Chapter 44

CHAPTER 44

FINN

Roland arrived, and all Finn could do was fall to his knees beside the others and pray no one told his guardian that Ilanthus wanted him back. That they wanted to put a crown on his head.

Finn wanted none of it and Roland had to know that. He had to.

But Roland looked like he could happily order the immediate execution of everyone right there at the gates of the Ilanthian embassy.

Including Wren.

Something had happened. Something terrible. Finn knew that without even asking. He just had to look into the eyes of the man he had thought of as his true father to see the desolation there.

‘The queen?' he asked one of the other knights as they were hustled through the city, towards the gates of the palace. The man glanced down at him from horseback.

Roland had taken Wren up on his mount, riding ahead with her. Finn had been left to walk with the others.

This was not good. Not good at all.

‘What happened to the queen?' he asked again.

‘She lives. He rescued her. And she's angry. Understandably. Your Ilanthian friends were helping Sassone. They provided the shadow steel with which they bound her power.'

But they didn't. Hestia and even Leander had insisted that was not the case. They were as mystified about it as anyone else, desperate to find out how it had happened and who was behind it before something happened. Something like this. Finn had seen nothing while at the embassy to believe any differently. He didn't think they were lying to him. That was almost a surprise. He had always expected lies, especially from Leander.

But not this time.

Hestia had been his only friend in the Ilanthian court. She was a powerful sorceress, true, and a devoted member of the sisterhood. His father trusted her like no one else. Hestia had never harmed him.

There was always a first time, some dark voice inside him whispered. And Hestia seemed determined to put him on the throne. The last thing he wanted.

The last thing anyone else wanted. If that wasn't harm he didn't know what was.

This was all a terrible mistake. All Ilanthus had to know that.

The gates of the palace opened silently. No rain of flowers this time, no cheering crowds, no great ball to welcome them either. The Ilanthians were ushered inside like captives rather than guests and Finn remembered long ago when he had first arrived here, the feeling of those gates closing behind him, like the doors of a tomb.

‘But they saved me,' he heard Wren's voice, strident in the still courtyard between the palace and the Sanctum. ‘This is madness.'

‘If you had stayed where you were you wouldn't have needed saving,' Roland growled at her, more frustrated than Finn had ever heard him. Honestly, he couldn't blame the man. He'd thought the same thing himself. Not that Wren would pay a blind bit of notice. ‘And besides?—'

They never heard what else he was going to say because the main doors to the keep opened and Elodie emerged. Silence settled over the whole gathering. She glided forward, head held high. She was a sword, in human form, crowned with a circlet of gold which gleamed in the sunlight. Lynette and several of the ladies-in-waiting came after her, clearly distressed that she had left whatever safety they had managed to construct around her. This was the main courtyard of her own palace. She had already been taken from the supposedly most secure place in Pelias so what did she care for security now? And Finn knew better than anyone at this stage, nothing would stop Elodie if she had set her mind to something.

Not Queen Aeryn, he thought. Elodie the hedge witch of Cellandre. She was the real power here.

‘Wren,' Elodie said and her voice rang out like a bell.

Wren ran to her. She didn't even hesitate or glance back, all fear gone. Finn almost felt a pang of grief at the thought. But Elodie had always been there for her. She was her mother and her fiercest protector. She always had been.

Why did anyone doubt that?

The queen of Asteroth enfolded her daughter in her arms and held her close. She lifted her chin over Wren's bowed head and her eyes locked with Roland's. ‘Did you find him?'

Roland half-shrugged his shoulders. ‘What's left of him. Perhaps.'

Finn thought back to the shadow kin in the keep of Castel Sassone and tried not to glance at Anselm. No telling what he thought, or what he might have to say on the subject. They both knew what Wren had done there.

‘And his conspirators?' she asked in a voice that could have come from the wintry wastes. Roland shook his head.

Elodie turned her attention on the group from the embassy. Her tone didn't change. The fearful authority that threaded through her words made it even worse.

‘Bring them to the Sacrum. Let them face the fire of the Aurum and speak truth whether they like it or not.'

‘Your majesty!' Hestia cried out in protest. ‘We have nothing to do with this. Prince Finnian brought the princess to us for safety. That was all.'

‘Did he?' Elodie's voice was so cold and Finn felt something inside him tighten in fear. She had once defeated him without so much as breaking a sweat, without drawing a weapon, with no more than a handful of dust. It had been humiliating then and he still felt the sensations of that cloying dust in his mouth and nose as his consciousness had slipped away. She had almost killed Leander in a swordfight. In the Sacrum Finn had seen her at her full power, channelling the Aurum, bright and terrifying as any nightmare spun for wayward Ilanthian children. If she thought his people were to blame for even the slightest part of this coup, they were in trouble. If she thought it was his fault…

Wren straightened, said something soft and low, and confusion flickered over Elodie's beautiful face. Her gaze strayed to Finn, bored into him as if seeking confirmation. He held himself still and strong, as if he could convince her of his faithfulness by appearance alone. Elodie's eyes narrowed.

‘Very well.' Her voice had gentled. It was barely perceptible, but it was there. He could feel it. The gratitude that she believed in him should not have felt quite so much like relief. ‘We will get to the bottom of this. Come, Prince Finnian, Prince Leander. And Lady Hestia.'

Finn didn't like to say what might have happened if she had tried to separate Hestia from them right now. She, too, was witchkind, and very high in the Sisterhood of the Nox. Perhaps she was even a match for Elodie, had their goddess not been broken and scattered. And she had Leander's keeping. He might be a monster, and she might be controlling his magic with the bracelet, but she was also responsible for him. And if anything happened to him, Alessander would make her suffer indeed. Worse, he would take it out on her son as well. Finn's father made Leander look like a saint. And Gaius had taken Laurence with him, not through any altruistic motive. He was a bargaining chip, an offering. Hestia had to know that too.

Elodie's use of Finn's title, and giving him precedence over Leander, didn't bode well at all. His heart felt like something had speared it, something cold and dark indeed. He could almost hear the taunting laughter of the Nox. He'd always been an Ilanthian here.

As they stepped into the cool interior of the keep, he felt Wren take his hand. He hadn't even seen her lingering in the shadows beyond the door

‘Are you all right? They didn't hurt you?'

He shook his head. He didn't even know what to say to her.

‘Will Hestia and Leander tell them you're to be king?' she whispered, as if she didn't dare to say it any louder.

He didn't want to say it out loud himself.

‘My family lies as soon as they breathe,' he replied. ‘I don't know what they're planning, none of them. This could all be another trick. Never trust them. I mean it, Wren. Don't ever trust anyone from my family. It will only end in misery.'

She wrapped her arm around his and pulled him closer, folding in against him, warm and intoxicating. Perhaps she meant it to be a comfort, but it reminded him of the way he lost himself in her, in his desire for her, and in the ingrained need to do whatever she asked of him without question.

It reminded him that he was destined to serve the Nox, no matter how much he struggled against that fate, and the pendant around his neck felt heavy.

With Wren so close, the darkness teased at the back of his mind, and he thought he heard a ripple of laughter.

Laughing at him.

Will you bring her misery, little king-in-waiting? Oh how we long to see it. In her despair she will embrace her darkness and then we will be whole again. By all means, break her heart.

He sucked in a breath of alarm and she pulled back to look at his face, confused.

Where had that come from? It had sounded like the Nox but that dark power couldn't be here. Not right in the heart of Pelias.

The doors to the chamber of the Aurum closed behind him, the sound echoing in the high-ceilinged room hewn from white stone, lit by its flickering light, and the dark whisper was cut off.

He could feel the light in his veins, pulsing inside him, calling to him, as if an invisible string drew him forward. He longed to drop to his knees before the flames and proclaim his faithfulness to it. To at last have it accept him as a Paladin, as its servant.

And yet something else held him in place. Wren. And what Hestia had told him of the future.

‘Someone,' said Elodie in that voice like the north wind, ‘needs to explain the meaning of all of this to me right now.'