Chapter 35

CHAPTER 35

FINN

Wren ran towards him, right across the open courtyard, flung herself into his arms. Tears silvered her face and she trembled. Finn pulled her into the lee of the west wall, as a group of armed men tore past them.

Anselm and Olivier joined them, covered in sweat and blood, their eyes too wide.

‘What are you doing here?' Finn snarled at them all, knowing the answer before he asked. He couldn't help himself.

‘She brought the gates down,' Olivier supplied, as if that was some kind of excuse. ‘When they tried to burn the queen. She just—' He glanced at Wren with a newfound respect in his eyes. ‘She wielded light…and shadow. As one. I've never seen anything like it.'

‘I can't hold it all together,' she hissed. ‘It's like…there's magic at work here. The magic that trapped Elodie and cut her off from the Aurum. It's all running wild. I can't…I can't…' Her eyes were too large, too dark, and Finn could feel her control slipping away even as she clung to him. She couldn't hold on much longer, he could see that. It was old magic, both light and dark and everything in between, but it was tangled and vile.

‘Let's get out of here.'

‘But Elodie,' Wren protested. ‘We came here for Elodie. It's centred on her.'

‘Roland has her,' Anselm supplied. ‘They'll get her to safety first but then they'll be back. We don't have much time. Finn's right, if my father finds you here…'

Too late, Finn wanted to say. Sassone's guards were regrouping as the knights withdrew to the gates, covering Roland's retreat with Elodie. Which left them trapped inside.

And if this spell was centred on Elodie, it should be subsiding. But it wasn't. He could feel it building, like a vortex looking for a new focal point, and centring on Wren instead.

They couldn't make it out of the gates, not now. The battle was focused there.

‘How did you get in?' he asked Anselm. ‘Can we go back that way?'

But Anselm had frozen, staring past Finn with an expression of dread on his face. He smothered it quickly, pulling on an unreadable mask instead.

‘Olivier,' he said in a strangely calm and quiet voice, ‘you need to get them out of here.'

‘Anselm?' Sassone roared. He bore down on them, his men fanning out around him to cut off any hope of escape. ‘Did you bring her here, boy?' There was wary joy in his eyes, a kind of relief and the realisation that all might not be lost. ‘Well done, my son. I knew you wouldn't fail me.'

Anselm stepped forward on his own, sword bare. ‘You will not have her, Father. The princess is not a tool for you to use.'

Hope and pride twisted into something terrible instead. ‘I might have guessed. You never do anything right, do you? Too much your mother's son.'

Anselm flinched, his shoulders tightening, though only Finn, standing so close to him, would have been able to spot it.

‘My mother was loyal to the crown at least. Up to the day you killed her.'

‘Stand down, boy. I won't tell you again!' Sassone's voice, enraged and thwarted but not yet defeated. Finn understood his thinking in an instant. If he could take the princess while Roland rescued the queen, he still had a hand to play. Desperate now, and dangerous, because without this last victory, he had lost everything. He had no idea how bad it could yet be.

Anselm Tarryn didn't move. ‘It's over, Father. You've failed. Stand down and yield to us in the Aurum's name.' It was an audacious demand given the numbers surrounding them. But Anselm didn't hesitate to make it anyway.

Finn blinked, realising that he'd always dismissed Anselm's loyalty as more convenient than anything else. But not now.

Sassone scowled and gave a curt signal.

The first arrow took Anselm in the shoulder, and he was flung to one side, almost off his feet but not quite. He spun back, the shaft jutting from his body, his face white with shock. He had no armour, no more than Finn did, but that didn't stop him as he squared up again to block the way, to protect his princess.

Men rushed at them and Olivier stepped up to meet them. He drove them back, his sword a line of light, holding the line to the left. Finn took up the right flank.

Anselm still stood between his father and Wren.

Sassone nodded and the archer fired again. Another arrow punched into Anselm's side this time and he sank to his knees. Olivier gave a howl of dismay, torn between defending Wren and his beloved comrade. Finn took three of Sassone's guards, sweeping his sword around in a blur of light, but there were too many of them.

Anselm keeled over and Wren dropped to her knees beside him, her hands coming away bright with his blood as she tried to help him.

Behind Finn, from the city outside, a great shout went up.

‘To arms, Knights of the Aurum! The queen is saved. To arms against the traitors.'

The knights were coming back and the ground shook with their charge. Sassone and his men broke off, faced with the full fury of the forces of Asteroth. The fortress was broken and all they could hope for now was to escape with their lives. They ran.

But a wave of darkness rose up behind them. The nearest ones fell without even a sound. The screaming of the next group would haunt him.

He'd forgotten Wren, forgotten what might happen to her in the wild maelstrom of magic that had been cast in the Castel Sassone. Dark and terrible, Wren now lost herself in it. Her arms spread wide, and her head flung back, shadows flocked to her, ready, at her command, to tear apart those who fled.

Finn had seen her do this before, when she hadn't even realised what she could do. The shadow kin she had summoned that time had turned the forest into an abattoir in moments. Perhaps she didn't realise she was doing it now. That was his one hope.

She tore through the twisted spell and pulled out everything she wanted or needed. Her hair flowed out as if she was underwater, black ink in the night, and her eyes blazed darkness. She was gathering more power, more than he had ever seen her channel before and unleashed it, sending it after Sassone, tearing through all the wards around her like paper to summon more.

So much power. So many shadow kin. Everything that hid in the dark corners of the city, born of fear and despair, nursed on injustice, it all flocked to her now. They would all die. Everyone. Not just those who threatened her, Finn realised. Not just those running away, but those charging into the castle as well. And those outside the walls. And everyone hiding in terror. The knights, the people of Pelias, everyone, friend and foe.

Those who didn't die would know what she was. And then they would kill her.

But there was light as well. Everywhere she dragged away the darkness, there was light and she somehow gathered that together as well, focusing it as if through a prism, pouring it into Anselm's still form. The more darkness she pulled into herself, the more light she could force into him. Into all of them, Finn realised. It sang in his veins, in his and Olivier's, in Roland's and the knights', the light of the Aurum filling them as they battled their way forward. All because she was trying to save Anselm, trying to heal him. That was what she was doing, without thought to the consequences.

‘Wren!' he yelled. ‘Stop!'

He was too late. Far too late. He knew it at a glance. His knees longed to drop to the ground before her, and his heart screamed at him to submit to her, to be hers and let her take him and do with him whatever she wanted.

And maybe Wren was already gone. She was saving his friend's life. She was sending retribution after those who had threatened Elodie and hurt her. But in doing so, she'd lose herself to the Nox.

At the sound of his voice, her head snapped forward, long black strands of hair snaking over her face. She fixed her attention entirely on him and smiled. Her eyes were dark and endless. Empty now of all that was Wren.

Olivier held Anselm in his arms, trying to staunch the flow of blood, his eyes clenched shut against the light that poured through them both.

Finnian, my beloved , the voice purred. It wasn't her voice. But it was all around him, rippling through him. The wild magic lashed against his will, and only his need to help Anselm let him withstand it.

‘You have to stop,' he shouted desperately at the Nox, praying it would understand him. Those traces of the Aurum's light still lingering in him flared like wildfires and went out. ‘The knights will see. They'll kill her. If they see what you're doing here, if they see what your creatures can do to Sassone, they'll burn her and then what will you do? The knights are coming and they will know. They'll see the dead, what you've done to them. Everyone will know. Please, stop. Just stop and think.'

If they hadn't already seen. If they didn't already know. And here he was trying to reason with the darkness.

Anselm's strength, such as it still was, gave out as the light surrounding him flickered out and Olivier couldn't hold him up. He lowered Anselm to the cobbles as gently as he could so both of them wouldn't fall. Then Olivier dropped down beside him, his hands shaking.

‘He's dying,' he shouted. ‘Finn, do something. He's dying.'

Wren watched them, her head tilted to one side like a cat's, her eyes unbearably dark, holes into an endless night. The wave of shadow kin subsided, but it didn't depart. It drew back to her, a cloak of seething, hungry night, waiting. Any moment now the Knights of the Aurum would arrive. His friends, his comrades, all full of holy light and ready for battle…Any moment…

Finn dropped to his knees. He didn't know what else to do. His friend was dying, Wren's friend. She'd never forgive herself. He had to reach her somehow. ‘Help him. Please.'

She tried. She cannot. And what do you offer?

Offer? What could he possibly offer?

‘Whatever you want…' He knew what it wanted, what it had always wanted. He whispered it like a dark admission and closed his eyes in acceptance. ‘I'm yours. Hers. Gladly. You know that.'

Everything went quiet. Far too quiet.

Cold hands touched his face, hands that trembled. Wren. It was Wren. She drew in a shaky breath and her voice was weak. ‘I think…I think he's stable. I thought it wouldn't—' And then she saw his expression and the devastation around her. ‘What – what did I do?'

The darkness around them had gone. They were only four people, cold and shivering in the night, drenched in blood and sweat. Bodies were strewn around them. He didn't want to think about that. He'd killed some. So had Olivier. But not that many.

He couldn't tell if Sassone was among them. He couldn't tell if some of them had ever been human.

Finn couldn't tell her what had happened. ‘Help me, love. We've got to get Anselm out of here. We have to get you away before…'

The knights were coming. Even if no questions were asked, they would never find a healer in time, not if they waited here in the ruins of Castel Sassone. And there would be questions. So many questions. They'd have to explain why they were here, with the son of a traitor and the heir to the throne dressed like some kind of stable boy. And as for explaining what happened to Sassone's men…or the remains of them…

‘But where can we go?' Wren asked. Olivier lifted Anselm's limp form as if he was no more than a bundle of rags and looked to Finn for direction.

There was only one place close enough. They didn't have time to go any further. Anselm certainly didn't.

Finn only hoped he wouldn't eternally regret this.