beneath rubble.
I didn’t go back for Ryder. What could a wilder do, even an Anointed one, against such a thing as this? He would see it well enough for himself if he hadn’t already, and I didn’t want him to try and stop me.
I ran out of the garden and down the hill, each step a fight against the confused maelstrom of wind whipping the air into a frenzy. My body screamed in protest, still tender from the trip to Mhorghast, but I ran as hard as I could until my cramping side forced me to stop. I bent over, hands on my knees, and caught my breath at the edge of one of the university parks. Massive trees lay uprooted, scattered across the ravaged grounds. I climbed on top of one, perched unsteadily on its charred trunk, and began to sing.
In Mhorghast, I’d thought of deception, clarity, defense. I’d held each concept in my thoughts, three stones in the ceaseless river of my voice, my breath, my power. And now I did the same, this time thinking only one simple command, as I’d done in the forest that day when I’d run at Ankaret: stop .
What would happen, I didn’t know. Was the storm truly Kilraith, or was it simply a magical tool he was controlling? Either way, if the awful thing yielded to my voice, what then?
But these questions were useless, mere distractions. I focused hard on my voice, calling my power to rise within me. At first, even my voice was no match for such a fury. The wind swallowed my every note. The ground shook as if from distant explosions, nearly knocking me off my precarious perch. I thought of pulling Ankaret’s feather from my dress and using it to summon her at last. But I had only one feather and a whole war stretching before me. First I would try singing.
Somehow I managed to remain standing, to draw deeper breaths. I lifted my face to the black sky and sang from every part of me—the soles of my feet, my clammy palms, my shaking knees.
The storm’s attention turned to me with a shift in the air and a sudden rush of heat. I cracked open my eyes, the wind knife-sharp on my cheeks, and saw darkness bearing down on me like a black wave rising out of the sea—relentless, cresting, threatening to break. Something whipped out of the churning sky—a tendril of shadow frosted with rain—and slammed into my stomach, knocking me to the ground. The blow disrupted my song; I huddled in the mud, my head reeling. Darkness slithered across the ground like snakes, wound around my torso, and lifted me up into the air.
I choked in the storm’s cold grip, managing only a thin thread of song, a mere unsteady hum. The storm brought me up to its bright unblinking eyes—each as large as a door, rimmed with ribbons of lightning—and inspected me. And then, the storm smiled, a bright arc of lightning so piercing it felt like a blade carving into my skin.
Suddenly I was back in that awful house by the sea called Farther, fighting to sing as Gemma tore the Three-Eyed Crown from Talan’s head. It was the same feeling crowding at my fingers, nipping at my throat. The same angry, hungry violence. But this time, I faced it alone. I had no Gemma or Mara, no Ryder or Alastrina.
Stop. I held the thought frantically in the crumbling grip of my mind and drew another ragged breath, but when I sang, I couldn’t hear my own voice. Thunder boomed in my ears, lightning crackling all around me. There was a distant rumble of low laughter, and within the laughter, something like a voice, calm as a storm’s eye. Why, hello again. The words rang in my head, more a feeling than anything. I know you.
I didn’t want to let in the word, but it flooded my thoughts anyway: Kilraith .
The pierce of his smile deepened, peeling me open. A horrible pressure was tightening around my body. My ribs would crack; they would puncture my lungs. The realization came to me in a desperate burst of panic, just as it had in that long-ago house of smoke. I was going to die.
Then, a streak of brilliant light shot through the storm, sending darkness flying like shattered glass. Kilraith lost his grip on me, and I fell, gasping, expecting the end. I was too high in the air; the impact would crack open my skull. But something caught me: a softness, bright and warm. Dazed, I found myself in one piece, once again on my hands and knees in the mud. I looked up, squinting at the dazzling radiance of whatever now stood between Kilraith and me. Inside my soaked bodice, pressed against my skin, Ankaret’s feather bloomed to life, warming me.
For it was she, towering over me with wings of her own—a bright pillar of light and feathers and fire. A low moan shook the air, a sound of despair. No , came an agonized plea. It was Kilraith, I thought, the thunderous boom of his voice vibrating against my skin. Wait, beloved—
But if it was Ankaret he pleaded with, she did not listen. She rushed at him with beating wings, her every feather outlined with blazing gold. She drove him up into the sky as if he were a mere piece of rubble being swept along by the tide. The immensity of him shrank, no longer mighty, a weak cyclone of shadows. The sky cleared, twinkling with stars. Dazed, I watched as she rammed into him again and again above the city’s scattered fires. Time moved both slowly and quickly; I felt as if I were watching an eerie dream unfold.
As Kilraith trembled before her—a mere blot on the sky now, faint tendrils of darkness reaching up through the blaze as if to entreat her, placate her—Ankaret reared up. Her wings spanned the entire breadth of the ruined parks, the white clusters of university buildings. She dove, engulfing him. A churning current of fire and shadow rushed over the city and outward in all directions, as if someone had dropped an impossible stone into an impossible sea. A great heat blew past me; I curled into myself, hiding my face as best I could. A thick blanket of silence fell and then was gone. In its wake, I heard distant screaming, desperate wails, urgent shouts.
I dared to lift my head and look around.
Kilraith was gone, as was Ankaret. The sky was clear, the air calm.
I pushed myself to my feet and staggered toward the university, not really understanding where I was going or what I was doing. I felt only the urge to see, to understand. I pressed my palm against my bodice and nearly cried with relief to feel the warmth of Ankaret’s feather. I took it as a sign that wherever she was, whatever she’d done, she was still alive.
But then I came to one of the cobblestone university courtyards, where on any other day you would see students gathered around their books or bustling to their next classes, professors arguing spiritedly over their lunches. On this night, it was chaos. A great furrow had been carved into the ground, and people were rushing everywhere, ashen, sobbing, holding each other. I hovered at the courtyard’s edge and watched them, my skin icy with dread. I heard their whispers, caught pieces of their desperate conversations. Gone. Disappeared. Shadows.
Taken.
For a moment, I couldn’t move. I kept listening, as if to convince myself that what I was hearing wasn’t real, that all these panicking people were wrong, that I was in fact still asleep in the Green House.
Someone across the courtyard, hidden from me by the rubble and the frantic crowd, howled out their grief. The sound shocked me into action. I spun around and left them all, hurrying back to the Green House as fast as I could. I couldn’t run, could hardly walk. I was bruised, wobbly-kneed, lightheaded. But the fear flooding me was stronger, and by the time I reached the Green House, I hardly even noticed that I had a body. I was pure terror, pure pounding heart and cold sweat. I dragged myself upstairs and burst into the parlor, Ryder’s name hoarse in my throat.
But the room was empty. His boots stood at attention, untouched on the carpet.
Ryder was gone.