Chapter 30

CHAPTER 30

WREN

The lower city was eerily quiet in the aftermath of the knights' charge through it earlier.

People hid indoors, Wren realised, which was not a good sign. The same people who had thronged the streets to see their queen come home now hid from her knights in terror.

It was not good. Not good at all.

The last time Wren had come this way, the streets had been strewn with flowers and streamers. They passed the remains of the market, stalls shattered to kindling, and Anselm turned down a side street, and along a winding laneway. Up ahead, they could hear a growing noise, the sound of a huge number of men and horses.

‘Have you seen them?' someone hissed out of a doorway and Wren spun around to see a woman peering out through a crack in the door. ‘Is it safe?'

‘Stay inside,' Anselm told her briskly, as if he had all the authority of the knights still to back him up. ‘It'll be over soon.'

‘Have the knights gone mad?'

He winced. ‘No. Lord Sassone has. He kidnapped the queen.' The way he said it, so calm and factual…no one would have guessed he was talking about his own father.

‘They'll kill him.'

‘Probably,' he agreed. He didn't sound sorry about that either, Wren thought. No love lost there at all. She didn't blame him. They hurried on through the tangle of lanes.

At the back of a sheer wall the top of which could not be seen, Anselm dragged open a grate in the street. It was small and narrow and the smell that came out of it was eye-watering.

‘A sewer?' Wren asked. He wrapped a scarf around his face and handed another to her. Olivier had his own and he scowled at the very thought of it, but didn't say a word in protest.

‘Hold your breath. We'll be out of it again in a few minutes.'

The scarf did next to nothing to help, and it was as dark as night down there. The shadows pressed close, sensing her fear and worry. They stroked against her skin and threaded through her hair, teasing her, laughing at her. Water sloshed around their boots, but Anselm didn't pause, moving with a purpose, feeling his way forward.

When Wren hesitated, he reached back and threaded his fingers through hers to lead her onwards.

‘Don't be scared,' he told her. ‘I've got you.'

She squeezed his hand in gratitude, feeling the warmth in him, the light in him, and the shadows fell back to an almost manageable level. He was a Knight of the Aurum still. Her knight. The remnants of the Nox still followed her though, a host of shadows, scraps of a greater darkness, as if she was a lodestone for them. They wanted to help her, they sang. They would always be there when she needed them. She only had to ask.

Her hair curled against her neck, reaching far down past her shoulders now, growing and growing with the touch of the darkness all around her. It coiled around her scalp, tightening as they moved deeper into darkness. There was no shaking it off, as if her own fear and anxiety conjured it up.

‘Wren?' Olivier asked softly. ‘Are you all right?'

This wasn't good. But she didn't have time to worry about herself. She needed to find Elodie and fast, before Sassone could do anything more to her. Wren didn't want to waste a moment imagining what he might have done already.

‘I'm fine. Keep going,' she told him as firmly as she could manage.

Anselm shifted a grate in the wall, which swung inwards, and they stepped into a dry passageway where the air wasn't so foul. There was a dim light ahead and Wren could make out the walls at last. With that, she felt the shadows dogging her footsteps draw back a little. It felt like a weight lifting off her shoulders and she let out a breath of relief.

‘Not far,' Anselm whispered, but he didn't let her go either. She felt a pathetic sort of gratitude for that.

It was going to be all right, she assured herself. First she'd find Elodie, and then?—

They stepped out into dank cellars and then climbed a narrow staircase. There were lanterns here, lighting the way, and up ahead Wren saw a heavy door.

‘Olivier, watch the way out,' Anselm said. They fell readily into a team. Olivier took position by the top of the stairs with a view over any approaches from the corridor and their way back out covered while Anselm approached the cell. The door wasn't locked.

Anselm opened it slowly, as if a breeze moved it, just enough to see inside, and there was Elodie.

She was kneeling on the ground, chains weighing her down and a collar around her neck like some kind of brutally plain choker. Her eyes were closed tightly, tears leaking from the corners and streaking her cheeks. Every muscle was clenched in agony, but she didn't make a sound.

‘Elodie?' Wren whispered in horror.

Elodie lifted her head, tears streaming down her face as she tried to focus on the darkness beyond the door, on Wren.

‘No. You can't be here. You have to go away.'

Then she slumped forward, her face a mask of pain, her eyes unseeing.