Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

FINN

Finn had been stabbed before. He’d been so close to death that even a whisper would have pushed him over. He had been beaten, and hurt, and bleeding out. He had burned with fever and screamed with broken bones.

But he had never known pain and weakness like this.

On the day he finally awoke with a clear head, he wasn’t sure at first where he was. Not where he ought to be, that was certain. He groaned as he tried to move, almost falling off the narrow bed and onto the floor of the…cell?

‘Your highness!’

Hestia’s voice. She was with him.

But that was… impossible.

Hestia’s hands caught him and stopped his fall, settled him back on the bed. She sank down to her knees beside him and studied his face.

‘Hestia?’ he tried to say, but his tongue felt a thousand times its normal size in his mouth. His cousin tried to smile, but her skin looked parchment-thin and pale. Dark circles smudged the skin underneath her too-large, tear-stained eyes.

‘Yes, I’m here. I’m here. Thank the endless night. Just take it slowly.’ She smoothed her hands down either side of his jaw, catching on a growth of beard and a knot of hair far longer than he would ever have chosen. How long had he been unconscious? How long had he been here, wherever here was? ‘Hold on, I’ll get help.’

And then she was gone.

Finn stared at the roof of the cell. Definitely a cell. Narrow, dark, the stonework exposed. He could hear Hestia shouting something through the whine in his head and his body felt strange. Yes there was pain, but also…wrong. He felt wrong.

Too tall, too thin, stretched out and…

He tried to pull himself up on his elbows and a sharp pain sent him back down with a gasp. It wrenched its way out of his throat and took with it all the air in his lungs.

Then Hestia was back, lifting a simple ceramic cup to his mouth. He drank deeply, the water fresh and cool, and oh so very welcome.

‘Take it slowly, Leander,’ she whispered. ‘It’s going to be all right.’

Leander?

Finn pushed her back in panic. The last thing he remembered was breaking the glass pendant and everything changing around him. He’d thought it was the spell to take him to Sidonia, but now…

He lifted hands that were not his hands and stared at them. Leander’s rings, and his perfectly manicured nails and his long fingers… He was wearing the remains of Leander’s clothes, all save the ones destroyed by blood and…

‘What…what happened?’ he whispered.

He had held his brother as he lay dying, tried to staunch the flow of blood, begged Wren to help. And Leander had spoken words of othertongue and…

He lifted those alien hands to his chest, to find the thick bandages expertly wound about him. But it wasn’t him. None of it was him.

‘The girl stabbed you. We couldn’t escape. They saved your life, Leander, at least there’s that. Please, you’ve got to think. They want information, things I don’t know. I don’t even know if you know the truth of it. But we’re in a terrible position. Wren is missing. The queen is enchanted. They…’

They …the Asterothians. They were still in Asteroth, in Pelias, and this cell lay far below the city, deep in the heart of the mountain. This was where people went when they were never going to be seen again.

‘Hestia, it’s me.’ His voice shook. Leander’s voice.

This couldn’t be real. It had to be a nightmare.

She stroked his hair again. She wasn’t doing much better herself, he thought, though she had been given some considerations as a lady and a member of a royal court. But still an enemy court. Had she been ministering to him? They wouldn’t leave her in a cell with him, would they?

But who was in charge now? Roland would never do this. Not to her, and not to him either.

But to Leander… maybe…

‘I know it’s you. Sweet darkness, you haven’t said a word in days, and that was the ravings of a fever. But it’s going to be all right, Leander.’

‘Not Leander, it’s me. Finn . Hestia, I’m Finn. Finnian Ward. Where is Roland? Where’s the queen?’

Hestia pulled back, staring at him now. ‘But you…’ Her eyes narrowed and peered in closer now. Her hands turned to iron against his head, holding him still so she could really study him. Whatever she saw turned her face even more pale and bloodless. ‘Great shadows, how is that possible?’

A noise outside brought their attention to the door of the cell. She released him and turned as if to shield him from whatever was coming.

‘Hestia? Where are we?’

‘Say nothing, do you hear me?’ she snapped. ‘Nothing at all. Not yet. I need to figure this out. I need to?—’

The door opened and a Maiden of the Aurum stood there, tall and imposing, wearing the expression of an executioner. Behind her were a dozen guards and two knights.

‘So he is awake,’ said Maryn. ‘Very well. Bring him. Send word to the regent.’

The guards filled the room, encircling him and Hestia.

‘No, please,’ Hestia protested. ‘He’s weak and I think still delirious. Just give us time to?—’

‘Enough, Lady Hestia, or you can take his place.’

Hestia drew herself up to her full height. ‘I will in a heartbeat. I’ll tell you whatever I can.’

Maryn’s eyes flicked over her face, tracked over to Finn, and then back to Hestia. ‘Well, you’ve changed your tune. That’s interesting. Bring them both.’

The body in which Finn found himself was still weak and he hurt everywhere, but that didn’t matter to the guards who manhandled him up to his feet and dragged him from the cell.

Hestia followed, walking independently but entirely surrounded, and behind her Sister Maryn swept along like a ghost. Anger came off the woman in waves.

This was not good. Not at all. Maryn loved Elodie, he knew that. Apart from Lady Ylena she was the only blood relative the queen had left. She would do anything for her. And she was powerful, the most powerful of the Maidens of the Aurum.

Finn couldn’t quite catch his breath or still his swirling mind. What had happened and how? He’d been all set to take Wren to Sidonia, for her own safety. Once there he’d thought he would be able to find time to think again, and work out what to do. But now…he was still in Pelias, in Leander’s body. And presumably…

A jolt of pure rage and betrayal shot through him. He tore himself free of the guards just for a moment and turned on Hestia – Maryn, the knights and their perilous situation forgotten.

‘How is this possible? Did you do this?’

His cousin shied back from whatever she saw in his face. And then the knights stepped in between them – Hector Uderon and Vasilly Grey. Finn’s mind filled in their names just before they closed on him, weapons raised. Finn ducked and rolled, moving instinctively in a body which protested every action. But it didn’t matter. He had to stop this, whatever was happening. He twisted around, assessing the situation in lightning speed. The guards had drawn swords and it only took two blows to take one. Poor Vasilly didn’t see him coming. The weight felt cool and familiar in his hand. It belonged there.

‘Stop!’ Hestia screamed, not at them, he realised, at him. But he couldn’t stop, not now. He would not be marched off to die in his brother’s stead. He would go down fighting first.

Because the only thing running through his mind was that, somewhere, Leander had Wren.

Light flared inside him, light so bright he felt it burning through him, acid in his veins and a migraine in his head. It brought him to his knees and when he was able to look up, Maryn was standing over him, her face fixed in a terrifying expression of interest.

‘What has happened to you?’ she asked. Her hands traced figures in the air around him, studying something he couldn’t see, and she glanced at Hestia. ‘Did you do this?’

‘No. As if I’d have the power here. You know that, of all people you know that.’

Hector seized Finn’s arm, hauling him to his feet, and this time Finn couldn’t fight him. His body felt like jelly and he couldn’t quite breathe.

‘Bring him,’ Maryn said. ‘Fetch the regent. Now. And you, Leander of Sidon, don’t try anything like that again.’

‘I’m not Leander—’ he began.

Maryn froze, staring at him in much the same way as Hestia had. ‘Then who or what in the name of the great light are you?’

‘I’m Finn,’ he whispered and the light surged through him again. Light and fire and the body housing him screamed at its touch.