Chapter 40

CHAPTER 40

WREN

Metal pressed against her throat, cold and sharp. It bound her wrists as well. Shadow-wrought steel. Wren knew that without looking. She could feel it, seeping through her, dragging her will and her magic from her. It was worse than the bracelet. So much worse.

But that wasn’t the most terrible part of it.

Her shoulder burned as if acid was dripping down onto her from on high, creeping through her veins. Her skin felt hot and tight and when she moved, a spear of pain shot through her.

The shadow kin had subdued her and taken her somewhere, far from the forest, but she didn’t know where.

The room was dark, and cold. So cold. It ate into her bones and left her shivering.

Wren tried to breathe calmly, tried to still her racing heart and focus on where she was and what she knew.

But it was dark and everything hurt and in the back of her mind all she could hear was the Nox howling.

It was over. It was all over. She had lost.

She felt another great spasm of pain tear through her exhausted body as the poison of the shadow kin took another bite from her soul. If they couldn’t make her into the Nox willingly, they would do it this way, with poison and malice.

A gentle hand fell on her forehead, soothing and caring, like Elodie’s hand long ago when she’d fallen sick with a fever or hurt herself in some way. Wren couldn’t even open her eyes properly or focus on the figure beside her. It didn’t matter. Hot tears leaked from her eyes, burning and blinding.

‘Hush, my dear girl,’ her attendant murmured. She knew that voice. Remembered it. Somehow. But the world was twisting and unsafe and she couldn’t let herself go back to it. Here in the darkness she could still fight. If she concentrated hard enough she could cling to some last part of herself.

Couldn’t she?

‘It will be over soon, child. Just let go. Then it will all stop.’

No. Never. She couldn’t let that happen. The Nox was rabid with need and hunger, ready to be unleashed on the world again and she couldn’t let that happen. She dug in with the tattered remains of her own sanity to keep it on the other side of reality. She had to.

Oh but it hurt. Everything hurt.

She just wanted to give up. To sleep. To make it all go away.

‘Wren,’ the woman’s voice, so familiar, so soothing, so calm. ‘Wren, my love, let go.’

Somewhere a door banged open and Wren felt it reverberate through her whole body. She jerked against the sound and tried to fight even harder.

‘What’s taking so long?’

Leander’s voice. Sharp and needy, bitter. Light, she despised him.

‘She’s strong,’ the woman replied, with not a little pride in her voice. ‘But she can’t fight it forever. The shadow kin poison in her and the bindings will wear her down.’

‘I need my queen at my side. You promised you could do it.’

‘And I will, your majesty. You have the crown and you will have your queen. When you face the Aurum together, everything will be as you wish. Just a little longer. She is still too strong. She will fight it.’

‘Don’t fail me like Oriole did. Whatever sad little ritual you need to perform needs to happen soon. We can’t hold this wretched city for long without her. Your council may be abject cowards but there are others with more fight in them. We need to stamp out their hope and she’s the key. I have the crown. I just need the head to put it on. Make her cooperate. He’s almost here.’

And then he was gone again. He didn’t even bother to address Wren directly. She didn’t matter anymore. She was just a piece in a game, a queen, but queens were only there to be used in service of a king.

I have the crown…

But Laurence had the crown, Wren thought with a sob. What had happened back there? How long had it been? She’d seen Roland fall but Finn had been there, Finn like a blazing fire in human form, so unbearably beautiful to look on that it made her heart break to see what she had made of him. But at least he had been there. He would save Roland, wouldn’t he? He had to.

Laurence was just a boy, thrust into an impossible quest. He wouldn’t have stood a chance in a shadow kin attack, or an ambush. With the knights distracted, shadow kin could have taken him and the crown as easily as they took her.

She’d got this all so wrong.

The woman tending her lifted a goblet to Wren’s parched lips. ‘There now, take a drink, my dear. You need to stop fighting. It’s too late anyway. This will help. Just drink deeply and forget, Wren. Become the queen you were always meant to be and it will all be over soon.’ She leaned in closer, her whisper turning conspiratorial, the whisper of a friend, one she desperately needed to hear. But the words were no comfort. ‘Once you’re crowned, we’ll teach them all. Especially that upstart king. You and I, my dear, we will make him beg forgiveness.’

The liquid burned like molten metal down her throat and Wren swallowed reflexively before she even realised what she was doing.

Too late, the world started sliding into darkness again, a darkness which rose like a tide around her, and this time she couldn’t fight it. She had no strength left.

And now we come to the end of it , said the Nox, its voice like a breeze, blowing away the cobwebs of hesitation and doubt in her mind. Those who would make us slaves will learn. Once we are crowned, we will teach them all. We will show them the queen they forsook, the goddess they trapped, and then they will pay.

Wren tried to hold on, tried to burrow down deep inside herself to hide, but the darkness followed her and found her there.

Finn would come for her, she tried to tell herself. He would always come. Her Finn, her love, he would rescue her. He would come.

She didn’t know if she said it out loud or just screamed it in the depths of her own failing consciousness. It didn’t seem to matter.

‘Of course he will,’ said Lynette.

Lynette? How was Lynette here? And what was she doing?

Wren’s eyes snapped open to look into the face of the woman caring for her, the woman who had always been there from the moment she had been taken to Knightsford, who had tried to take Elodie’s place in her life.

‘Shh,’ Lynette cooed. ‘All will be well. It’s the only way, Wren. Just a little longer, my love, and you’ll free us all.’

Was this some kind of trick? Some kind of ruse to stop Leander? It had to be. Lynette was her friend. She’d always been on Wren’s side.

‘Lynette? What’s happening? What are you doing?’ The words wouldn’t form properly. Her lips felt parched and swollen at the same time. Her throat closed as she tried to speak. Her body was no longer her own. Whether she succumbed to the potion or the poison or something else entirely, something inevitable that had just been waiting all this time, she couldn’t fight any more.

Instead, she felt the Nox fill her, pushing her back into that tiny knot of a place deep inside her, into the darkness and the cold where she could do nothing at all.

‘Don’t fight,’ Lynette urged her, lifting Wren’s fingers to her lips and kissing them. ‘Let go. It has to be this way. For witchkind. You’ll understand soon enough. You can do this, Wren. I believe in you. Trust me.’