Chapter 20

CHAPTER 20

WREN

Finn didn’t look like the prince Wren had grown used to in Sidonia. He didn’t wear fine clothes or have that arrogant cast to his eyes. Instead, he wore the simple leathers and travelling cloak in which she had first seen him. His hair even looked like it still had briars tangled in it. He smiled, that half-hopeful, half-defeated expression, all confusion and self-deprecation, which made her pause.

The Finn she loved stood before her. The knight who had tried to save her in Thirbridge and got himself hopelessly entangled in the darkwood. Her Finn. The one she had longed for ever since they had fled Pelias.

No, before that. Ever since they had arrived in Pelias.

‘Finn?’ she whispered, hardly daring to believe it. She had found him. ‘Finn, is it really you?’

Her voice shook but she didn’t care if he heard that. Not him.

His smile widened and he opened his arms to her. His blue eyes softened with relief and in them she saw the flame of his desire for her.

The relief stole her breath and she started forward, ready to throw herself into his arms, after all this time. But something still wasn’t right. His eyes…

Blue, yes, but not the blue she remembered. His eyes were the eyes of a shadow kin, the bright blue of flames on a marsh, flickering with the intent to lead her astray. Will-o’-the-wisp eyes that could only be seen in the deepest darkness, luring the unwary into danger.

She skidded to a halt, her arms coming up to defend herself. All she wanted was her Finn. But it wasn’t him. This was just another trap.

‘ And why can’t it be him? ’ a new voice asked. His voice. And yet, at the same time not his voice at all. It was empty, a whisper, an echo. It was almost perfect but the things it said… ‘ It can be whatever you want, Wren. The shadows can fulfil your dreams. You only have to command them. They’ll obey you. You can have the Finnian Ward you want. Just say so. ’

No, this wasn’t fair. This wasn’t him and it was a trick. But the temptation was so strong…

He took a step towards her and held out his hand. And they looked so like his hands. The long fingers, elegant but strong, callused from using the sword, hands that were not afraid of hard work or dirt, hands that were beautiful to her. Her gaze ran from them up and across his skin as he reached out. The muscles of his upper arms were finely toned and so strong. His shoulders were broad and she could bury her face in the curve where they met his neck. If she pressed her lips to the skin there, so sensitive beneath her kiss, he would shiver with pleasure. Her stomach tightened with need, with desire, with longing. Because he was everything. He always had been.

‘ Come to me, Wren. Please. ’ His voice was a soft rumble against her, rippling through her.

Great light and shadows of old, she wanted to. She wanted Finn. He was all she wanted and all she needed, but it wasn’t him. It couldn’t be.

Oriole had warned her about this cave, known as the cave of longing. She knew it was playing with her mind.

But it felt like something was tearing her apart from inside, that terrible emptiness swelling and growing and sinking its claws into her, ripping its way out of her chest. Her longing was so strong she was certain it would destroy her.

‘Finn…’ His name was like a talisman, a charm, to wind her will around and to cling to. For a moment this shade before her smiled, encouragement and triumph warring on his beautiful face. ‘I want Finn. But you aren’t him. You can never be him.’

‘ No ,’ he agreed. It agreed. And even as she watched it melted into the swirl of shadows. ‘ But we would have been for you. We would have given you joy instead of the agony he offers. Now you’ll never know. ’ With a hollow ringing sound, something fell to the stones at her feet and Wren bent to pick it up. Her body seemed to move automatically, as if she didn’t have a choice in the matter.

It was a knife, like a sliver of moonlight, as long as her forearm, curving into a vicious tip. It filled her hand as if it had been made to nestle there.

‘ Go on then, go forward, and let the despair take you, little vestige. ’

There was a doorway behind the shadows and they parted for her. But even as she tried to walk, they wound themselves around her, and their whispers promised anything. Everything.

But Wren pushed onwards, staggering through the cave, into a new kind of darkness. Not just of the world around her, not just the deep seductive night. This was a darkness of the mind, and it devoured her without a struggle. Part of her was already there, and she knew it was where she belonged.

She understood what she truly was. The need she had felt bled away into emptiness, into that sucking void of nothing in her heart. Now there was only despair.

There wasn’t time. She didn’t have time and neither did Finn. She was going to lose him, she knew that. Nothing could stop that now. Perhaps he was already gone, dead or lost to her. She had taken so long to get through the caves and she needed to find him. She needed him and she had already failed him.

She had failed everyone.

There was no way to escape her fate.

After so much effort to choose her own path, she would meet her dark future here.

So, knife in hand, all she could do was let the darkness swallow her.