Chapter 46

CHAPTER 46

WREN

She sat on a throne. Wren was sure that wasn’t right and she shouldn’t be there, but she couldn’t bring herself to move. Her body didn’t want to obey her anymore.

The guards who had brought her here had carried her, slung like a sack of vegetables over their shoulders, laughing all the time. Pelias was theirs. They could do what they wanted.

Not to her, of course. Leander would have their heads. But to anyone else. They could treat the servants and the nobles as slaves and no one would care. They were drunk on their easy conquest.

Wren didn’t even know how it had happened. Treachery, she understood that much. The knights had been ordered to stand down and then it was too late. They took the palace first, then the Sanctum, then the city. Or so it seemed.

But each time another report came in to Leander, he looked a little less smug.

Pelias, and Asteroth, was fighting back. And he was losing. At least there was that.

Drugged and bound in shadow-wrought steel, and with the power of light far beyond her reach now, there was nothing she could do. But at least she could see that somehow, in some way, he was losing.

She just prayed for the time to see it through.

There is no time left , the Nox whispered. Give in now. I’ll make us strong. It is coming. Perhaps we can survive the storm together.

Wren clung to that last piece of her will, digging her nails into her palms, and willing herself to hold on.

Even the Nox would not be able to do anything with her body right now. And the knowledge of that was driving it to distraction and eating away its fragile grip on sanity. It was too far from the caves, deep in the realm of the Aurum. And she could feel its fear compelling it now.

‘Enough!’ Leander snarled, as some unfortunate underling slunk away having delivered some other piece of information. ‘Reinforce the approaches. No one gets in. They’ll be witness enough. Once she’s crowned it won’t matter anymore. There’ll be nothing they can do.’

The vast cavern of the Sacrum was cold and dark, lit by braziers and candles which had been hauled in here in the absence of the Aurum. Because it really was gone. The hollow in the middle of the stone circle where it had burned was empty except for the throne Leander had ordered moved there. And Wren, of course. Captive, bound, helpless…

Just the way he wanted her.

She ought to be afraid, and some part of her was, desperately afraid. But there was nothing she could do. Not now. And the irony of it, that in its moment of triumph the Nox was as helpless as she was, made it a little easier to bear.

Across from her the remaining members of the regents’ council knelt, Leander’s witnesses, and hostages, prisoners like her, humbled now. Even Lady Ylena was on her knees, though she still held her head proudly erect and her eyes were fierce. She didn’t deign to speak and Wren could see in the way she watched Leander that if she got the chance the old woman would attack him herself. She’d die, of course, but that didn’t seem to matter either.

Laurence was there too, broken and exhausted, beaten for sport by Leander for the crime of daring to defy him. He still gazed at Wren as if, at any moment, she would save him, and she hated herself for somehow putting that hope in his eyes. She had no idea what she had done to put it there in the first place. She didn’t have any such hope left herself.

They had lost. They had lost everything.

There was a scuffle as some of the Sisterhood of the Nox tried to make the whole thing more of a ritual or a ceremony, beginning a series of overlapping chants which called on the Nox and blessed the crown and the hand which held it.

Leander cursed and snatched the crown from them, marching across the open space to stand in front of Wren. The voices tapered off.

‘Finally,’ he said. ‘Once this is done and we’re wed, this whole farce will be over. You will submit to me and serve me. Just as the Nox served my forefathers. You’ll see, Wren. We’ll be happy. And Ilanthus will be strong. We will be like gods, you and I.’

Wren scowled at him, lifting her chin stubbornly and letting him see the full force of her contempt. She might not be able to move more than that, or speak, or wield any of the magic innate to her, but she would never give in.

We serve no man , the Nox hissed. You are ours, Blood of Sidon, and we will make you crawl. We will have your blood and nothing else.

Leander could hear it as clearly as she could. So could some of the others in the chamber. Was it her imagination or did his hands tremble against the black metal of the crown? If they did, he hid it a moment later. Leander heaved in a breath and controlled his fear, or his temper, she wasn’t sure which.

She wasn’t sure it mattered.

It was a weakness. That was something. It had to be.

‘You served once and you will serve again,’ Leander went on. ‘You were made to be a tool, not a goddess. Crowning you in this place, the stronghold of your enemy where you are weakest, will make you whole. But this crown…this crown that Sidon used to bridle you once, that you hid from us…this will make you my creature and doing it here will hand us Asteroth as well. Both prophecies in one action. You will be my queen and serve me. Accept that. Both of you.’

‘Never,’ Wren ground out and the Nox joined her in a chorus. Even though saying that couldn’t make it so, it still felt good. It was all she had left.

Leander sneered at her. ‘I’ll tell you to love me, Wren. To worship me. And you will. I’ll wipe my cursed brother from your memory. Crowned by the blood of Sidon, by the power of the Nox’s own blood. I claim you, Wren of Asteroth. You belong to me now.’

She wanted to spit in his face but that wasn’t an option either.

Leander lowered the crown, its cool and heavy weight resting on her head. Her hair coiled and twisted like shadows, her skin shivered with cold and took on a sheen like diamonds. And then everything went dark.

Wren drew in a ragged breath and opened her eyes. The world was remade around her in othersight, blue and black shimmers that skimmed over the surfaces of things, of people, of the floor and the stones. It clung to the ceiling above her and she gripped the arms of the throne.

She was…whole. For the first time in centuries.

From far away the final pieces of the Nox rushed to join her and she opened herself willingly to welcome it.