The Song Rising

by Samantha Shannon

  ‘You can’t come, Paige. Not this time.’

  ‘I’m Underqueen,’ I said, my voice cracking. ‘If this is our last stand—’

  ‘Paige,’ Nick said, ‘you just lost your father. You’re the most wanted person in this country, let alone this citadel.’

  ‘And you’re too susceptible to Vance’s manipulation,’ Maria said gently. ‘We’re all in agreement, sweet. You need to be as far away as possible from all of this.’

  I could tell from the others’ faces that they would brook no argument. My gaze shifted to Warden.

  ‘Fine,’ I said hoarsely. ‘I’ll go to the hills, stay out of the way. I won’t even be able to see or hear the transmission screens from there. Warden, will you come with me?’

  ‘Good idea,’ Nick said, visibly relieved. ‘You shouldn’t go by yourself.’

  I could tell that Warden was trying to work out what I was up to, what reason I could have for choosing him over one of the others. It would be our first time alone since our agreement. Finally, he answered.

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘Excellent.’ Maria slotted her guns into their holsters. ‘Come on, then, team. Let’s give Scion a night to remember.’

  18

  Vigil

  Warden and I set out on foot through the rain, taking enough provisions to last me until dawn. We were making for the hills behind Haliruid House – once a royal palace, now the official residence of the Grand Inquisitor in the Lowlands, which I doubted he visited often. The others had left for the warehouse in a state of feverish excitement. After days of whispers and machinations, they were finally going to destroy a Scion building – or try, in any case.

  Neither of us said a word as we walked. The park in the grounds of Haliruid House was thick with pine trees. We hiked around them and up the rough-hewn hills, belted by a bitter wind. The higher we ascended, the thicker my breath clouded, and by the time we reached a good vantage point, my hair glistened with drops of moisture. The thermals I wore under my clothes sealed in some body heat, but I couldn’t stop shivering.

  We made camp below an overhang. The space beneath was sheltered from the rain and afforded us a clear view of the citadel. I took out some canned heat and placed it between us.

  ‘Do you have a lighter?’ I said, finally breaking the silence.

  He reached into his coat and handed one to me. I lit the alcohol inside the can, setting a blue flame.

  Our vigil began. I was supposed to be safe from Vance up here, but she was waiting for me in the citadel, preparing to spring her trap. I couldn’t imagine what it would be this time. All I knew was that it would be designed to result in my capture, and in turn, my eventual death. She had no intention of letting me escape this place.

  Above us, the sky was a chasm, a mouth that threatened to swallow the earth. Up here, I could almost pretend that only we existed.

  There was a tight weight in my stomach. My failure and my father, knotted together.

  ‘My condolences for your loss, Paige.’

  I shifted, if only to stop myself freezing in place. ‘I don’t know if loss covers it. He was taken.’

  He glanced at me, then away. ‘Forgive me. Some . . . subtleties of English still elude me.’

  ‘People do say it. It just doesn’t make sense.’

  We were associates now, nothing more. I was Black Moth, Underqueen of the Mime Order, preternatural fugitive, failure. And he was Arcturus, Warden of the Mesarthim, Ranthen commander, renegade and blood-traitor, committed only to the cause.

  The last thing I should be doing was pouring out my heart to him.

  ‘The clearest memory I have of my father is from when I was five. He’d been away on a business trip to Dublin,’ I said, ‘and I’d been counting down the days until he came back to Tipperary. Every morning, I would ask my grandmother how long it was until he was home. I would sit at the kitchen table with her and draw pictures for him.’ I traced the criss-cross of my bootlaces. ‘Eventually, he came back. I sensed him. Even when I was very young, I could feel dreamscapes. Not for as far as I can now, but far enough.

  ‘I knew he was coming. Felt his dreamscape. I waited for him at the boundary of my grandparents’ land, until I saw the car in the distance. I ran to him. I thought he’d pick me up, but he pushed me away. He said, “Get back, Paige, for pity’s sake.” I was so little; I didn’t understand why he wasn’t happy to see me . . . I still loved him, for years. I tried. And then, at some point, I just . . . stopped trying.’

  Warden watched my face.

  ‘I don’t think I reminded him too much of my mother, or that he blamed me for her death. Nothing like that. I think he knew I was unnatural, and it . . . disturbed him. My cousin knew.’ I held my fingers over the flame. ‘Sorry. You don’t have to be my grief counsellor.’

  ‘Our agreement did not make me indifferent to you.’

  The wind dried my eyes.

  ‘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 honour 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 be
lieved 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.

  ‘I won’t leave you in the lurch. I’m not going to abandon the Mime Order, but I’ve proven that I’m not the person you need to lead it. You need someone who can win the voyants’ support after this, someone who can achieve a strong enough victory against Scion to persuade Adhara of their worth. Maria is probably your best bet. She understands war, and she gets on well with most of the Unnatural Assembly. She’s reckless, though. If not her—’

  ‘Paige.’

  ‘—Eliza would do well. She knows London, and she’s stronger than she realises. There’s Glym, too, if he wants to continue. And Nick. He survived for years in Tjäder’s Stockholm. He’d make you proud. Any of them would.’

  Warden didn’t move. I chanced a look at him, trying to see something, anything in his expression.

  ‘Paige Mahoney,’ he said, ‘I never thought that you, of all people, would prove worthy of your yellow tunic.’

  I was too drained to be hurt.

  ‘You’re right,’ I said. The cold made it harder to speak. ‘I am a coward. I – I left them in the shadow . . .’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘My family. Did you know about Ireland, Warden? Do you know what the anchor did to Tipperary?’

  His face didn’t change. ‘I thought you knew.’

  ‘No,’ I said, with a weak laugh. ‘No. But it doesn’t matter. I know what I have to do. If the Mime Order’s going to have a chance, I have to abdicate.’

  The shadows set his eyes on fire.

  ‘Fool,’ he said softly. ‘Do you think so little of yourself?’

  ‘Call me a fool again,’ I said, just as softly.

  ‘Fool. You have swallowed the same poison that Vance is pouring into her denizens’ wine.’

  Warden moved the tin of fire from between us and sat beside me, I looked up at him, taking him in.

  ‘I did not let you give up your memory of ScionIDE for the séance,’ he said. ‘I want you to find it now.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it is time you remembered.’

  The golden cord was taut as a violin’s string, quavering with our proximity. He was the bow, and I was the music.

  ‘Tell me how,’ I said.

  ‘Only you know.’

  His aura intertwined with mine. So did his arms. He reached into my memory.

  Golden light filled my vision, and the taste of copper sickened me. The ground fell away. A bitter taste flooded my mouth before a dam ruptured, and I was swan-diving through time and space – my body ripping itself to shreds, fracturing and re-forming again and again and again—

  And then—

  Kayley Ní Dhornáin on the street in Dublin, auburn hair on fire under the sun. Finn, my cousin, vanishing from sight, roaring incoherent anguish. Kay’s shirt is black, but the blood shines through. She never saw the gun that killed her.

  Hands, small hands, shaking her. My hands. Kay. A sob in my ears, a child’s sob. Kay, wake up, wake up.

  The flags of Ireland all around her. A man, one of Finn’s friends, raising his hands above his head.

  Stop, he pleads. She wasn’t armed.

  He, too, is unarmed. They shoot him dead. The man who knows his freedom is a threat.

  Panic. At this age, she hardly understands it. It crashes, breaks, and surges into the crowd, a living, monstrous thing. The grown-ups are scared, as scared as the children. An airless crush of bodies, pressing in on her from all sides. Mouths that scream, hands that shove. Mercy. Pushing. Falling over her own feet. Bronze statue that glints under the sun. Climbing, clinging to Molly Malone. Don’t let them see. Crawling underneath her wheelbarrow. One, two, three. Tears soaking her cheeks. We’re coming to get you, Paige.

  Beyond, a giant watches. Lanterns in its eyes. It sees her.

  Finn, help me, please.

  My eyes flickered beneath their lids. Petrified inside my mind. Warden knelt with me in the dirt, in the damp, his hands grasping my arms.

  A toy left in the blood, never to be reclaimed. Wandering through streets of death, past the bridge. Faceless soldier. Running. Nothing. When Aunt Sandra found her, she was a doll. Not a girl.

  Flowers at the lovers’ funeral, bouquets of wildflowers on the coffins. One stands empty. They wanted to be buried by the tree. Only fair to respect their memories, despite the absence of his body, despite her father’s fury that he took a child into the carnage. That she was brought back dripping red, mute, and drawing monsters in her schoolbooks. Her family singing the song from that day, the song of Molly Malone and her ghost. First time that she’s spoken at the grave.

  Finn, she says, I’m going to make them pay.

  Warden framed my face between his hands. The sleep-dealer was deep within the dark vaults of remembrance.

  Listen to me, Paige. We have to change our names. His features blurring, distorting. Paige, it’s not enough. At school, you say your name differently. Mar-nee. Like an English name.

  A Dhaid, scanraíonn an áit seo mé.

  We don’t speak Irish any more. Not any more.

  Spinning. I was falling into a whirlpool of memory. Down, down into the depths of decades.

  Molly Mahoney! Molly Mahoney! Hands twisting her hair. She smells like death. They killed our soldiers. Jeering faces. Dirty boglander. Go back to your swamp, brogue. Never heard the word before now. Sounds so cruel, like a sentence, like a curse. An older girl shoving her, girl with parents in the army. Girl whose mother was in Dublin that day. Where’s your red hair, Molly Mahoney? Wash my mother’s blood out, did you, did you? Don’t want dirt like you in this school. My dad says you’ll kill us all.

  Sounding out those syllables. Mar-nee. Mar-nee. Broken record. Don’t recognise this word. Not her name. Not a name. One day she will show them all this fire that lies inside her, fire that burns the inside of her skull and fills her to the brim with rage. One day she will haunt them to the grave.

  One day I will show them what it means to be afraid.

  Stop.

  Reels of recollections, tapestries of colours. Somewhere in the vortex, I recalled myself. No more of this. With my last drop of conscious thought, I struggled against Warden’s influence, kicking free of the current. The golden cord burst into flame, and—

  —darkness—

  Water purling over stones, mirror-still and crystal-clear. No reflection; only a steep drop to the deep below, and a bed of stainless pearls.

  Nothing lives. Everything is.

  Cloud forest. Emerging-place. Instinct guides him here. Above, twilight – blue hour, time of Netherworld. Time without time.

  Silhouettes of trees in the mist, taller than any Earth-tree. Amaranth. Before the conflict. Veils between this world and theirs. Nothing living here, and nothing dead.

  Stranger. Dancing. Not his kin, but kith to his spirit. Dark hair stream-fast on sarx. Lilt of their bodies. Collision of dreamscapes. Feel of her, scent of her in the water. Her name is a song on his lips, a name not tamed by a fell tongue. Terebell and Arcturus, names they will bear when war has begun.

  Beyond the veil, mortals sleep. When their lives end, Rephaim are waiting. Free of pain, free of sickness. Dislocated half-things. Wandering. They pine for a place where a falling sun puts them to sleep, where hunger never ends, where the ground waits to be fed with flesh—

  I wrenched free of the memory and lurched to my feet, backing away from him until our auras ripped apart. Sweat and tears bathed my cheeks. Voices echoed through my ears; I tasted fear and smelled the blood and smoke again. The nightmare was over, but all of it was real.

  ‘How – how did you do that without salvia?’

  ‘I do not need salvia. It is an
aid,’ he said. ‘No more.’

  ‘It’s not really your numen.’

  ‘No.’

  My throat was a clenched fist. Everything in my body felt contracted with terror.

  ‘Paige.’

  ‘I remember everything. I saw—’ A single tear ran to my jaw. ‘A Rephaite. In Dublin.’

  ‘Gomeisa Sargas was there to bear witness to the Incursion, and was pleased with what he saw. Since then, Hildred Vance’s mind has been his most reliable weapon.’

  My young mind must have closed down, locking the memories deep into my hadal zone. The streams of death, so great in number that the gutters had run red. The soldiers marching across the bridge; the vanguard riding stallions; hot breath steaming in the morning air. Babies and children, men and women – all of them dead. From under the statue of Molly Malone, I had watched the soldiers drag the bodies away to be dumped into the river, knowing that if I moved an inch, if I let out one sound, I would be among them. Butchery orchestrated by Hildred Vance, with Gomeisa Sargas pulling every string.

  And it would happen again. Any day now, it would happen again.

  The tears kept coming. I breathed as evenly as I could, dabbing my eyes with my sleeve.

  ‘I saw you in the Netherworld.’

  The light in his eyes flickered. ‘The golden cord must have allowed you to mirror my gift.’

  ‘You were dancing with Terebell.’

  ‘She was my mate,’ he said, ‘long ago.’

  I was too numb to absorb it, but part of me had known. There was no other reason for her to be so protective of him, to be so intimate with him. She wasn’t like that with any of the other Ranthen.

  ‘Why isn’t she your mate any more?’

  Warden looked back at the citadel.

  ‘It is not wholly my tale to tell.’

  There was a tender pressure at my temples. ‘I didn’t realise that you thought in Gloss,’ I said. ‘I know I couldn’t have understood your voice, or your thoughts, in my body – but with the golden cord, my spirit could make some sense of the language. Like a mental translation. It was like – like hearing a song I used to know—’

  I buckled against him. Warden caught my arms, steadying me, and we knelt again.