THE CROWN OF ASH AND MOONLIGHT

he read it again, slower, and Ysold

your hand

not

es were steady. "I said it's your hand. Those are dif

he did, the small cruel arithmetic of it. If he burned it, he destroyed the only evi

," she

aven

find it,

ack is still treason, and a slave caught conspiring has no rights at all." His thumb m

ha

coat beside the iron key, and said, "Noth

hiding evidence from your ow

one, to protect a woman I'm supposed to own." A muscle

giving her something he had never given anyone, and

" she

in." His voice dropped. "A traitor doesn't cry over her mother's son

mething sharp and cold and safe. Instea

s though she'

he said, when she could tru

and read the four words.

to anyone but me." Ysolde pressed her hands together to keep them still. "No one

who wrote it," R

now that h

hand so convincingly, they had samples. They had time. And they left a message in the same letter tha

rced her to help with the forgery, an

If it was true, her mother was alive, and the person holding her wa

hey keep her?"

look." His expression was grim.

I'll s

er

hin. "You said she isn't among the women you

g. A long breath

f someone is listening, they'll

t his gaze. "Let them wonder. You've been setting tr

r mouth like a stone through water, and the silence after it w

id finally, a lit

d her

wn existed, where the torches burned low and the stone sweated cold. Cinder p

built three hundred years ago for prisoners of war. M

or of locked doors. Only one torc

," he

closed

en she'd decided she was too old for lullabies. She felt foolish for a moment, sta

ittle cracked. Her mother's hands in her hair. The smell of lavender. The sound of rain on the

her voice breaking once on the turn. When

ip of water and the

hance," Rhydian

ck of her hand. Her whole body felt scour

the air an inch from her arm, trembling,

e," he

head sn

g in his chest. He turned toward the far end of the corridor,

and faint and unbearably sweet

he third

ied on, soft and shaking, as though whoever sang it had been wai

s went. She c

she br

ron door in three strides and slammed his shoulder against it. It didn't budge. H

y to this vault

asted one ter

d the king. "Only

raping sound, as though a hand had pressed against the iron. Then a voice

Run. It's

ir, a door slammed, and the sound