Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7

ELODIE

The light burned and blistered. It never wavered, but beat down on her, relentless and uncaring. Elodie had never been afraid of the Aurum before but now…now she barely knew it. It was everywhere, all-encompassing, her entire world, her whole existence and it would never stop.

That was what it told her.

Over and over again.

And she ought to be no more in that light. She ought to be burned away.

But something small and stubborn, something that was so fundamentally the core of Elodie, clung on.

Not Queen Aeryn of Asteroth. Nor yet the Chosen.

Just Elodie.

The woman who had loved Roland and given him up for the sake of her kingdom. The woman who had raised a child and seen past her origins to make her a good and strong person in her own right. A hedge witch. A healer.

Slowly, she tried to uncurl.

‘I will not be destroyed. I will not give in. I still have a purpose.’

Something laughed. Something bright and terrible.

Foolish girl. I will fill you until there is nothing left of you. I will remake you as I see fit. We will burn this world until we find our enemy and then…

Enemy? Wren. It meant Wren.

‘No,’ said Elodie and her voice shook the world the Aurum had built around her. The prison in which it was keeping her.

She reached out blindly. In the past, she had always reached for the light, and that was her mantra, her creed. That was what she had always told Wren, time and again, always reach for the light.

But she couldn’t do that now. The light was no longer on her side. It wanted to grind her down until she was no more than a mindless slave. And then it would use her to hunt Wren down and kill her.

No, she thought. There has to be another way. Some other way. Anything!

Something else responded, something deep in the mountain, something swirling through the air. It rippled through the water and it beat in every living heart.

The old magic coursed through her and somewhere, in that royal bedchamber, her body convulsed. She had not been made for magic like this. She was created for the light and it had always welcomed her as she welcomed it. But this…this was something other, alien, something ageless that had been waiting all along.

So be it, she thought wildly. If this is what I must do.

She had felt the old magic in the forest and had reached a kind of détente with it long ago, a bargain. There had been at least two spirits of old magic which had woven their lives around her and Wren, protecting them both. It had always been there, beneath the surface, sometimes aiding her, sometimes ignoring her requests. The light had always responded sooner and faster, so she had thought –fool that she was –she had thought the light was all. But the magic of the wild had not turned on her.

Magic was magic. She could use this. There would be a price but she could use it. Anyone witchkind could, but the destruction it could wreak on them was intense.

Something reached into her very heart, just as she reached deep into the heart of the land itself. Old magic roared around her.

Hedge witch , it said, and just that title alone was an exultant cry of joy.

She heard someone crying out in alarm, shouting for help. It took Elodie a moment to untangle where the cry came from. Was it the old magic? Another vision from the Aurum? But no, the voice was familiar. And real…

It was Lynette. Her friend shouted her name, trying to pin her down and contain her struggling form, and Elodie caught a glimpse of the bedchamber where she lay, just for a moment, a blinked sketch of her body thrashing about in that huge bed, burning with a fever, lost. Lynette of Goalais was watching over her, trying to care for her and help her along with the healers.

At least she had that.

And then she spun away, desperate and afraid. Old magic had her in its teeth and she was flying.

Maryn would know what to do. Where was Maryn?

In the chamber of the Aurum, she found her friend. She stood there talking intently to Lady Hestia Rayden and with Hestia…

That couldn’t be right. He looked like Leander, and sounded like him but…the light in him was wrong, so wrong. The light of the Aurum. In place of his cold grey eyes, so like his uncle Evander’s, she saw the blue of the ocean, its darkest depths. As if he was partly a reflection in a pool and partly a man, and the two were not the same anymore.

Old magic coursed around her, reaching out for her. It burned along her veins like a poison. Not the magic of the Aurum this time. Something else, something older that was stirring. Because the Nox was scattered and the Aurum…

The Aurum was trapped. In her, in her body, pushing her out into the wider world, or the space between worlds. And in that liminal space something else gathered. They fought for her.

Old as the stones, old as the earth, old as the sky. Its sighs were the wind and its heartbeat shook the mountain.

It pulled Elodie deeper, like a child intrigued by a new plaything. It wanted answers. It wanted to know… It wanted everything, beyond reason or consideration for her.

‘No,’ Elodie said again, clinging to the scene before her, to Maryn and Hestia and…

Ylena arrived in a flurry of rage and Elodie could see that force sparking around her, inside her, winding through her body and around her old bones. Ylena didn’t know it was there but Elodie saw it and saw the tendrils that spread out from her. Back to someone…someone else…

Hedge witch.

Old magic was loose in the world.

It would tear Asteroth apart. And not just Asteroth…

If she could reach it though, form some sort of agreement as she had with the powers in the forest long ago then maybe…

You serve me , the Aurum snarled. It would hear no argument, no debate. She was meant to obey. She had been born to serve this power of light and flames and absolute obedience.

But she didn’t. Not now. She served her kingdom, her people. That was the truth of it. That was why she had taken Wren and run away in the first place. That was why she had given up Roland.

Roland…she had to find Roland…

Great light, she thought and stopped herself while the Aurum laughed, but the Aurum was not everything, no matter what it believed.

She felt Hestia seize on the magic carrying Elodie, a wild and desperate hope born out of fear. Ylena was threatening them, threatening…him…

But Hestia was depleted and weak. She had used all that she had to save the prince. Wren’s prince, Elodie realised. Finn. Her daughter’s beloved, just as Roland was hers. The power of the Nox rose briefly in response to Hestia’s entreaties and started to fail almost at once. Maryn reached out, trying to lend her strength. Even Maryn instinctively understood the truth of it, the necessity. They had to get Hestia and Finn away from Ylena.

Ylena, or whatever was using Ylena to do its bidding, willing or no, wanted Finn. To bind him, control him, or perhaps just destroy him. If they could break him they could use him against Wren. It could not stand.

Hedge witch, let us help.

Elodie threw all that she had into the heart of that spell, all that remained of her, and watched the old magic rise to spirit Hestia and Finn far away.

After that, nothingness swallowed her whole.