Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9

WREN

As they approached, the king looked up from his seat on the raised dais, still cold and austere, his pale eyes raking over Wren’s form. He beckoned her forward, but she couldn’t move. Her feet felt like stone. Beside her, Finn had stiffened and that smug self-assuredness seemed to falter. Anyone would hesitate when faced with Alessander of Ilanthus. Anyone sane, anyway.

Finn took a determined step forward, ready to drag her up the steps to his father’s feet.

‘No,’ said Alessander. ‘Just the girl.’

‘But Father—’ Finn began, clearly annoyed.

‘I may have named you my heir, boy, but that does not make you my equal. Stand down. Wren of Asteroth, come forward,’ the king went on. She almost had to tear herself out of Finn’s grip, but just one look at the man before her said that it wasn’t going to end well if she didn’t do as he said. Her eyes burned as she forced herself to walk towards him. Then she stood still, alone, waiting as he inspected her again.

‘Well?’ he said more softly.

‘Oh yes,’ said General Gaius. ‘That’s her.’ He stood at the king’s side, resplendent in dress uniform. ‘Will you trade her?’

‘This treasure?’ the king replied. His smile was unbearably cruel. She could see Leander in him, with his white hair and icy eyes, and a shadow of this new Finn as well, but neither of his sons could ever have made her feel quite so alone and lost. She was an object, a thing, not a person at all. A treasure … ‘What could they offer in return of a fraction of the value?’

‘My lord king, your son and Lady Hestia are still captive in Pelias. We can negotiate for their return. The regent, Lady Ylena, will be reasonable?—’

Alessander laughed. ‘You have met Ylena, Gaius. Are you so very sure about that?’ Then his humour died away and he fixed his attention on Wren again. She wished the ground would swallow her up, or that she still had the ability to draw the shadows around herself and hide. ‘You, girl, are you content with the prince? What progress has been made?’

He was waiting for an answer. All Wren could do was stare at him.

‘Speak,’ he barked.

‘I-I don’t know what you want me to say.’ The words were out before she considered them.

‘The truth, lady. They told me you loved him, that it was the scandal of Pelias. Well?’

‘I…I loved him. But…’

‘But what?’

‘He has changed.’

The king smiled a thin and nasty smile. ‘Has he indeed?’

Gaius frowned at her, confused, but held his tongue. Had he noticed the difference in Finn as well? He didn’t look pleased though. Not at all. But no one interrupted the king.

Except perhaps a prince.

‘Father,’ Finn began, the tone ready to cajole and charm. Funny how she could hear the deceit in him now. ‘You know how women are…’

Which was the kind of thing her Finn would never have said. Wren closed her eyes, and felt the bleak emptiness grow larger again. With it came a brush of darkness that was almost a relief. She caught hold of it, those tendrils of night and shadow, and pulled them closer. The bracelet on her arm turned cold as ice but she didn’t care. She could barely feel it anymore. What was the pain it could cause compared to everything unravelling inside her?

‘Come closer, your highness,’ the king said quietly. He was still maintaining the charade that Wren was a princess then, rather than a captive. Perhaps in his eyes she was both. Trade her, the general had said. Was that all she was now? A game-piece on a playing board? If she begged him, would they send her back? ‘Lady Oriole, if you will.’

A woman dressed in a black gown as fine as Wren’s stepped forward from the left-hand side of his throne. She had dark eyes and red hair, and her long fingers were threaded together in front of her. Around her neck she wore a silver necklace which pressed heavily against her pale skin. The sense of the Nox’s magic came off her in waves. She was powerful, more so even than Hestia, and she carried with her an aura of otherness.

Wren took an involuntary step back but there was nowhere to go.

‘No!’ Finn shouted suddenly. ‘This is not what we agreed!’

The king slammed his hand down on the arm of the throne, his fist clenched. The noise made Wren jump. ‘And we have waited too long for your side of that bargain. Where is this willing queen you promised? Where is the obedience? I see nothing but a frightened child! Do it, Oriole. Now.’

Wren tried to back away but there were guards on the steps behind her. She glanced over her shoulder, but Finn was being restrained by more of his father’s men. There was no way out of this.

Oriole approached her.

‘I won’t hurt you,’ she said in a smooth and firm voice. ‘But first of all we need to be sure. We know what we have been told but the Asterothians have betrayed us too many times. Bow your head.’

Wren’s throat tightened. There was nowhere to go, nothing she could do. And she didn’t even need to bow her head because Oriole was far taller than she was and besides, she was standing on the step above her. There was nowhere Wren could go, no one to help her. She wanted Finn. Not Finn as he was now but Finn as he had been. She wanted him, needed him. But she was alone.

Oriole pressed her long fingers to either side of Wren’s head and held her still. She closed her eyes, concentrating on something, words of othertongue drifting from her lips.

Shadows surged from every corner of the room, thick and black as smoke, and rushed towards Wren.

Wren threw back her head as the shadows swirled around her, lifting her hair to dance with them. The darkness filled her eyes and the voice of the Nox sang inside her blood. There was light bleeding from the stained-glass windows, the colours darkening. She tried to breathe and felt the night fill her lungs. Stars flashed in her eyes and when she lifted her shaking hands she saw swirls like ink moving beneath her skin.

The bracelet glowed with otherlight, blazing in her sight, desperately trying to absorb the magic coursing through her. But it couldn’t. Power bled from her skin, and it hurt. Light and shades of old, it hurt. She tried to breathe evenly, tried to grapple with everything in her and reach for the light. That was what Elodie had always said. Always reach for the light.

But there was no light here. Not really. Any that fell on her was sucked away, driven from her. She tried to step back but felt her feet go from beneath her.

Oriole caught her hands, pulled her up and then stared into her face. The Sister’s eyes widened, first in disbelief, then shock at what she saw there. Whatever she had expected of Wren, this wasn’t it. A lie, perhaps, a trick, but not the Nox itself, not even the little of it Wren embodied. She sank to her knees, head bowed.

Others followed suit; all around the throne room, Ilanthians great and lowly fell to their knees before Wren until she was the only one standing. The king still sat on his throne, staring at her with an unreadable expression.

No, not the only one standing, she realised.

Finn’s fingers bit into the flesh of her arm like a vice.

‘Enough!’ he snarled and she barely knew him. ‘Don’t give her power when you have no idea what she’ll do with it, you stupid bitch. Do you want her to kill us all?’

He tried to drag Wren after him, but she didn’t move and, despite his strength, he stopped. He couldn’t move her. Not now.

The Nox whispered words of othertongue, words she couldn’t use. Not yet. But that didn’t stop her saying them. Just to see the reaction.

Finn abruptly released her, a look of fear and confusion sweeping over his handsome face, his face that…wasn’t quite his face…

Maybe she could use this power after all. Maybe…

Othersight showed her the angles and planes of another man’s features, silvery grey eyes, and a tight, arrogant mouth. Wren peered closer, peeling back the layers of whatever enchantment he had used, and saw him realise what she was doing.

‘Stop this, Wren,’ he told her. A warning. A threat.

But she didn’t. She didn’t have to. There was no need to obey him, and he could not protect her from anything here. He’d never intended to. He was a lie. Everything he said, everything he did, everything he was.

‘You’re not Finn,’ she snarled softly, little more than a breath, but rippling with rage. The Nox growled in her words.

For a moment he held his ground, but his face paled a little and she smelled his fear. Oh, he knew what she could do, and what she was. And he knew she was angry.

Not just angry. Enraged.

‘Leander? What did you do to him?’