Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

FINN

The Grandmaster wasn't alone in his study. By the window, Lady Ylena sat watching them file in, her elderly eyes still sharp and keen. She was Elodie's aunt, second in line to the throne to her mother, and had been at the side of that same throne for the last forty years – guardian and guide, counsellor, and now one of the regents. Roland didn't take a seat behind his desk as they lined up. Instead, he paced back and forth in front of them.

‘These are the ones?' Ylena asked, as if she had been presented with a collection of alley cats.

‘Yes,' Roland said, the answer as firm and confident as possible.

Ylena rose, moving like the royal princess she was. She inspected each of them, pausing in front of Finn for an unnecessarily long time.

‘If you say so,' she said at last. ‘I don't see it myself.'

‘They are the best here.'

‘Even the Ilanthian? Isn't that a risk?'

Finn was used to this. He had heard worse every day all his life. Even when he was a child back in Ilanthus. He knew better than to react.

Roland didn't rise to the bait. ‘I have trusted Finnian Ward with my life on more than one occasion. I raised him. He was the one who rescued your niece and great-niece from those who would have taken them back to Sidonia.'

Roland was careful about not identifying who ‘those' were. Finn's brother, in other words. Who had almost killed him. Roland didn't mention that and Finn was grateful. He kept his gaze trained on the wall, his jaw relaxed, his hands loose. He had to. Showing any sort of reaction at times like this just made it worse.

‘And the ill-judged affection between the two of them?' Ylena went on. So that was what they were calling it? Wonderful. Finn felt the heat rise up his neck and fought against showing the embarrassment. Was this why he was here? To be humiliated by the lady regent?

‘Finnian has a vital role to play as I am sure you are aware.'

Ylena didn't seem convinced.

‘So long as he realises that it is impossible and cannot continue. She is heir to the throne, even if she won't accept that as yet. But she's a headstrong girl and that will have to change. If this is your decision, so be it. But I will be watching as well, Roland. Closely.'

Was it Finn's imagination or did Roland's knuckles turn even whiter?

‘And, as I said, these are my best men. Their service has been impeccable, they come from the finest families, and they will do their duty. She will be protected in all things, as we discussed.'

The compliment from their Grandmaster should have filled them with pride. Perhaps it did, for the other two. Finn felt something like a noose tightening around him. He didn't come from the finest family. Not as far as the Asterothians were concerned. He might have a pedigree, but it wasn't one the regents' council would ever accept.

Ylena rolled her eyes and left the study, the heavy door banging closed behind her.

It was Anselm who cleared his throat. ‘May I ask what this entails, Grandmaster?'

The three of them watched Roland expectantly as he cleared any lingering traces of annoyance from his face.

‘You and Olivier are to be charged with the protection and defence of her royal highness, Princess Wren. She will be kept out of danger at all times. You will teach her to fight in her own defence. If so much as a hair on her head is harmed I will have your balls, understand?'

A hair on her head, Finn thought. Funny. But he didn't dare smile. And he was not included in this. He hadn't missed that.

The overwhelming silence crushed down on him. Surprisingly it was Olivier who broke it.

‘Only the two of us? What about Ward? Why is he here?'

‘I have a mission for Finnian specifically. You two are dismissed. Select your men, set up a roster, see to her protection. Your families regard this as a great honour, but I see it as a potential disaster. Make sure that I am wrong.'

Finn waited as they left, and wondered why he was being deliberately excluded. Ylena's reference to their relationship was indication enough of what was going on.

The door closed firmly.

‘Wren isn't going to like having babysitters all the time.'

Roland gave a dismissive snort and shook his head. ‘No, but the regents' council demanded it. It was all I could do to insist on having Anselm and Olivier take the lead on that.'

‘I suppose their families were delighted.' The Earl of Sassone was one of the regents, after all. Having his own son in charge of her security would be something of a coup.

Roland almost smiled. Almost. ‘It certainly helped. Would you have chosen anyone else?' Finn shook his head. He couldn't argue that. He would trust them with his life. And with Wren's. ‘I know where their loyalties lie.'

He couldn't help himself. ‘But not me.'

Roland looked up at him sharply. ‘You think I doubt you?'

‘What am I supposed to think?' He didn't mean to sound so petulant, but it was hard. He could feel something else brewing, like an oncoming storm. Roland was holding off telling him what that might be and Finn didn't like that.

‘Keeping the two of you as far apart as possible until we can sort out whatever has happened between you and untangle whatever enchantments she wove would be better.' Finn made to protest but Roland raised his hand to silence him. ‘ Inadvertently wove.'

For a moment Finn didn't know what to say.

‘You're separating us? Like children?'

‘Some would say you are children.' Roland sat down behind his desk now and Finn sank into the chair opposite him. This couldn't be happening.

‘Because of the queen? Has she demanded this?' He knew Elodie didn't approve of his relationship with Wren. She had made that perfectly clear. The worst part was, Finn feared she might be right. And that made him feel like the worst kind of traitor.

A queen in prison, on trial for treason, shouldn't be in a position to make demands of anyone. Perhaps it was Ylena. The regent had lost more than anyone in the war against the Ilanthians so it was no wonder she distrusted him. Perhaps she was only trying to protect Wren. The Aurum knew that was all Finn himself wanted to do.

That brief thought of the Aurum, and the darkness that had flared in its depths when he had stood there before it with Wren, made the icy cold hand of reality crush his spiralling worries.

Roland and Ylena didn't know the worst of Wren's magic, what it had done to the Aurum's flame. Finn didn't know how or why the flames had turned black for those long, terrible moments, but he knew what it could mean. The Nox had touched Wren in that stone circle. It had made itself part of them somehow. He'd felt it flow through them both. And maybe more of it remained than they realised.

It was the reason he had been keeping his distance, staying away from her, or at least trying to, even though it felt like physical pain to do so. He burned for her in a way he couldn't explain, like those holy flames, eternal and all-encompassing. It had to be an enchantment, his rational mind told him. Wren hadn't meant to do it, he was sure of that, but something had happened to bind him to her. He could claim it was when she saved his life with her magic in the stone circle, but he knew it had happened long before that. He'd been bitten by shadow kin. That ought to have been the end of him and if anyone found out even that much, he'd be locked up, examined and tested to madness. But Wren had cured him, riddled him with divine light and made him…made him into something else. Her creature. When she was threatened, he lost his mind with the raging need to protect her.

Perhaps it had happened even before that. In the forest of Cellandre, where he first met her. When he had lost all sense of who and what he was and she had saved him. He had kissed her. Her lips on his, her body in his arms…even that first kiss still haunted him.

Roland spoke again, more softly but still firm, the voice of command.

‘I have another mission in mind for you. One for which you are uniquely suited.'

That did not sound good at all. And clearly it was something designed to keep him as far away from Wren as possible. Which…yes, he knew it had to be this way. Inevitable.

‘Which is?'

‘The king of Ilanthus, your father, has petitioned us to reopen the embassy as a gesture of goodwill and an overture of peace talks.'

For a moment Finn thought he might be hearing things. ‘Peace talks.' The two words came out flat with disbelief. His father didn't want peace. None of his family did.

‘He is sending a special emissary here and they have asked specifically for you to act as a liaison. He sent a letter.'

‘What letter?'

Roland produced it, unrolled it and let Finn read. It really didn't help. Not at all.

‘You can't believe any of this?'

Roland shrugged. Whether they believed it was clearly beside the point. Finn was a prince of Sidon, Ilanthian royalty, whether he liked it or not. He might have started off as a hostage here but the connections he could forge between the two courts were, as the letter pointed out, unique. It would serve them both.

His father's signature adorned the bottom of the page, a beautiful and elaborate scrawl. There was an official seal. This was not a lie.

But it could be a trap.

Finn sighed to himself.

Of course it would be a trap. For him. Or for Roland. For someone.

And it would surely mean he would be kept as far away from Wren as possible. Because an Ilanthian could never be trusted. But of course, he knew that better than anyone.