Chapter 30

CHAPTER 30

WREN

‘Hestia?’ Wren asked, amazed that her voice didn’t shake as she spoke.

‘Lady Hestia no longer commands the Sisterhood of the Nox,’ said Oriole coldly.

There was no doubt who now did, Wren thought, and any sense of nascent friendship she had felt for this woman dissolved.

If I fail…if something happens to me… Hestia had said. And something had definitely happened. She had no more power left, her magic broken, and clearly the sisterhood had discovered as much. And they had sided with Leander.

Perhaps that had been Oriole’s plan all along.

‘Why let me come here?’ Wren asked.

Oriole spread her hands wide. ‘This treasure house was closed to us, sealed away by the Nox herself because of that crown. And now it is ours again. You opened the way.’

And with the dark crown they could control the Nox. Wren recalled what Oriole had said about the Nox and the death and destruction their goddess had wrought.

Wren glanced at the crown briefly. It glimmered in the darkness, waiting.

No, she thought. Absolutely not. She had never wanted a crown, not in Cellandre, not in Pelias, and definitely not here.

‘I don’t think so,’ she replied. ‘Hestia?—’

‘Divine darkness…’ Hestia murmured the words, but her gaze was fixed on the boy beside her, Laurence. And the armed men flanking the two of them. ‘If I could help you I would.’

‘Still defiant?’ Leander actually had the nerve to laugh. ‘I’ve explained how this goes, my dearest cousin. If you defy me, Laurence will suffer for it. And Laurence will do whatever I say, won’t you, Laurence?’

The strange glassy expression that passed over Laurence’s open features made a chill of premonition wriggle up through Wren’s spine. He looked like Carlotta. And he didn’t have a scrap of magic in him to stand against such a spell.

‘Yes, your majesty.’ He sounded like someone in a dream. ‘Whatever you want. I am your servant.’ He sounded dazed. Beside Wren, Finn stiffened and brought the shadow-wrought sword up to a defensive position. He sensed it too then. Of course he did. And Wren knew he cared about Laurence as well. About both Hestia and her son.

Wren remembered a spell Elodie had once used against her to make her obey. At least her mind had still been her own. Not so here. Laurence was little more than a puppet right now and Leander was revelling in it. Who had taught him this?

‘Please, Leander,’ Hestia snapped. ‘I’ve promised I will not interfere. I’ve sworn fealty and I’ve done what you wanted. I brought you here. I led you to them. Please .’

Leander rolled his shoulders and tilted his head back, letting out a bored sigh. ‘Enough of the mewling. Dear goddess—’ His eyes locked with Wren’s and he smirked at her, a slow and deliberate expression designed to mock her. ‘Laurence, get the crown.’

Finn stepped forward to block any approach, knowing at once that the Nox would not have them use that crown again. Hestia flinched, a soft cry smothered by her hand on her mouth. Finn would defend the Nox. And Wren. He had no more choice in that than Laurence did right now.

Protect them for me , Hestia had begged Wren.

Wren’s hands tightened into fists. Leander’s magic wound about the boy, puppeting him, and there was nothing Hestia could do about it now. Nothing at all.

‘Give the boy a weapon, Gaius,’ Leander snarled. ‘You can’t ask him to go up against a Knight of the Aurum unarmed. Not even one as pathetic and fallen as Finn.’ When Gaius didn’t move, Leander drew his own blade and forced it into Laurence’s numb hands.

He was going to get the boy killed. Perhaps he was doing it deliberately, to torture Hestia, to punish her for binding his powers, for standing against him. To punish Finn, to make him kill an innocent. To punish her.

No, she couldn’t allow this. She simply couldn’t.

I can stop it , said the Nox . I can unbind the boy and destroy them all. I can ? —

But when Wren reached out to seize the power it offered, something blocked her. It was like a static shock running over her flesh. Even Finn froze and Laurence moved like a sleepwalker to the treasure, took the crown in one hand and made his way slowly back towards Leander.

Wren jerked back, catching sight of Oriole and the other Sisters, their hands weaving shadows, using the power Wren had felt in the stones against her now. Not the power of the Nox, but something else. Something old…

What is this heresy? The voice of the dark goddess made the air tremble and Wren saw several of the sisterhood blanch, their hands falling still for a moment. They heard it too and it gave them pause.

‘Don’t listen to her,’ Oriole snapped. ‘This is our moment, the one I promised. The old magic will help us all. We can weave it and bind her. Do not lose heart.’

‘Heart?’ Wren asked, and her voice hardly sounded like her own anymore. The Nox wasn’t just outraged now. It was furious. They were its servants…her servants and they defied her. Betrayed her. They were using old magic against her. ‘I’ll show you hearts .’

She didn’t know where the surge of magic that filled her came from but it tore through her body, racing across the ground. She reached out and snatched those threads of power the sisterhood was using. One of the Sisters cried out, a terrible scream, and then another joined it. Wren twisted her hands in an abrupt gesture of rage that hardly felt like herself. Because it wasn’t. They fell like wheat at harvest time, ribcages wrenched open in a spray of blood and viscera.

‘Wren, no!’ Hestia cried out in dismay. ‘Don’t do this. Please!’

She was far too late. Wren wasn’t in control anymore.

Oriole snarled something, othertongue which grated against all of Wren’s senses, undercutting the siren song of the Nox. It married with the magic of Leander’s spell, piggybacking on it and then commandeering it. Hestia broke free, trying to block her son from reaching the king. Laurence turned, the sword still in his hands, and ran his mother through.

Everything seemed to freeze, the power, the anger, the air itself, as Hestia stared into the face of her young son and then slid to her knees. Blood bubbled from her open mouth.

A scream of rage filled the air, not from Laurence, or Hestia, but from Leander.

‘What have you done, Oriole? She was my family, my blood. She was mine!’

Oriole cast him no more than a scathing glance.

‘She was weak and useless, tied to dogma and tradition. The sisterhood is better off without her.’

With a sharp crack, Leander struck Oriole across the face and she spat a curse at him, lunging forward. Guards stepped in before she could do anything more, and their truce, such as it was, unravelled.

The spell on Laurence snapped. Perhaps their own spat meant they weren’t paying attention, or perhaps they released him on purpose. Wren would put nothing past the vindictive self-centredness of the pair of them. The sword fell from his numb hand with a crash as he realised what had happened.

‘No,’ he whispered, voice numb in shock. ‘Please, no.’

Enough, Wren thought, her consciousness only just clinging to reality. Hestia’s blood, the blood of Sidon, was pooling beneath her. And the power in her was spiralling out of control.

Protect them for me , Hestia had begged.

‘Finn, hold him,’ Wren barked, sounding more like Elodie or Roland than she would have ever imagined possible. Finn didn’t argue. Perhaps Finn would never argue with her again. He grabbed Laurence by the scruff of the neck and reached out his arm, still holding the sword, to Wren as if he knew what she was planning. Perhaps he did. He was a servant of the Nox now. That was what she had seen in his eyes.

And she was the Nox.

A moment of clarity shook her to the core. She had torn those women open without a moment’s pause. Without a qualm. Not some distant power operating through her. She had known what she was doing.

Oriole shouted more othertongue and the tenuous grip Wren still had on the shadows faltered for a moment. The treacherous sister gave her hands another vicious twist and pain lanced through Wren this time. The same spell perhaps, reflected back on her.

Perhaps she deserved it. It wasn’t enough to stop her, not now, but it shook her to the core.

‘I’m coming after you wherever you go,’ Leander shouted. ‘Every warrior of Ilanthus stands ready and Asteroth has lost the Aurum. The knights are in disarray. Pelias will fall. Do you hear me, little bird? At dawn we attack. Everything is ready, troops, ships, weapons, men. I’m going to raze its walls to the ground, reduce the mountain to dust. I’m going to?—’

Wren embraced the full force of the Nox, turned it on the sisterhood who ranged themselves against her – her servants, sworn to her, tied by vows and service, traitors all of them – and she ripped apart those who remained like wet rags. Oriole screamed, anger and pain twisting her voice as she felt her body wrenched open, her blood joining Hestia’s.

Wren’s eyes fixed on Leander, but she couldn’t touch him. Her magic slid past him. He’d made no vows to break, it seemed, or had greater protection than she could tear through. He was the king of Ilanthus and that meant something when it came to the Nox. He had protections of his own. His guards started forward, steel ready.

Later, she promised herself. She would deal with him later.

With her free hand, Wren broke the pendant.

Safety, she thought as Hestia’s last spell uncoiled around them, not a spell of shadows but one of blinding light. It would take them to safety – her, Finn and Laurence.

The problem was, she didn’t know where that was anymore.