Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

WREN

‘Princess!' the maid gasped out loud, far louder than she was supposed to speak and in an appalled tone of voice that would probably get her beaten if anyone else heard.

They didn't like loud or opinionated servants in Pelias. Or princesses, Wren thought ruefully.

There were a lot of things they didn't like, as Wren was discovering.

‘What have you done to your hair?'

Wren looked up from her work, as the little silver knife she had lifted from the dining room sawed through the last thick black strands. The poor woman's mouth sagged open as the hair turned to smoke and drifted away. Wren allowed herself to breathe a sigh of relief and put the blade down at last. Her head felt blissfully light and the sense of freedom almost made her dizzy for a moment.

‘Did you need something?' she asked in as calm a voice as she could muster. She didn't even bother to suppress the smile. There was no point. She couldn't hide her pleasure.

Defiance felt extraordinarily good.

But the maid had already turned around and run from the room, shouting in horror for the ladies-in-waiting.

Because of course this had to be reported as quickly as possible.

The chaos that filled Wren's chamber moments later was only to be expected. The other maids thronged in the doorway, and the ladies-in-waiting all had to offer their scandalised opinion. Lynette was inevitably summoned.

For a society that was so obsessed with appearances, the idea that their newly discovered princess should mutilate her finest feature on a regular basis was horrific to them. They had actually used those very words. Mutilation. Oh, and the idea that her hair was the only thing beautiful about her was thoroughly insulting.

There was a dark magic threaded throughout Wren's existence, manifest in her abilities, and in her hair. Cutting it off was the only way she knew to keep it in check. Elodie knew that too, of course. She had been the one to set the rules about Wren's hair, about always cutting it and never letting it get too long or out of control. Along with the rules about using magic, to only reach for the light and never the darkness, to never allow the spirit of the Nox to rise again and to always try to live in the light of the Aurum. To never call on shadow kin or listen to their lies. To ignore the siren song that came in the night, enticing her to be what it would make of her. So many rules that Wren had thought it was silly, once upon a time.

It didn't seem so silly now.

But those rules took absolute precedence over anything the court could inflict on her.

She had almost lost herself. If she had gone any further into that darkness, she could have ended up enslaved to an Ilanthian prince, or a mere vessel for the power of a dark goddess.

And as it was, Elodie had been arrested and imprisoned. The same thing could well be said of Wren, for all the freedom she was allowed. Roland de Silvius and Lady Ylena were determined to put her on the throne, it seemed, and if that happened…

The prophecy about the Aurum had never seemed real until she stood in front of it, wearing a coronet someone had thought looked pretty against her black hair, and the flames transformed to shadows of themselves. Finn's face, the horror in his expression…

She'd never get that image out of her mind.

When shadows take the Aurum, the Nox will take the throne.

Oh the prophecy suddenly seemed very real indeed. And that terrified her.

‘Princess, what do you think you're doing?' asked Lady Lynette, pursing her perfect lips together as she surveyed the damage. She had sent the others away, as she entered.

‘I'm not a princess,' Wren replied, ignoring the obvious evidence all around her. ‘Have you had any word about when I can visit Elodie?'

Maybe a change of subject would do the trick. She could only hope.

Lynette looked around the floor as if she might find the hair and stick it back on Wren's head. Wren would put nothing past the gracious, elegant and very beautiful Lynette.

On the whole, she didn't mind. Lynette meant well, and no one understood the court like she did. She was kind and had a gentleness underlying her stern demeanour. If only she didn't seem quite so disappointed all the time. Ylena expected much of her. And at least Lynette was kind.

‘No, my dear. I will check again, but the maidens have decreed that no one will see her. You know that. The decree extends right up to the Grandmaster himself. Your father has been waiting at the door to their Sanctum every day so far and, every day, they send him away. He even tried to interrupt them in the Sacrum, when they were tending the Aurum in hopes of seeing her. But her majesty was not there and the maidens are not best pleased with him now.'

That sparked Wren's interest. Roland was trying to see Elodie too and failing. It wasn't just her. He was even breaking rules to do so. And still it didn't work. A small if slightly vindictive part of her brain was glad. He'd brought them here, insisted they return to the royal city. He could have let them go, let them vanish back into the forest once more, but he didn't.

‘And Finn?' Wren asked and knew from the tightening of Lynette's jaw that this subject was forbidden as well. ‘I mean…is he…I was hoping to see him later on, if his duties will allow it.'

‘That rather depends on him,' Lynette sighed and turned away without answering any further. Subject closed.

A different maid appeared with her gown – Carlotta who, at least, was happy to talk to Wren like a human being, who sometimes laughed at her jokes and told her gossip about the others, both the nobility and the servants. She had lush chestnut hair and golden brown eyes, a sprinkling of freckles over her face, and was probably the only thing approaching a friend Wren had made here despite all Ylena's suggestions about various courtiers, nobility and their offspring.

At least Carlotta never seemed as personally affronted by Wren's behaviour as the others. Had she drawn the short straw or volunteered? Wren wondered. Carlotta hadn't been born in Pelias and often found its customs strange, she had confided to Wren once, and that had forged some kind of tentative connection between them.

That was against the rules as well. Carlotta was a servant, Lynette had explained patiently. Wren ignored her on that front out of principle. Carlotta was torn but in her eyes Wren outranked the rest of them, so that was that.

It wasn't really a good basis for a friendship but it was all Wren had to hang onto.

The gown they had picked for her today was a dark blue, shot with silver threads and embroidered with a delicate pattern like frost. It was beautiful, she knew that. She couldn't fail to admire the work which had gone into its creation but she longed for something simpler.

A good pair of breeches and a tunic, for example, some stout boots. Maybe she could find Finn and run away.

The thought of Finn made her keenly aware of his absence again. He had passed her at the banquet last night, and his hand had brushed against hers, his skin warm and soft, almost a caress. Just for a moment. It had felt like magic jolted through her entire body. And then he was gone. She hadn't seen him since.

‘What tortures do you have for me today?' she asked Lynette, trying to push that sensation from her mind. It lingered in the background tormenting her, like the memories of their last kisses or making love in Knightsford.

Lynette sighed, defeated. ‘Well first we'll have to do something about your hair. Some flowers perhaps? Something to disguise…'

She waved her fingers towards Wren's head indicating everything. Wren ran her fingers through it so the short style spiked up at odd angles. Wickedness made her do it.

‘I prefer it like this, don't you?'

Carlotta hid her grin and turned away quickly.

Yes, Wren knew she was being impossible. But it was the one rebellion she still had.

Lynette didn't so much as smile. ‘You're meeting the regents' council and their families for a reception.'

‘And do any of them style hair for a living?'

‘Wren!' The admonishment was hardly a surprise. But at least she wasn't using a title now. There was almost a smile on her lips. You'd have to look really hard to see it but Wren was sure it was there. ‘What will they think?'

‘That I'm a wild girl from the forest. They might even let me go back home, if I'm lucky.'

Except there was no home to go back to. The tower had burned to a shell. And without Elodie there, it wouldn't be home anyway.

Lynette sighed again, softer this time, with understanding, and pulled Wren in for an unexpected hug. It shouldn't have been so welcome. Wren had decided to fight the court every step of the way if she could. But Lynette was kind, and gentle, and there was nothing Wren could do against that. With Ylena's appointment of her as lady-in-waiting, she had taken it upon herself to be Wren's champion and her friend, her shield against the rest of them. Protecting her the same way the knights did.

‘I'm afraid this is home now, my dear. Now please, if you must cut it all off, at least let me do something with it afterwards. They expect a princess and they can make life so difficult for you if they don't get what they want.'

They . Ylena, she meant. Wren was sure of that. And Roland, of course. And that pompous earl. The rest of the court followed the regents' leads.

Make life difficult for her. How much more difficult could they make it? She shuddered to think.

Honestly, what good was it being a princess if everyone else still got to make the rules about her life?

Lynette was right. The regents' council held power in the royal city, and until there was a queen back on the throne their word was the law. The problem with finding a queen was that meant either Wren, or Elodie, wearing the crown. Neither of whom wanted it. No one seemed to be willing to accept that.

‘Fine. Flowers, just a few.'

‘Or a diadem. A small one. There's a perfect one in the treasury which belonged to your great-great-great grandmother, I believe. It would be very fetching against?—'

Wren shuddered. A diadem, she had discovered, was like a crown, or a coronet, or a tiara…and they all signified the same thing.

‘No. Just flowers. Or a ribbon if you have to.'

And because Lynette knew if she insisted, Wren would lose whatever was put on her head at the first available opportunity, out of a window if necessary, she settled on a silk ribbon the same colour as the dress. In the mirror she didn't look like herself anymore. Another young woman was staring back at her, one who didn't climb trees, gather herbs, or race deer through the forest. One who hadn't grown up with the old magic singing to her from the trees, or the Nox from the shadows. One who would never have faced down shadow kin and commanded them, who couldn't bend the powers of light and dark to her will, to take a life or save it. How did she even begin to explain that, or what she had seen and heard in the stone circle known as the Seven Sisters?

She had a dark fate, and Leander of Ilanthus was determined to be part of it. He may have fled home with his tail between his legs, defeated by Elodie, but Wren was certain his plans were far from finished. He hated Finn and wanted him dead. And Wren represented everything that he considered to be his by right.

‘You can't keep this up forever, Wren,' the lady-in-waiting told her solemnly, as she led her from the chamber. ‘No one is going to put up with this rebellion for long.'

‘They can try to stop me,' Wren muttered, setting her mouth in a hard line. ‘Or they can let me see Finn and Elodie. I don't ask for much.'

Lynette shook her head. ‘I don't think you know what you're asking at all.'