Chapter 42

CHAPTER 42

FINN

Finn struggled to his feet, checking on Anselm and Olivier. They weren't hurt, but they looked as wary as he felt. The other guard crawled away silently. And Leander sobbed in rage and fury as he curled around his right arm where the bracelet seethed with dark magic.

He'd never seen Hestia display power like this before. She belonged to the Sisterhood of the Nox, he knew that, but even so…

Wren stood beside her, in a dark green Ilanthian gown, the sleeves falling from her wrists like fronds of weeping willow, her hair coiling and moving like smoke in a breeze. Power radiated from her and filled the sorceress.

‘What is going on here?' Finn said, in as calm and determined a voice as he could muster. ‘Hestia? What have you been doing?'

‘Stand down, Finn,' Hestia snapped without so much as glancing at him. ‘This is witchkind business and I will have answers. I want to know everything, Leander, all your petty plots and machinations. Someone will blame us for Sassone's ridiculous coup. If you know anything?—'

‘How could I know anything?' Leander spat through clenched teeth. ‘I've been on your leash since I got here.'

Hestia scowled at him and words of othertongue filled the air, flowing like whispers and songs, jarring against the ear and making Finn's skin recoil against his muscles and bones. The shadow kin around her surged forward and Leander's face blanched. He snarled in agony again, his body arching back like a drawn bow, as shadow kin wound about him, holding him in place, crushing him, tighter and tighter. They didn't bite, but their teeth grazed his skin, a threat, a promise.

Wren didn't move. She watched Leander, as if his pain and fear fascinated her. Perhaps it did. Finn wasn't even sure if this was Wren anymore. She seemed to flicker in the shifting shadows, sometimes the woman he loved and other times…

He had to stop this. Now.

‘Wren, please,' Finn whispered. ‘Stop. You're helping her, aren't you? Making her stronger. Please stop. This isn't the way, love.'

‘He almost killed you,' she said softly as if waking from a dream. ‘He would have killed you. I had to stop him, Finn.'

So it was her then. Her magic. Not the Nox itself but its power. And it was pouring along her veins now, swallowing her up more and more by the second. It would burn its way through her, destroying all that there was of her, of the Wren he knew and loved. He'd seen her almost lose herself before, and he couldn't let it happen again. Not for him.

He wasn't worth that.

‘He's almost killed me more times than I can remember. And he will try again. But this isn't you. We need to go, leave this place. It isn't good for you. It isn't safe.'

‘Good,' she murmured. ‘Safe…they're just words. Maybe I'm not good. Maybe nowhere is safe. Maybe I belong here. The Nox can help us.'

Was this Hestia's doing? He glanced at her. Had she enchanted Wren or…or what? His cousin was furious, he could see that and understand it too. All her plans had come to naught and if Leander was to be believed her sisterhood was plotting behind her back. But would she use the incarnation of her goddess to have her answers? Would she destroy Wren to get them?

Of course she would. Hestia wanted peace and she'd have it at any cost. Even if it meant destruction.

He reached for Wren's hand, carefully, cautiously, advancing on her as if she might explode, and lifted it in his. The air between them crackled and he felt that sweeping maelstrom of need in him again, rising like the storm. How he longed to give in to it, to be hers and do whatever she commanded without thought and without hesitation. One day he would. He knew that. When Wren lost this fight, so would he.

But not yet. Not today. She wasn't gone yet. And he wouldn't let her go. Though everything in him longed to fall at her feet and worship her, there was enough of his own will left to let him do this one thing. For her. For Wren.

He pressed his lips to her skin. She felt so cold, it was like kissing ice. But he didn't care. ‘Maybe you belong with me. Maybe somewhere else. But Wren, not like this. This isn't you. Let him go.'

Her eyes flickered again and she glanced at him. A look of confusion passed over her beautiful features and she frowned.

‘Why would you save him?' she asked.

‘I'm not saving him. I'm saving you. Let's go and find Elodie. She can help you. She'll understand. She loves you. Please?'

Wren sighed and her body gave a shiver, but she didn't pull away from him. Abruptly the power holding Leander vanished and he slumped down onto the crimson carpets of the gallery floor.

‘We still need answers,' Hestia protested. ‘The Asterothians will demand them. Or blame us.' The shadow kin were gone. The power in her was diminished now and though she was still a sorceress, she couldn't sustain that sort of spell alone. Wren had been fuelling her power. That was a conversation for another time and Finn would get her explanation for it. But not now. What answers was she after? What did she suspect Leander of now?

‘And I don't have answers.' Leander's voice came out between a sob and a snarl. ‘I've tried to tell you, Hestia. None of this is my doing. Yes, I tried to kill Finn. I want him dead. But none of the rest of it.'

Finn narrowed his eyes, suspicion making him listen even more closely. He was missing something, something they had deliberately kept from him ever since they arrived here. ‘What are you two talking about?' This wasn't about Sassone and Elodie. It wasn't even about Wren. There was more to this. ‘What else has happened?'

Leander had picked himself up again, still in obvious pain but he dusted off his fine clothes and glared at them all. Anselm and Olivier had fallen back behind Finn, flanking him. Guarding him.

Hestia gave in first. She sighed and then lowered her hands. ‘We weren't only here for the trial, or for Leander to apologise, and certainly not for him to pull his petty little stunt in the Sacrum. We weren't even just here to meet Wren or to attempt to broker a permanent peace. There's a problem back in Sidonia, Finnian, and the sisterhood sent me here to find out the truth. Someone has been passing our secrets to the rebel witchkind through Pelias, and sold shadow-wrought steel to Sassone here, clearly. The College of Winter may be involved and we have servants there trying to find out the truth. They are moving against both kingdoms, trying to destabilise us and disrupt the powers themselves. They seek to destroy the Aurum, the way Elodie destroyed the Nox. We came to find out who, and why.'

‘And so far all she has done has been to torture me,' Leander growled at her. ‘And now she's brought your beloved in on the act. Promising to teach her and help her embrace the dark, as if she can control the Nox. There's no control, when it comes to that power. It will burn through you and destroy whatever is left of you. And it will laugh as it does so. You'd have to be a na?ve fool to believe that kind of power can be controlled by one woman.' He sneered at her and Wren took a step back, her face very pale. Fear or anger, Finn wasn't sure. He put himself between them all the same. ‘Believe me, I am going to remember this. When I take the crown, Hestia?—'

Hestia snarled at him and flexed her fingers. He flinched and this time she smiled. He wasn't as brave as he pretended. Not anymore. The Ilanthian court was intent on flaying the arrogance out of him, the sisterhood most of all, it seemed. Had he crossed them as well? How great a fool had Leander become?

‘Don't let your father hear you talking like that or I will be the least of your worries, you stupid boy. He'll hand you over to the sisterhood completely to do with what they will and all this will seem like a pleasant dream. Well?' She turned to Wren. ‘Can you tell?'

Wren shook her head and Finn studied her. She seemed more herself again. When she saw him watching her she curled in against him once more.

‘I'm sorry,' she said. ‘Hestia offered to help me control the shadows instead of fighting them. And then Leander attacked you…And I?—'

Hestia offered to help . Well, Hestia could be persuasive when she wanted to be. Oh he should never have left Wren alone. She had wanted to know more about her powers, about the people who would accept the darkness in her. Finn understood that and he should have predicted it. He didn't have to like it but he at least could understand. And there was Hestia, of the Sisterhood of the Nox, offering to explain it all.

He could imagine. The betrayal burned in the pit of his stomach. He should have expected it. She was blood of Sidon too, after all.

‘Let's go home,' he told Wren softly, more a plea than an order.

‘But it's not my home, Finn. It never will be.'

‘It's all we have,' he replied, trying not to hear the pain in her voice. She truly hated it here. Pelias was nothing but a cage to her. Coming here had cost her everything, as she had always feared it would. ‘We have to see Elodie and Roland. They need to know about this as well. Your investigation, Hestia, should have been explained in detail from the start.'

‘It's an Ilanthian issue,' Hestia told him curtly. Of course, they didn't want it widely known that the security of the Ilanthian court had been breached, or that someone was trading with witchkind.

But this was not an argument anymore. If they were all intent on treating him like a prince here, then he would embrace it. This so-called ‘issue' affected all of them. And if the rebel witchkind were trying to disrupt the old magic itself, if they were trying to take over the sisterhood, or if they were after the Aurum, he had to raise the alarm. He was duty-bound.

‘Clearly not. Sassone used Ilanthian steel on the queen. You have no choice but to tell them everything and let Elodie and Roland handle it. If they believe you had a hand in it, that's going to make your mission all the more difficult, Hestia. Impossible in fact. You'll be lucky to get out of Pelias, ambassador or not. And Leander will have the war he always wanted.'

‘I don't want a war,' his half-brother muttered. ‘Only a fool would want that.'

Which was, Finn reflected, the most sensible thing he had ever heard come out of Leander's mouth. It wasn't as if he had been demonstrating that the last time they met though, and he had learned long ago never to trust a word his brother said.

‘Really? I thought that was what this was all about. Conquering Asteroth, securing power, the triumph of the Nox.'

‘It doesn't have to be like that,' Hestia interrupted. ‘Does it? None of you understand. How many times do I have to explain to get it through your thick royal skulls? We can achieve a balance instead.'

She looked plaintively at Leander who gave a growl and rolled his eyes. ‘So you say. And Hestia knows these things. She certainly convinced our father anyway.' His voice took on a grandiose tone. ‘She has looked into the darkest places and been shown the path of things to come. All must obey or we face utter ruin. Not everyone agrees with her though and that is the problem.'

Finn turned his attention to his cousin who had the good grace to look embarrassed.

Mystical and ominous portents from the sisterhood. He should have guessed.

‘And what is that?' he asked, raising an eyebrow to let her know how dubious he found all of this. ‘A vision?'

‘I can't tell you. Not everything. Just that peace is possible and it is imperative. Without peace I saw a wasteland where our fair kingdoms should be.'

Hardly a surprise. That was what war did. Hestia knew that as well as anyone. He'd had enough of this nonsense.

‘You need to leave,' he told her. ‘Get out of Pelias and back to Sidonia. Spin your foretellings to Alessander instead if he's of a mind to listen. They'll do more good there.'

‘I have. He sent us here, Finnian. For you.'

Those two words made him stop, his body frozen. Wren's hand tightened on his. Did she know about this?

‘And why does Alessander want me?'

He dreaded to think. He may have visited the royal court and been treated with casual disdain at most over the years, but his last clear memory of his childhood was his father dragging him to the sacrificial chamber, knife in hand. That was his one abiding memory, the thing that brought him awake screaming from nightmares in the darkest hours of the night. Alessander had tried to kill him and Roland had been the one to save him.

Then the king of Ilanthus had handed his youngest son over as a hostage without a single qualm. The boy was dead to him anyway.

But it had been Hestia who had sent Roland to save him. Finn had always known that. And for what? For this? He'd thought it was love, or at least affection. But had she always known? Had this, in fact, been her plan? Not to let him die then, but to save him up for the future, for when the Nox returned in a human form.

Daily, Finnian thanked the light of the Aurum for Roland's intervention. He had been a man by the time he had been able to return to Sidonia without an escort for his own safety. And in those prayers, he had thanked Hestia as well. Now they felt like ashes in his mouth.

Oh he could imagine why Alessander might want him back after so long. Blood of Sidon. The expendable son. The one doomed to die…

He stared at Hestia, desperately ignoring Leander. He could lay hands on a weapon again in moments. He trusted his hated brother knew that.

Anselm and Olivier moved closer. He'd almost forgotten they were there. They were Knights of the Aurum. They could be silent and unseen. It was part of their training.

Anselm…Anselm who would tell Roland everything. And even if he didn't, Olivier would. Oh great light, how was he going to explain all of this to Roland?

‘Finn,' Wren whispered. It sent a shudder through him and he glanced to her. Her dark eyes were fixed solemnly on him, and she looked as worried as he felt. Her hand, cold and shaking, tightened on his again, as if she felt the need to hold him back.

He trusted her, more than trusted her. He would do anything for her. She was part of him and he was part of her. They had to get out of here.

‘We should go,' she said, her voice trembling.

Had they already told Wren? Before him? Or had she sensed it? Her magic could do so much. Why not peer into Hestia's mind and read her intentions? Or maybe Wren had figured it out. She was clever, intuitive as well. Everyone seemed to forget that.

‘Why's that, little bird?' asked Leander with a sarcastic drawl. ‘Why not let him hear the future?'

She turned on him angrily and Finn felt the shadows snarl around her, rising in an instant. Her hand almost pulled away from his, but he held onto her, which made her pause.

‘No one knows the future,' she replied, almost evenly. ‘It is not yet written. It can only be guessed.'

The prince smirked at her, a deliberately infuriating expression. He thrived on such behaviour. ‘You'll find Hestia is remarkably good at guessing.'

‘Enough, Leander,' Hestia snapped, her tone all warning. ‘You're impossible.'

Leander scowled at her, his face tight with pain, loathing in his eyes. She was using the bracelet to try to stop him but this time he was fighting his way through the pain. ‘She didn't see the crown of Ilanthus on my head when Father dies, brother dearest. She saw it on yours. Happy now?'