Chapter 46

CHAPTER 46

WREN

Carlotta's eyes – huge and unnaturally dark – held her gaze and from somewhere Wren heard the laughter of the Nox. It was everywhere, all around her, inside her, thundering with her blood.

‘I'm sorry, Wren,' Carlotta whispered, silver tears scoring lines down her face. ‘I didn't mean to…I didn't want to…I couldn't stop her…' Her eyes glazed and another voice came from her mouth, one familiar and strange at the same time. It snarled and growled the words and all Wren could hear was its vindictive tones, echoing through her head.

We are witchkind. We will live free or we die.

Magic boiled up through Carlotta's frail body, lines of lightning crackled across her skin, dancing and dispersing into the servant's form. Carlotta wasn't doing this. She couldn't.

She turned the knife on herself, the razor-sharp edge sliding across her throat without hesitation. Blood spilled down her front and she crumpled like a pile of rags.

But Carlotta's blood, while that of a witch, while spilled against her will, didn't matter. Not now.

Leander's blood, on the other hand, blood of a prince of Ilanthus, blood of Sidon…

It pulled power out of Wren as if she was nothing but a well. This wasn't the balance Hestia had spoken off. There was no breathing her way through it. This was more than a summoning. This was an assault.

Wren flung up her hands, trying to draw her power around her to protect herself. She didn't mean to call on the shadows but they always answered first in her time of need. They were always eager to help her. Shadow kin answered her, so many.

Instantly, light blasted through her defences, sending her sprawling backwards. For a moment she couldn't breathe, couldn't draw in any more air. Everything hurt. Everywhere.

‘Wren!'

Hestia grabbed her, held her close, frantically trying to control the magic running rampant through the girl, to fix it back in its division of light and dark. She grabbed Wren's arms and pulled her to her feet, dragging her to one side as blinding light erupted where she had been only moments before.

‘I've got her!' Hestia shouted, pulling Wren after her as she plunged towards the doorway.

Finn stumbled ahead of them, carrying Leander. He almost fell, as he ran, but Hestia yelled something at him and he staggered up and somehow kept going. The other knights were on their knees, light coursing through them, light so bright, all focused on one figure, on a being made of flames and blinding brilliance.

All except for Roland. He stood in Finn's path like a tree in a storm, clinging to his great sword. Light pulsed down the length of the blade, the light of the Aurum. His eyes were closed, his face screwed up tightly in concentration as he fought to hold onto himself.

‘Go,' he told Finn. ‘Get him out of here.' Finn skidded around him and flung himself for the door, a trail of his brother's blood splattering behind him.

‘Roland!' Wren cried out. Her father opened his dark eyes and saw her, eyes so like her own. And he tried to smile.

‘Run, Wren,' he said. ‘As fast and as far as you can.'

Elodie and Roland had made her whether they knew it or not. Her not-quite mother and perhaps-never father. It didn't matter. They were all she had.

Now Elodie was coming after her and Roland was in the way.

Wren was the only defence he had now. And perhaps all that might possibly stop Elodie. She couldn't leave him. He wouldn't stand a chance. Roland would never raise a weapon against Elodie, Wren knew that much. And if Elodie killed him she would never forgive herself.

Except, the thing bearing down on her wasn't Elodie anymore. One look in the shining face told her that. She took her time, almost as if it was a procession. There was nowhere Wren could go anyway. That terrible power would hunt her down and destroy her. It was only a matter of time.

The Aurum filled the queen's body and burned Elodie away. She was righteous vengeance, the Aurum incarnate. Everyone always talked about the Nox, about how terrible it was when it took form, but no one mentioned the Aurum. Perhaps they had forgotten it was possible. But Wren had seen it take Elodie like this twice now and she knew her mother had no control. If she was even there anymore. What had Hestia said? Stare at the sun and you went blind. Fire burned. Right now, Elodie didn't know anything more than the Aurum allowed her to know.

And Wren was part of the Nox. She always had been. Carlotta had stabbed Leander, spilling the blood of Sidon to summon the Nox in the chamber of the Aurum, in its Sacrum. Finishing the job he had tried to start at the trial. Perhaps he had given her the idea.

No, not her. This had not been Carlotta's idea. She'd been forced to do this.

A second later and it could have been Finn.

‘Elodie, stop!' she cried out, even though she knew that Elodie couldn't hear her. Wouldn't hear her. And wouldn't know her if she did.

Elodie might as well be gone.

Roland stood beside her. Her father, or the man who should have been her father if she was really flesh and blood and not some kind of magical creation. The man she sincerely wished was her father. He held Nightbreaker and hid her behind the great sword. Elodie's relentless advance appeared to have stalled. Roland, or the sword, seemed to be the only thing holding the Aurum back from her now. How, she didn't know.

‘Wren, you need to get away,' Roland told her. ‘It isn't safe.'

‘Nowhere is safe,' she replied. ‘Not anymore. Look at her.'

‘My darling girl,' he whispered, and awe saturated his voice. ‘Look at yourself.'

She started and tried to glance at her body. Her hair whipped wildly around her like a nest of shadows. When she held out her hands she saw her skin was suffused with stars and the night's sky, alive with its own dark light. But she didn't feel the Nox taking control of her. It was held off beyond the veil still, a world and a half away on the other side of her reality.

Balance, Hestia had said. They needed to find balance.

Elodie struck, lightning arcing through the crackling air, and Wren barely managed to raise some kind of shield around the two of them in time. It was shaky and uncertain, woven somehow around the sword itself, its light and her shadows twisting together. It wouldn't hold for long, she knew that instinctively. It wasn't meant to be possible.

Elodie, or the being that had been Elodie, tilted her head to one side as if examining this oddity.

‘What's wrong with her? What is she doing?'

‘She doesn't know us.' Roland's voice shook as he steeled himself. ‘She's looking for a weakness, I think. When I give the signal, run?'

‘What about you?'

He didn't have an answer for that. He didn't know any more than she did what the Aurum might do to him now. ‘I can give you time to escape. The sword can only shield you for so long. It's her power, after all. She sees the Nox in you, Wren. She knows the truth of you. She told me.'

‘But I—' And what could she say? That it wasn't true? She might not know exactly what happened and how it happened or anything else. But he was right. ‘Roland, I?—'

His hand fell on her shoulder, strong and firm, but oh so comforting. She had never expected that. ‘I know the truth of you too, Wren. And it has nothing to do with whatever made you. I'd have to be a fool to ignore what I've learned of you. You're brave, and you're strong, and loyal. Loyal to a fault. I won't let Elodie hurt you. She would never forgive herself. But she doesn't remember right now. She doesn't know who you are. So you have to run. Understand?'

She nodded as bravely as she could manage. If Roland thought she was brave, she could be brave. She had to be.

‘You aren't my father, are you?' she asked, and she couldn't keep the heartbreak from her voice.

That made him pause. He glanced down at her and suddenly he wore that grim smile. It meant so much to her. More than she had realised. ‘Elodie said that the Nox formed you based on her dreams, her wishes, on what the two of us once had. It reached into her heart and took what it found there. So I am your father in every way that counts. Just as she is your mother. Always remember that. Finnian?'

‘Here, Grandmaster.'

And there he was, by Wren's side again. She didn't know where he'd brought Leander. Outside the chamber somewhere, hidden, she hoped.

‘You need to get Wren out of Pelias. As far away from the Aurum, and the regents' council, and the queen, as you can. Understand?'

Finn stared at him as if he had lost his mind. ‘Are you telling me to?—?'

‘You know what to do, your highness. I believe you have the means. On my mark.'

Roland raised Nightbreaker and stepped straight into the full force of Elodie's magic.