Chapter 32

CHAPTER 32

WREN

For a moment everything had been darkness and chaos, flashes of blue otherlight like lightning in the storm of shadow kin which carried them away. Wren heard screams and wondered where they were coming from. Not from her, and not from Laurence, though she wouldn’t blame him.

And definitely not from Finn. He didn’t make a single sound, just gazed through the shadows with eyes that reflected the darkness and those blue flashes of otherlight. It almost made his eyes blue again, for brief agonising moments. But not the dark blue she knew and loved. This was alien and dangerous.

Just wrong.

She stumbled as the shadows released them and then felt the surge of magic, neither light nor dark, Aurum nor Nox, rising around them. Old magic again, the same thing the sisterhood had tried to bind her with. Panic made her lash out and, worse, made Finn come to her defence.

Beyond the magical force which fell beneath her, she saw Roland.

Thank the light that Finn obeyed her cry to stop, standing there like a statue now as she fell into her father’s arms.

Not your father, not really , a vicious whisper told her. The Nox didn’t want to lose its grip on her. She pushed it away ruthlessly. You’re part of me, little vestige. And I am part of you. In the end, we will be one. That is how it will always end.

The Nox was already unravelling again away from the caves. It didn’t matter, the things it said. It was nothing. She had to remember that. The further it got from the caves, from the centre of its remaining power, the worse it would be. The less sanity it would cling to until its bloodlust overwhelmed it again.

And her.

The sobs came before she could stop them and she hardly heard what Roland was saying as he led her to the edge of the garden, finding a stone bench which she sank onto without releasing him.

Safe. Hestia had told her the spell would bring her somewhere safe. There was nowhere safer than with Roland. Nowhere in the world. She realised that now.

What a fool she had been to ever doubt him.

People scrambled out of Finn’s way as he moved soundlessly to her side, his eyes scanning all around. And poor Laurence trailed behind him, clutching the crown so tightly that blood ran from his palms. His hands were shaking and his face was pale.

‘Laurence,’ Wren managed to say. She wanted to apologise, to tell him it would be all right, that nothing bad would happen.

But it already had, and he had done it.

‘I…I didn’t…I couldn’t…they made me do it, my…my lady.’ The words spilled out, halting at first and then in a rush of emotion. He dropped to his knees in front of her, as if he didn’t have the strength to stand, and she tried to catch him.

Finn watched without comment or reaction. It was so unlike him to see another in obvious pain and do nothing. Roland saw it too and she noticed him nod to Anselm and Olivier, who took up positions where they could intercept Finn in a moment.

This was not good.

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ she murmured to the boy and reached out her hand in an effort to comfort him. Instead, he handed her the crown and she recoiled, almost dropping it. The cursed thing vibrated in her hands, recognising her. She pushed it back into Laurence’s grip.

‘What happened?’ Roland asked. ‘Wren, I need to know everything.’

‘Leander happened,’ she said bitterly. ‘Hasn’t he always happened? He killed Alessander and framed Finn. He’s king now and he…’ She glanced down at Laurence again. He was staring at the ground, broken. ‘He bespelled Laurence and killed Hestia.’

Roland sucked in a breath. Inexorably, his gaze fell onto the boy and he saw everything. Because Roland always knew.

‘This young man needs food and rest,’ he said softly. ‘And we need?—’

‘We need to get back to Pelias,’ Wren said. ‘Now. He’s going to attack. He’s probably already unleashing his army and he knows the city is undefended. He said the knights can’t stand without the Aurum. What does that mean, Roland? What happened to Elodie? They said she was sleeping, that she was enchanted.’

‘And the Aurum sleeps with her,’ said Finn in that soft monotone. ‘You are the queen now, my lady. You should take this.’ He scooped the crown out of Laurence’s unresisting grip and offered it to her again.

‘No.’ Her hair whispered around her shoulders as she shook her head, the sound like the laughter of the Nox, and Wren wanted to cry again.

But she couldn’t. Not just because it would not help. There were no tears left.

Finn seemed unmoved. ‘Then Pelias will fall. Who else can stop my brother now?’

The silence was bitter and awful. Everyone was looking at them. No, at her.

Anselm laid his hand on Finn’s armoured shoulder, pushing slightly and yet gently to get his attention. Finn’s lips curled back as if he might snarl.

‘We can, Finn. All of us. Don’t make her destroy herself and you. Come back to yourself, my friend.’

For a moment Finn’s expression stayed as still as stone, but then he frowned. Just a little, just a crack in the unyielding mask. He lowered the crown, and as he did so the confusion grew more clear. The Nox’s spell peeled back just a little. Enough.

‘Wren?’ he whispered. ‘I…I don’t know what…’

Wren rose to her feet and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him against her and holding him close. It was like embracing stone.

‘You need to rest, all of you,’ Roland told them, the tone of command unmistakable. ‘I will look after Laurence. Chancellor, can one of your people find us all rooms and a change of clothes for my daughter and my ward.’

His daughter, his ward. He was claiming them both again, making sure everyone knew they belonged to him. And not just the people of the College of Winter. Wren and Finn as well.

‘This is most irregular,’ said the Chancellor. Shadows ringed his eyes and he had the haunted look of a witchkind whose magic was close to depleted.

‘I know,’ Roland replied cautiously. ‘We have so much to untangle here, your people as well as mine. You and I must talk. There is a conspiracy which goes beyond the College and beyond Asteroth. Wren will do no harm here. Neither will Finn. They have just escaped the darkness at great risk to themselves.’

He nodded to them and Wren, fuelled by instinct, sank into a curtsy. Finn didn’t move, not to bow, not to do anything. For a moment she had thought he had come back but now he was like iron again. Perhaps he sensed a threat. Perhaps he was just…gone…

‘Chancellor,’ she said, turning what she hoped was a pleading look on him. ‘You must have a healer here skilled in magical ailments…please, we have need of your help.’

Vambray studied her face for a moment and then glanced at Roland, the obvious connection only now striking him. They must have heard the news…or rather the gossip…

‘Your royal highness,’ he said in a gentler, more formal tone. ‘We will do what we can. Vivienne is our finest. She will attend you shortly once she has attended those who…’ Awkwardness stole whatever he had been about to say but Wren knew anyway. Those who had been trying to stop her arrival, those she had already hurt just by coming here. The shard of guilt wedged in her chest cracked it open another notch. ‘Rooms will be made ready. Please, accept our hospitality. Grandmaster, you are right. You and I have much to discuss.’

‘Roland.’ Finn held out the crown. ‘You need to guard this. It’s the crown of Sidon. The ancient crown of the Nox. Leander wants it more than anything, apart from the princess. We need to keep them both safe.’

Safe for what, Wren worried, but couldn’t say a word as Roland took it from Finn, studied it with some evident distaste, and then left.

Only when it was out of her sight did she feel able to draw breath again.

It wasn’t much of a room, not compared to the palatial chambers of Pelias and Sidonia. But it wasn’t a prison cell either and for that Wren was grateful.

The healer, Vivienne, had listened to their story before she ordered Finn out of his armour and examined him carefully, everything from peering into his eyes, to listening to his heartbeat and testing his reflexes. She conjured up a spell which seemed to rely more on scent than anything else, and as she pressed her fingertips to his forehead, the aroma of lavender surrounded them. But in the end she just frowned at him, and then at Wren.

‘He’s full of shadows,’ she said. ‘As if he has been taken by shadow kin and remade, but not in their image. He hasn’t physically changed otherwise?’

‘Only his eyes,’ Wren replied, unable to stop looking at him, waiting for something terrible to happen.

‘His eyes,’ the healer murmured thoughtfully, staring into them as if looking for answers.

‘But he sounded like himself for a moment back in the courtyard. When Anselm talked to him. As if he remembered. And when he gave Roland the crown.’

‘Maybe that’s the key then, his memories? Our emotions are intricately tied up with them. And your Grandmaster is correct; rest would do wonders for both of you. I’ll have hot water sent up. Bathe, rest and talk to him. Maybe you can reach him. If not, we will have Anselm try again. But I think…’ She gave a brief smile. ‘I think you would have more luck. Those we love, those for whom we would give everything, they are the ones who can reach us when we are lost.’

‘It’s my fault he’s like this,’ Wren told her.

But to her surprise Vivienne shook her head. ‘He brought this on himself. One can only be this consumed by the Nox if one allows it in. It is squatting in him, using him, and I think it is doing so as a means to protect you, which is the greatest wish of anyone who truly loves another. He agreed to this, that’s the problem. You need to remind him that you are safe now, and that he can let go. Show him that. You have more magic in one finger than I have ever had, my lady.’

Wren felt her face heat. ‘But no training.’

‘No one has training for something like this. Now, I must see to the boy who came with you. He’s in a state of shock. What happened to him?’

Wren told her, as briefly and clearly as she could, and the poor woman’s face paled with horror and compassion.

‘I couldn’t leave him there,’ Wren said.

‘To be used in such a way again?’ The anger simmering in Vivienne’s eyes was just as plain. ‘No, you did the right thing. Don’t worry. I’ll look after him now. If you will excuse me?’

She left them alone. Servants bustled in and out for a little while, bringing a platter of cheeses and cold meats, a jug which she hoped was wine, and hot water and a pile of clean clothes. Wren sat on the edge of the bed, watching, while Finn stood grimly, guarding her against people who were clearly no threat at all. He never said a word and that crack she had seen, when he had almost seemed himself again, seemed like a wish or a dream.

And then, finally, the door closed and they were alone.

Wren pursed her lips, trying to work out what to do, how to reach him. Elodie would have known. Elodie was a healer, but a hedge witch too. She had tended all kinds of ailments in her time living in Cellandre, those of the body and the mind, both physical and magical. She would have had a solution and it would be practical and perfect in every way.

But Elodie was in Pelias and she couldn’t even help herself.

No, this wouldn’t do. Wren imagined the look of absolute scorn her sometimes mother would have cast at her for thinking this way. It would not do at all. She wasn’t some helpless girl to sit here and pine away while shadow kin or the Nox or whatever it was destroyed the man she loved. Not even if he had welcomed it in, and offered himself up.

To protect her from Leander.

‘He isn’t worth this, you know,’ she said to Finn. ‘And if we don’t do something about you he will have won anyway. He will have destroyed you.’

Finn’s head turned sharply, his dark gaze fixing on her. A reaction then. That was good, wasn’t it?

‘Come here,’ she said. ‘I want you to do something.’

He obeyed without questioning, because that was what he did now – obeyed her, worshipped her, killed for her – and came to a halt, towering over her. She reached out and touched his face, running her fingers along his jaw and feeling it tense beneath her touch. He let out a breath, a single, juddering breath that spoke of desire and fear and a thousand emotions all tangled together.

‘What would you do with me, Finn? Your will is your own, do you understand? I release you.’

For a moment she thought he wouldn’t move, wouldn’t answer. Everything was so still she was sure she could hear his heart thudding against his chest. Or maybe that was hers.

Then he pulled her into his arms and his mouth closed on hers, devouring her.