Prologue
PROLOGUE
ELODIE
All Elodie’s life had been mapped out for her, its course rigid, unwavering, absolute.
She knelt before the flames and bowed her head, trying to focus and run through everything exactly as she had been told. Reach out to the Aurum, offer up yourself, your heart, your soul.
‘ All who walk this path walk upon a knife’s edge. ’
The words of her ancestor Aelyn rang through her head and they were forever true.
This was the first step. She was Chosen, they said. But she was also fifteen years old. Just fifteen and already she had no future.
She thought of the boy in the kitchens. He was a year older than her and he was a newly made knight. His kit was old and clearly repurposed. It might have belonged to his father, or an uncle. Or even his grandfather. The light alone knew, the Knights of the Aurum never changed.
But he was kind. And gentle. And he had the loveliest eyes, dark and deep. And that smile, a rare and precious blessing. She might have chosen a man like that herself, if she was ever given a choice. But that, too, was impossible. Still, she could dream.
He hadn’t known who she was and she had liked that. Roland, he said his name was. And he blushed.
‘You’ve left it far too late,’ Aunt Ylena sniped at her mother from just a little distance away, beyond the ring of white stones around the Aurum’s flame, where they stood watching her, as still and austere as the unmoving statues of their ancestors encircling the chamber. ‘This should have been done years ago and you know it.’
Elodie’s mother laughed. ‘She’s just a child, Ylena. Don’t wish her life away.’
‘She should have already made her formal vows to the Aurum, not this playacting. She should be married. She’s your only heir, and the line must continue. If you’d put aside?—’
‘Enough,’ Aelenor snapped, and all the good humour was gone. They were forever at her to set Elodie’s father aside and take another husband – because Jonquil had not given her another child – but Aelenor would never do that. It wouldn’t make any difference, she had told him, when Elodie’s beloved father had begged her to listen to her advisors. And that was that.
‘She is to be queen. I would have thought you would understand that.’
‘I want her to at least have what I have, Ylena.’
Love. She wanted her daughter to know love. And Elodie did, perhaps. Or the first stirring of it. She had looked at Roland and something in her mind had said, quite clearly, He’s mine .
She would just have to persuade him of that. Because once her bodyguards had finally found her – safe and unharmed, of course, just talking to him in the kitchens by firelight – he had been horrified. He’d dropped to his knees, begging her forgiveness. And the spell of anonymity had been broken.
‘She must marry. We need this alliance, or there will be a war.’
A cold shadow passed down Elodie’s back, like a whisper of winter. Marry? Who did Aunt Ylena want her to marry?
‘I notice you bring this up when your own child has taken the vows of a maiden.’ Aelenor’s tone was scathing.
‘That was hardly my choice. Maryn is headstrong. Almost as bad as her.’
Her . Elodie smiled a little. They couldn’t see anyway, and wouldn’t be looking if they could. She was communing with the flames of the Aurum, or was meant to be, but the Aurum rarely responded to her anyway. They weren’t exactly chatty at the best of times. The holy fire was distant and silent but one day she knew she would channel it and speak with its voice and divine its will. Like her mother did as queen and Chosen.
Maryn would have been so much better at this than she was. But Maryn was the daughter of the second-born princess royal, not the queen. A cousin, not an heir or an equal. Not Aelenor’s daughter. Everyone was fond of reminding both of them of that. And Maryn knew her mother of old. She and Elodie were like sisters more than cousins. And now Maryn wasn’t here. She’d joined the Maidens of the Aurum, where her magical abilities could be put to the best service of the kingdom. Mainly, Elodie thought, to escape the machinations of her own mother. Lady Ylena, princess royal of Asteroth.
Elodie tried to focus again. Maryn could do this. The flames danced for her, grew bright and blinding when she approached. Perhaps Maryn should have been chosen and not her. Perhaps…
There was no good in wishing for things which could not be. Like freedom. Like Roland.
Light and dark, flames and shadows, Elodie’s whole life was divided into what was allowed and what was not allowed. She suspected the country knight in the kitchens fell very much into the not allowed category. Oh, but she wanted him.
‘I’m not sure Evander of Ilanthus is…’ her mother paused, picking her words carefully, ‘an ideal match.’
‘But he is the best hope of peace. And we can ensure his cooperation.’
Aelenor sighed. ‘There’s no need for that, surely. It’s…distasteful. No, there’s time yet. The Aurum will guide us. She’ll know when she sees him.’
Oh, but she did know. Elodie knew she should say something, anything, but she was afraid as well. The light of the hearth had played on his face, in his eyes.
And he had been so kind. She longed for kindness, gentleness, for someone who would love her completely and never fail her.
There wasn’t time. Within a year, Aelenor was dead and Elodie was engaged to be married to a prince of Ilanthus. And what a disaster that had proved to be…
The flames of the Aurum warmed her face and she looked up into the light. She was no longer a girl. Not in any way but in her heart. And everything had fallen apart.
What was your vow?
The voice echoed strangely. It sounded a little like her mother’s voice, but it was something else as well. More than one voice. A chorus. It rang around the back of her mind, and came from every corner of the chamber. The white stones encircling her vibrated with its sound. Outside them, there was only darkness.
And that wasn’t right either. She should have been able to see the whole Sanctum. There should have been maidens in attendance, and courtiers, Paladins to guard her…Roland…and Wren…
This wasn’t right. She wasn’t a fifteen-year-old girl hearing all the options of her future being closed off. She was a woman, a queen, a mother…
What was your vow?
The voice that was many voices came again, more insistent this time.
‘To…to serve.’ Her words were forced from her throat, whether she wanted to speak or not.
And have you?
The ground shook beneath her and Elodie stared into the fire, tears burning the corners of her eyes. Had she? She had tried to. That had to count for something, didn’t it?
But the Aurum rarely bothered with intentions. Action was all.
And have you served us, Elodie?
Elodie closed her eyes but the light forced them to open again, forced her to look into its depth, and in the white-hot heart of the flames of the Aurum images formed. A man, strong, broad-shouldered, tall. Not the boy she had fallen in love with the moment she saw him, the man with whom she should have spent her life, but the man he became, the man she had deserted. Her every desire. The love of her life. He held a sword in front of him like a challenge, a sword which became a column of light, and his expression was both grave and heartbroken.
The last time she had seen him…
Beside him stood a girl, small and slight, with a mass of black hair which moved like ink in water around her, alive with enchantment and power. Her dark eyes looked huge in her pale, resolute face, and she spread her hands wide. Darkness and shadows tangled around her fingertips. But in that darkness Elodie could see stars. Light within the shadows. It should have been impossible, but not for her daughter.
Wren.
And Roland.
Elodie’s heart ached. But they were lost to her now. They were gone. And she…she didn’t know where she was.
We fight the Nox , they had sworn, all of them, Elodie, Roland, even Wren in her innocence, with flame and sword.
Well? the voice of the Aurum asked.
The flames roared through her, deafening her and blinding her as everything she was, everything she would have been and everything she wanted was burned away again.