Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

FINN

‘He was with her, you know. When the Ilanthians almost took her. Maybe he led her there in the first place. They can't be trusted. None of them.'

The hushed voice wasn't as subtle as its owner thought. It carried on the breeze across the courtyard to the place where Finn was cleaning his sword. He tried not to flinch, keeping to the steady rhythm as he sharpened the blade.

It was something Roland had taught him long ago, to always take care of a weapon no matter how humble. A sword could mean your life. Even a sword as great as Roland's Nightbreaker was just a weapon and needed to be treated with care.

So Finn focused on his task and not the loose tongues around him.

Let them talk, he thought. Let them gossip. He knew the truth of what had happened in the stone circle at Knightsford. Or some of it anyway. Enough. He knew enough.

He had to find a way to make sense of it all.

And as for the moment he and Wren had stood in front of the black flames…

He pushed that firmly from his mind.

A nightmare. Or at least he wished it had been a nightmare.

Every moment since had been stolen, every glimpse of her left him hungry and hollow. Wren haunted him, and made him a shell of himself. He couldn't bear to be around the various gatherings in the palace, knowing she was so close and that to reach out to her would invite disaster.

So he withdrew. From her, from everyone. And he let the gossip grow unchecked. He tried not to care and failed at that, too.

The flames had turned black. Not for long, not forever. But he knew what he had seen. The woman who commanded shadow kin, who drew the night around her like a cloak and had filled him with such blinding light…the woman he loved…

She had done that.

And yet still he ached for her.

He couldn't help himself. And that was part of the problem, wasn't it? Because he was a son of the line of Sidon. He had been marked for the Nox from his birth. All she needed to do was embrace her power and command him and he would have no choice to obey.

How did he even know if what he felt was real?

But how could it not be?

‘Are you planning on wearing that sword down to a toothpick?' Anselm asked with a laugh.

Finn looked up, distracted to see his friend approaching across the courtyard. When Finn had been a boy and Roland had first brought him to Pelias, he'd been terrified but defiant, a wild little thing, or so Roland had called him. An unholy terror according to everyone else. The fights had been inevitable and the scowls he cast at everyone must have made him impossible to warm to.

He recalled distinctly sitting not far from here, huddled in shadows where he felt safest, nursing bruises and grazed knuckles. And Anselm coming to find him. All golden curls and aristocratic bearing.

He'd held out his hand. ‘Tarquin is an arse,' he said. He was of course correct.

Finn hadn't known what to make of that. ‘I think I broke his nose.'

‘He deserved it. Come on, we should get to training.'

‘You…you want me to go with you?' Finn had asked. No one wanted to be around him and that suited him. He was Ilanthian and they were Asterothian. They were enemies to the core. He was a hostage here.

Anselm shrugged. ‘You know how to fight. It seems a shame to waste that. The Grandmaster said you were to train with us. So I came to find you. Coming?'

They'd been more or less inseparable ever since. Training to be a Knight of the Aurum was no joke and they had needed each other countless times. It was hard not to smile back at his friend. Anselm could make anyone feel better in a moment. They had been knighted together, and side by side every step of the way. Finn didn't have many people he relied on and trusted the way he trusted Anselm. But he didn't have to let Anselm know that. He'd be insufferable.

Finn didn't so much as grin. ‘Did you need something?'

‘The Grandmaster wants to see us. He's in a foul mood though.'

Finn sighed, sheathing his sword and packing away his equipment. ‘When isn't he these days?'

Anselm pulled that face, the expression which said he agreed but didn't want to. As one of Roland's most reliable aides he probably took the brunt of whatever was going on with Finn's guardian, whatever issue he was dealing with.

The same problem Finn had. Wren and Elodie.

Olivier was already waiting outside the chamber, tall and dark, with his perpetual scowl. He had always been there as well, as long as Finn had been in Pelias. Another knight and potential Paladin, who had squired alongside him and Anselm, his father was the wealthy Count Arrenden, and the whole family were devout followers of the Aurum. Solemn and dour, Olivier prayed daily, even now that the Aurum didn't respond, and lived an austere life. Anselm would tease him mercilessly but Olivier ignored him.

Anselm Tarryn was from similarly noble stock, his parents being among the foremost nobles in the kingdom. His father, the Earl of Sassone, was one of the three regents, and Anselm himself carried the title of Lord Tarryn though he never used it in his life as a knight. Finn forgot that sometimes, that Anselm was almost as high-born as he was. He didn't have that air about him. No more than Finn did.

‘What do you think he wants?' Olivier asked Anselm. Not Finn. He rarely interacted with Finn if he could avoid it. Being Ilanthian in this court came with many prejudices. Finn liked to think that the many slights, from exclusion, to offhand comments, to outright slurs he experienced every day, flowed off him like water after so long, but they didn't. Not really. He had just got better at hiding it over the years.

‘I'm sure the Grandmaster will inform us of his intentions when he's ready,' said Anselm. ‘Best not to speculate or indulge in idle gossip.'

Silence fell over the group, Finn trying to focus on anything but the way Olivier kept casting sidelong glances at him. Eventually, though, the inevitable question came.

‘You were at Knightsford, at the stone circle…' Olivier began, but stopped when Anselm glared at him. ‘You must have heard the rumours too?'

Anselm snorted, clearly disgusted that his warning about idle gossip was being ignored. ‘There have been a lot of rumours,' he said, his voice unusually cold. It wasn't like him. Finn glanced his way, surprised. The glare he was giving Olivier made his face look different, more like his father's, a comparison Anselm would not have welcomed. The two of them had that in common. ‘She saved Finn's life. She saved us all and drew down the power of the Aurum.'

‘I thought the queen did that.'

Olivier hadn't been there. He had been stationed here in Pelias, guarding the Aurum. He hadn't seen or indeed felt the vast power that had filled the stone circle at Knightsford. Finn already knew that some of the knights were bitter about that, like they had missed something important. All they knew was what they had been told.

Which was probably just as well.

‘She is very beautiful,' Olivier said, casting another sidelong glance at Finn. ‘You must be close, the two of you. Alone, all that time in the forest.'

In constant danger. Lost. Hunted.

But the passion Wren had ignited in him still simmered away in his depths. He couldn't deny it to himself, even if he was determined to hide it from everyone else. Anselm knew, but then Anselm was no fool. He saw far more than most. Luckily he was good with secrets and understood discretion.

‘She's Roland's daughter,' Olivier went on. ‘I wouldn't pursue her. Not if you want to keep on his good side. Not with your reputation.'

For a moment Finn hoped Olivier was joking, which would be so far out of character they would have to check if he had been infected by shadow kin or something. But no such luck. Olivier was deeply in earnest. Finn glared at the floor as if he could make it burst into flames and curled his hands into fists at his sides.

His reputation. His background, he meant. A child of Ilanthus, the exiled son of Alessander, the hostage prince. All of Pelias knew who he was and most of them blamed him for things that had happened when he was only a child.

The problem was, they were right. He had no business being near Wren. It was dangerous for both of them. Dangerous for the whole kingdom.

He couldn't help himself. He wanted her. Needed her. She was everything to him.

He was about to tell Olivier where to go, when the door opened.

‘Inside,' Roland barked, and from the look on his face, this was not good news.