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“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 eyewas 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 dosomething, savesomeone, 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 bellforged 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 ofthem.” 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 wouldneverhurt you.”

“But youhavehurt 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’velovedeach 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. Itrustedyou,” 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 Icould 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 cursedidfade, 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.