Chapter 53

CHAPTER 53

WREN

In the centre of the chamber of the Aurum, Lynette of Goalais brought Nightbreaker and the crown of the Nox together in a terrible clash of metal on metal, Aurum-forged and Shadow-wrought. The shockwave of power turned the air to honey, thick and cloying. Elodie held against it longer than most, still trying to shelter Wren, but even she couldn’t stand alone against such raw power. Wren saw Olivier flinch and then fall without a sound, his face a stretched mask of agony. Beside him, Anselm tried to catch him and pull him to safety but had no clue what to do. Finn struggled to his feet but couldn’t move forward, standing there like he had been turned to stone as the magic remaining in him was ripped out into the vortex swirling around the witchkind woman.

Maryn screamed as she fell, writhing, and others among the maidens dropped to the floor.

The magic pulled from them all flowed to Lynette, who stood in the centre of the maelstrom, her eyes white and unseeing, her head thrown back in agony and ecstasy, her mouth open. The blood smearing her face stood out like black lines.

‘Stop!’ Wren tried to shout. There was no trace of the twins here and no sense of their power. Perhaps they knew better than to put themselves in the path of whatever Lynette was doing. There was no one else. Anyone with power was already overwhelmed and the others…helpless to intervene. Roland and Gaius threw themselves at the woman only to be repelled by an unseen force that hurled them back across the floor.

Wren dragged herself to her feet, not even sure where she found the strength to do so. ‘Lynette, you have to stop. This isn’t going to do what you want. You aren’t releasing the magic. You’re stealing it. Taking it from everyone. You’re killing them, all the witchkind.’

‘I can bring him back, Wren. You can’t begrudge me that. With this magic I can bring him back.’

Yvain…she was doing it for Yvain now. Not even for herself or her sisters anymore. Just him.

‘Please, you need to think. You need to stop.’

‘Need?’ Lynette’s voice was tortured with the power flowing through her. ‘What do you know of need, princess? You never had need of anything. Our queen put your care above us all, above her kingdom, above witchkind, above everyone. She could have brought you to us from the first. We would have made you great. My sisters and I would have formed you into the goddess we needed. We would have joined you with the Aurum and made you magnificent. A goddess for all witchkind. But instead, she hid you and bent you to her own shape. I’ve had enough of waiting. I am the last of the three. My sisters failed but I did not. I gave up everything, even Yvain, to get here. I will not fail now. I will do this and bring him back.’

The draw of the magical vortex increased, pulling at Wren’s heart and mind, dragging her forward now.

‘Lynette, it’s going to kill you.’

‘Then I’ll die,’ she spat. ‘It doesn’t matter. He’s only gone ahead of me. It isn’t far…’ The expression on her face faltered as she thought about that. Bring back her dead love. Bring back the man she’d betrayed and used. ‘But even if I did, he’d never forgive me anyway, would he?’ Lynette shook her head, her terrible decision made. ‘Nothing else matters now. So I’ll die. Don’t you remember? We’re witchkind, Wren, my dearest. We live free or we die.’

Agony lined her face, etched with Yvain’s blood, but still she held on, crushing the crown and the sword together until they melted in her hands, one merging into the other in a white-hot maelstrom of light and darkness. Wind tore at Wren’s hair, blinding her as it whipped over her face.

Old magic hummed in the air and tore at the ground beneath them. It roared from deep below the mountain and the walls of white marble shook. A crack fractured the ceiling, and now even those who were not witchkind fell under the onslaught of wild, unfettered magical power. Only Wren and Lynette were still standing and even as Wren reached her side, tried to reach out to the other woman, Lynette opened her eyes wide, far too wide. They were green and glowing, alive in a way no human eyes should ever be alive with otherness and strangeness, with something ancient that came from far beyond their world. Wren saw the moment that she gave way to panic, when she realised that there was no controlling whatever she had let into her. A powerful witch she might be, but she had hidden her power for so many years, using it only in small ways. She had enslaved the knight who loved her. She had turned Carlotta into her puppet, Wren saw that now, understood everything, and Lynette didn’t have any regrets about doing that. About using a witchkind girl of little power as a tool. She was prepared to do whatever she had to, to achieve her end.

She would accept any cost. Even Yvain.

But she had not prepared for this. So much magic, so much power that had been constrained for far too long, the old magic tore her apart. Lynette opened her mouth to scream but no sound came out. There was nothing there to make a sound, nothing of the woman left within the shell hollowed out and used as a conduit by a power far more ancient and far more alien than the Aurum or the Nox, or even the twins.

Wren tried to grab her, but as her hands closed on the woman’s arms – the woman who had been kind, who had looked after her in Knightsford and helped her navigate Pelias, the woman who had appeared to be her friend – the sense of loss and emptiness almost stole her breath.

Lynette had truly loved Yvain and she had sacrificed that love. She had used him because she felt she had no choice. She had broken him and that had broken her as well. But perhaps those who had set her on this suicide mission had never expected her to succeed where they did not. Her sisters had bound her with duty and vows and so much guilt and need, as well as untold enchantments of their own.

And they had not prepared her for the power of old magic.

Wren felt it now, running through her veins like acid, reaching into her mind to pull out every emotion as if it was a thing to be examined and cast aside. Wren felt it in her own body and mind, and in Lynette’s as well, felt it ripping her apart piece by piece.

And then Lynette was gone. She seemed to just unravel in that power, right in front of Wren’s eyes, disappearing beneath her touch like morning mist. All that remained behind was the echo of a desperate cry of betrayal and misery, reverberating through Wren’s conscious mind as the old magic turned its attention on her instead. Something new, something other to examine, to play with, to pull apart.

‘Wren!’ It was Finn. His hand closed on her arm, strong and warm, as if he could pull her out of danger. ‘Let it go.’

‘I can’t,’ she told him. ‘It will take all the witchkind, everyone with even a touch of magic in them, no matter how small, and it will unmake the world. That’s what the twins meant. It’s unbound, unfettered, with no understanding of our world, or of us. It’s out of control and it’s dangerous. I have to do this, Finn. I have to stop it.’

‘Not you!’ he yelled. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her close. His scent enveloped her and she almost sobbed with relief. ‘Not just you. You can’t do it alone, heart. Us. We can do it. The two of us.’

He was right, she couldn’t do this alone. Even together they might not be strong enough.

But they had to try.

She had the will and the magical focus. He gave her all the strength he had, acting as her foundation and her rock.

Wren reached out. Not just for the light this time. She reached for the light and the darkness, for the dawn and the twilight, for the glints of hope and the shadows of despair. And she drew it all into herself.

All the green and glowing power, all the rising tides and falling stars, everything that swirled around her, all the magic of the witchkind past, present and future. She felt their cries and their sobs and tried to bring them comfort, to give them back hope and strength.

‘It’s all right,’ she whispered, as all those magical senses turned to her in desperation. ‘We’re here. Hold on. It’s going to be all right.’

Her mouth found his and she kissed him, branding his lips against her own as the power consumed them both and they fell into it together.