Chapter 44

CHAPTER 44

ELODIE

Maryn tried to put herself between Elodie and the blow as Yvain bore down on them. Elodie twisted to one side and grabbed the goblet of water. There was old magic everywhere. She couldn’t just seize it as Lynette did. She needed its cooperation.

‘Help me now,’ she prayed to the water and the air and the stones, to the trees and the flowers, to the clouds above. ‘If ever we were friends. We had a bargain once for Wren’s safety and I need to save her now. Help me.’

She whispered into it, creating another charm until the water steamed and boiled. Without hesitation she flung it at the knight who reeled back for a moment and then, skin blistering, started forward again as if it hadn’t hurt him at all.

It wasn’t that it didn’t do him harm. It was that he couldn’t feel it. He couldn’t feel anything. What had Lynette done?

Hedge witch magic could only do so much but it was all Elodie had. She couldn’t free Yvain, not from so many enchantments woven over so many years. Maryn couldn’t reach the Aurum any more than she could and that was worry enough. But their danger was much more immediate as Yvain attacked again.

If only she had a sword. That would be something. He was much bigger and stronger than she was, but she was fast and skilled. She could hold him off for a little while, surely. Grabbing the platter from the table, she flung it at him.

Maryn tried to grab his arm and he flung her forward towards Elodie, right into the path of his sword.

Elodie launched herself forward to push Maryn away and her cousin cried out as she fell. It left Elodie entirely exposed and she knew in that moment she’d made her last mistake. He’d kill her. He wouldn’t even know he was doing it. Yvain was gone from the eyes that fixed on her.

With a shout, a dark figure dived through the open door, a sword in his hand no more than a blur of light. He moved faster than should have been possible, light suffusing his skin and every movement lethal.

In a moment, he was between them, blocking Yvain’s advance.

‘Elodie!’ Maryn gasped and her hands burst to incandescence as her lost magic wreathed her again. The light of the Aurum blazed through them both and for the first time Elodie saw fear enter Lynette’s eyes.

‘No, it’s not possible!’

But it was. Everything had changed. Elodie felt only a vague echo of the magic she had once channelled but Maryn raised a shield and then turned the full force of her fury on the treacherous witch. She had been putting up with far too much for far too long, trying to keep Elodie safe. She had compromised herself. She had been betrayed and seen her city betrayed. Everything she believed in had been betrayed. Her fury was terrible to behold.

Elodie turned to the knights, hoping against hope that the spell on Yvain could be broken.

The man battling Yvain was pleading with him, begging him to stop, to listen, to stand down. And Elodie knew that voice.

It was impossible but she knew that voice. She would know him anywhere.

But Roland was dead. She had seen him in that in-between place, and known all that meant. How was he here?

And if he was a ghost risen to defend her – she winced as Yvain got in a brutal blow which drove Roland back, almost winding him – he was in an entirely physical form.

But how had the Aurum come with him? It wasn’t in him, not more than in any other Paladin. And yet, he was here, her Paladin, her beloved! How?

Finn stepped through the doorway and she had her answer. If Roland glowed with the inner light of a Paladin, the boy was a beacon in human form. Everything in her, everything that she had ever learned and every instinct she had ever had about magic, wanted to drop to her knees before him.

Finn Ward. Finnian of Sidon…

It wasn’t possible. He was a man. He wasn’t of her lineage. He was Ilanthian.

But none of that seemed to matter anymore. The Aurum had chosen.

‘ Hold ,’ he said and the whole building trembled with his voice. ‘ You are my knights. You swore to serve. We fight the Nox with fire and flame, not each other. You made vows to me, and to the queen. So hold. I command it. ’

Both Yvain and Roland seemed to freeze, unable to stand against that command. They had both made vows to that power, after all. It held them to it now. Even Lynette’s years of enchantments couldn’t counter that.

‘No,’ Lynette snarled as she dragged herself up. ‘He’s mine. Not yours. We will be free of you. I will be free.’

She hurled herself at Elodie with curses on her lips. She threw everything inside her, years of resentment and loathing, all the wild magic she had gathered and allowed to fester inside her, everything.

Roland moved without thinking, ready to sacrifice himself to defend Elodie. And helpless in the face of his own primary vows, bathed in the light of the Aurum, so did Yvain.

Instincts, perhaps, or some final moment of clarity, vows which were woven through their hearts and souls, made them move. They had sworn to serve Pelias as well, to defend the queen, to protect her. There was no withstanding it. Roland was an instant too late and that saved his life. But Yvain thrust himself fully into the path of his wife’s magic. It tore through him as if he was no more than tissue paper.

Lynette’s cry of rage became a scream of despair. She fell to his side cradling him, dragging him into her arms, but it was too late. She couldn’t pull him back from destruction.

He stared up at her, confused still, but then his eyes filled with a terrible clarity as her spells, so many spells, unravelled around him.

‘Lynette? What did you do?’

She pressed her hands to the wounds, trying to staunch the blood and stop the flow, trying to save him. But the magic she had gathered wasn’t used for healing and the Aurum wouldn’t help her.

Not even for Yvain, Elodie realised. It had always been unforgiving, cold and absolute. And now it forsook him as well.

Her breath caught in her throat.

‘Don’t…please…don’t…’ Lynette babbled desperately. ‘All you had to do was take the sword when he offered it, love. All you had to do was bring me Nightbreaker. It would have been fine. It all would have been… This was never meant to happen… Please, Yvain…’

‘Lynette,’ the betrayal in his broken voice was almost too great to bear. ‘You…you used me… You…’

A great sob of pain wracked her body. She pulled him closer but Yvain’s eyes turned empty and then he went still. Lynette shook him once more, trying desperately to wake him, then threw back her head and screamed his name.

Roland, breathing hard, pulled Elodie into his arms and held her close. Tears were streaming down his face too. Yvain had been his friend, closer than a brother.

Roland held her, his hands shaking. Her Roland…

‘You’re alive,’ she whispered in amazement, and saw something like a stab of guilt on his face. He was alive. Yvain, his friend, his brother-in-arms, was not. ‘Roland…it’s not your fault,’ she tried to say, but the words wouldn’t be enough. They would never be enough.

‘I…I didn’t know. I failed him.’

‘We…we both did. But you’re alive, my love. I thought I’d lost you forever.’

His hands tightened around her, pulling her close, and he pressed his forehead to hers as if trying to will her to see the vast ocean of his feelings for her. But she knew them. They were as her own and there was no way to speak of even a fraction of them right now. If the words existed, she couldn’t bring them to mind, let alone give them voice. He was alive. That was all that mattered in this instant.

And an instant was all there was.

‘Where’s Wren?’ Finn interrupted, his voice still rippling with the power he shouldn’t have.

It was Maryn who answered, her eyes still burning. She bowed her head to him. ‘Bright Aurum,’ she began. ‘We humbly petition?—’

‘I’m not going to ask again,’ he growled and the danger in the situation made Roland stiffen, his arms tightening around Elodie in defence and making every hair on her skin stand up. They were still in danger. All of them. Wren most of all. The Aurum was angry. ‘Where is she?’

‘She’s a prisoner too,’ said Elodie as calmly as she could. How much was the Aurum and how much was still Finn? The Aurum wouldn’t care about Wren. But it would be looking for the Nox. Only to destroy it and it didn’t sound like that was Finn’s intention. But that said…everything had changed. ‘Leander has her. We don’t know more than that but we will find her, Finn.’

Say his name, she thought. Remind him who he really is. And if he can’t remember anymore? What then?

‘The Sanctum,’ Maryn said, her voice still shaking. ‘They’re going to go to the Sanctum. So he can crown her, remake her and claim both kingdoms.’