Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

ROLAND

The two witchkind children watched the knights with eyes like hunters’ as they led them deep into the forested valley in the foothills of the mountains. Not like children. That was unsettling. The forest realm seemed to leap and flow around them, easing their way and closing behind them in a disconcerting manner. The other disturbing thing was that the boy, Robin, had let them retrieve their weapons as if they were of no note. Lark, his sister, who had been rather too keen for comfort to just kill them, followed behind, as her brother led the way. The three knights led their strangely docile horses on foot.

Their otherness grated on Roland’s senses. This wasn’t magic in the way he knew it. It felt different, an old magic, and far stronger than it had any right to be.

‘Where are we going?’ he asked Robin.

The boy, no more than twelve, Roland thought, all long limbs with a coltish way of moving, cast him a scathing glance which seemed to belong to someone much older.

‘Tobias asked us to get you. The paths here are twisting and only we can lead you. The College doesn’t want to be found.’

Roland could believe that. There was nothing natural about this passage through the trees. And nothing natural about the way they couldn’t find the College either. But he had to admit, he was intrigued as well. How were they doing this? And why?

Elodie would know. Or at least Elodie would know what questions to ask. She’d have it worked out in seconds. Perhaps Wren would as well.

Oh, how he wished they were here now. Someone with a way to reach these wild little witches and make them understand he meant them no harm.

Except…except only a short time ago he would have ordered them hunted down and brought to the Aurum if they showed their faces in Asteroth. The boy would be forced to relinquish the magic he was born with, and given the option of joining the knights. Many had. The girl would join the maidens. Because that was what was done. Witchkind were dangerous.

Like whoever bespelled that maid to kill an Ilanthian princeling. The maidens had blamed rebel witchkind for that, hadn’t they?

Who was Tobias? They could get no more than a name and once Robin said it Lark hissed something at him and he rapidly shut up. Clearly he had said far too much.

The chancellor of the College was called Tobias Vambray, but why would he be sending these wild children to find Roland? There were any number of skilled witchkind within its walls. Something didn’t add up and Roland hated that feeling.

All he could do was follow in silence, keeping his wits about him as the forest moved and whispered around them. They could be heading into a trap, he knew that. But what choice did he have?

Roland wished he had word of Finn and Wren, that he could have some indication that they were safe somewhere. He knew Finn would look after her, and Wren could certainly look after herself when it came down to it. But there had been no news of them and Roland didn’t like that at all.

When they took a rest, he watched Lark, her tangle of brown hair and furtive green eyes, and wondered what his daughter had looked like when she was that age. Another young girl named for a bird with far too much magic at her command.

Wren might not be his flesh and blood but she was his daughter. He was resolute on that and no matter what magics were involved he would not accept anything else. He’d seen the heartbreak in her eyes when she had realised differently, had felt it echo through his own body. Regardless of how it might appear, he knew she was his.

‘Do you have family?’ he asked Lark.

‘I have Robin,’ she snarled at him. Like being threatened by a kitten really, he thought and let his smile show. That didn’t sit well with her either.

So just the two of them. And this Tobias. ‘Is Tobias your father?’ he tried again.

‘No,’ Robin cut in, his voice sharp. ‘We don’t have parents. Few witchkind do. We just have siblings, the ones who care for us and support us. Like the sisters in that story. We protect each other. What kind of parent would dump a child in a darkwood to die, call them cursed and a crime against the Aurum?’

So that was what had happened, was it, Roland thought, his heart sinking for them. No wonder there was such anger in them both.

Olivier stiffened, opened his mouth to protest and then stopped as the girl turned her glare on him instead, like a cat following prey. Her mouth was a hard, flat line. ‘That’s what you all think,’ she said. ‘Don’t you? You Knights of the Aurum. And its people.’

Something heaved its way up through the ground, a vine covered in thorns. It wavered above Olivier threateningly.

‘No,’ he said, calmly enough, but something simmered beneath the surface of his features. The Arrenden family were especially devout in their worship of the Aurum, Roland recalled, and Olivier was no different. He had always been that way, first to his devotions, never missing a day, as if trying to compensate for something. But he looked genuinely horrified at the thought of children being turned out into a darkwood because of an accident of birth. ‘No one deserves that. What they did was wrong.’ He paused, glaring at them. ‘And against the law.’

‘Once you get far enough away from any knights no one cares much about the law,’ said Lark. ‘None of you ever venture into the wilds. People do what they want and witchkind have to seek protection where they can. The College offers that to some. We?—’

‘Lark,’ Robin said, his tone all warning.

She scowled at him.

‘Where was it?’ Anselm asked. He was eyeing the thorny vine nervously. He still bore the scratches of Lark’s initial attack and wasn’t keen to repeat the affair. ‘Where were you born?’

‘Here, there, everywhere,’ she murmured as if recounting some kind of fairy tale. ‘It doesn’t matter anymore.’

Robin swatted at the vine irritably. ‘Put it away, Lark,’ he said. ‘You aren’t impressing anyone. And Tobias said not to hurt them. Or scare them. We promised.’

Tobias…that name again. That was something. Roland locked eyes with Anselm who nodded slightly in recognition of that fact.

‘Who is Tobias?’ Anselm asked.

‘You’re full of questions,’ Lark said huffily and stood up. The vine snapped back into the undergrowth, vanishing from sight but somehow lingering in their awareness, a threat. ‘We should move. We’ve still got a long way to go.’

‘We could ride,’ Roland offered. ‘It would be faster.’

‘Not where we’re going. It’s not fair on them,’ was all Robin said, and set off again.

The horses, Roland realised. The boy seemed far more worried about the horses than he was about the knights, or himself and his sister. Which was another factor to consider. These children were powerful in old magic, and though they tried to hide it, they were afraid of him. That was not comforting. Scared creatures – people or animals – could do terrible things. Especially when they had such power.