Chapter 48

CHAPTER 48

FINN

How could he have been so stupid?

He could feel the shadow kin in the chamber beyond, seething and roiling, taunting him. They were voices on the edge of his hearing, speaking a language he almost remembered from his nightmares.

He couldn't lose Wren. And at the same time, Finn knew Wren would never forgive him. Not this.

But he did it anyway.

He didn't dare take his eye off Wren as she dragged herself back to her feet and tried to fling open the door. But Hestia had seen to that. No one was getting in or out of this room until she decided they could.

He turned to Hestia, who was bent over Leander and desperately trying to save him. Even now. He was still her family, still her prince. And for once, this was not his fault. Finn dropped to his knees beside her.

‘Hestia, help me,' he hissed. ‘Can't you talk to her, explain…I don't know. Please.'

The look his cousin gave him would have quelled the arguments of a king. ‘I'm trying to save his life.' But then she seemed to shudder and looked back down to Leander. ‘But I can't.'

‘She can. She saved me.'

Hestia rolled her eyes at him. ‘Before you bound her power. The things you boys do…Here.' She grabbed Finn's hands and pressed them against Leander's wound. ‘Keep the pressure on. He's lost so much blood already. He can't afford any more.'

Leander squirmed beneath him, delirious with pain now, as Finn pressed down. His blood was hot and sticky on Finn's hands but he didn't hesitate as Hestia drew herself to her feet and turned to Wren.

Shadow magic still flowed around Wren, her hair waving gently in the air as if underwater, and her eyes were endlessly dark, as if filled with the Nox already. The bracelet was still holding it in check, thank the light, holding her in check, but Finn could see the strain in her face, the pain he had caused her. Was still causing. Just by locking her magic away with that damned piece of metal.

Leander's blood had called it forth but Finn was the one who had locked it inside her. It was still devouring her but now it had nowhere else to go.

But what else could he have done? It was that or give up his free will. And he was not about to do that.

Even for her.

But it hurt more than he could say. He knew what she had tried to do and she almost succeeded. She had tried to control him, to make him her slave, no more than a puppet to her will. Wren, of all people. He would never have believed it of her. And yet, he'd looked into her eyes and seen her intention.

Or seen the intention of the sentience that lurked behind her mind.

It was here now as well. He could feel that. Drawing closer from the beyond, ready to tear through the veil and claim her, but without her magic she couldn't help it.

The bracelet, right now, was the only thing still keeping Wren herself. And the only thing keeping him a free man.

‘Finn…' Leander hissed, and Finn's attention snapped back to his half-brother, dying on the floor of the antechamber, his blood turning the exquisite carpet scarlet. ‘Finn, listen to me.'

He reached up, his hand closing on the glass pendant.

‘What?' Finn asked, leaning closer, but Leander winced, his teeth bared. And the words that came out weren't intelligible, a series of whispers and sighs, like the othertongue Wren and Elodie sometimes used, but not even that. It slurred together and then, finally, he slumped back down. His hand was the last thing to fall, sliding away from the pendant and leaving it smeared with his blood.

‘Hestia,' Finn gasped. ‘Wren… he's… help him.'

Even though it was Leander, even after everything, he couldn't just stand by and let him die.

Hestia opened her mouth to speak but Wren lifted one hand, like an empress, and to Finn's horror, his cousin's voice stilled in her throat. She dropped to her knees, her face lifting with an expression of abject adoration.

Finn felt it wash over him, right there in this small antechamber, the sheer power Wren embodied. He had always known it but now…now she wasn't even trying to hold back anymore. She always had, he realised. Out of love, out of care, out of all Elodie's teachings. But it didn't matter to her now.

Had Leander done this with his dying breath?

Wren dropped her chin a little and looked up at him through the fall of her long black hair.

‘ I can save him, ' she murmured, her voice softening. And it wasn't Wren anymore. Not really. ‘ But I have a price. '

She was beautiful. She had always been beautiful. And so very dangerous. Right from the start she had enchanted him, her magic coming close to enslaving him from the very first time they met. She was everything to him, and part of him – that deep, dark and secret part of him – wanted nothing more than to be hers, to obey her every command, to do anything for her. Anything at all. Even to die, if she wished it. He would suffer tortures for her sake. Gladly.

He felt that familiar sense of submission sweeping through him.

But not the beckoning call of the Nox, promising him his every desire. This was a demand.

She knelt beside him and her hands trailed over Leander's still form. The bracelet still constrained her shadowy magic but this was something else.

Something impossible.

Light flared beneath her touch. Wren could work both powers, Finn had realised that. He didn't know how, and there was no sign of pain when she did it now.

And he wasn't even sure that this was Wren, not anymore.

But it wasn't the Nox either. He wasn't sure what he was looking at.

Leander gave a low groan and his breath rattled. But he kept breathing. Barely. Wren turned her face to look at Finn, studying him with other eyes.

‘Your price?' he asked. ‘My obedience.'

The smile that played over her lips was a stranger to him as well. ‘ You are always mine, my prince. '

Wren rose, and now he saw the light in her as well as the dark. Balance…Hestia was on her knees but Finn got to his feet. The bracelet was meant to contain the dark magic of the Nox, but now she channelled something else. Wren could access the magic of the Aurum as well. Normally it hurt her, burned her from within. Something had changed, something fundamental. As if…as if the Nox was infecting the light as well, the way it had stained the flames of the Aurum…It was cunning and ancient and it knew magic better than any of them. And now, the two powers twisted together, and filled Wren.

Wren's hands spread wide and the wind whipped around her. Long dark tendrils of her hair snaked around his arms and legs, teased at the bare skin of his face and neck. He might drown in her if he let himself.

And all it would take was a moment.

Even now.

Light save him, he wanted to.

Finn framed her face with his shaking hands and she leaned into him like a cat, a slow smile spreading over her sensuous mouth. But this wasn't Wren. He knew it wasn't her.

And at the same time it was.

She still wore the bracelet. If he released her the Nox would finally be complete. He would serve her without a will of his own, and all doubt and fear would be swept away. He would be whole, and have a purpose, and she would love him.

She did love him…

It would be so easy to let go, to do as she said.

Not Wren. This was not Wren.

The Nox…and the Aurum…both of them tangled together perhaps. He didn't know. He didn't know what she was anymore or what he was talking to. He couldn't begin to understand the magic she could embody. But he had to reach Wren, just Wren. Nothing else mattered.

‘Listen to me,' he whispered and lowered his mouth towards hers. Wren had to know how he felt. That he would do anything for her. She had to know. He brushed his lips against hers and pulled back, searching her eyes for a sign she was still there. Anything. ‘I can get away, get you to safety. We can find a way to help Elodie and the others. Someone did this, attacked us, sent Carlotta.'

‘ Carlotta? ' The voice faltered. For a moment it sounded like her again, like Wren. One brief spark of hope flared up in the darkness. ‘Someone used her, Finn. Enchanted her. Forced her…' She glanced at Leander. Then at Hestia and seemed to shake herself awake. ‘Elodie is trapped and the Aurum with her. But it's trying to reach out to me as well, to use me instead. It forgot the truth of what we are, and what Elodie is. She's mortal. She's dying. And if that happens it will come to me. It wants me…'

How could she know that? He dreaded asking, dreaded hearing what the answer was. Wren knew too much. And if Elodie was mortal so was Wren. Wasn't she?

‘How do we release her?'

‘ There is no release, ' the voice that was not Wren's voice whispered again, cold and implacable. Light filled her, flaring like fireworks in her eyes, light flowing beneath her skin, tangling with the shadows, tracing lines in her flesh. Wren's eyes widened and she struggled back to herself, the shock of it breaking the spell surging through her. A battle, he realised, and her body was the battleground. ‘What's happening? Help me. What…what am I, Finn?'

Light forgive him, all he could do was love her, serve her. He pulled her against him and kissed her fully, losing himself in her, wanting her and wanting the magic that spilled out of her. She might not be able to control it, but it was still there. And she was an addiction. His downfall.

So be it.

‘You are my queen,' he whispered. ‘My goddess, my everything. But we need to escape this place before the Aurum overwhelms you too. Between them they'll tear you apart, love. Come with me and I will protect you.'

He had to get her out of Asteroth by any means necessary. Away from the reach of the Aurum and whatever was happening to her. The bracelet would hold the Nox at bay, but it wouldn't work on the light that was filling her. This was all he could think of.

Because that was the choice he was making now, between his Wren and the vows he had made to serve the Aurum. That was what was being demanded of him.

And he hated himself for the decision he made.

Wren shivered in his embrace, but when her eyes met his, he saw only her trust, her love. ‘Yes,' she whispered.

‘Finn?' Hestia interrupted, wary now, right on the edge of realising what he was about to do. Another person who would hate him from this moment on. He was betraying her as well, wasn't he? ‘Finn, what are you doing?'

What he had to do. That was the problem. And it would involve abandoning her, leaving her here with Leander, maybe even leaving her to die. ‘I'm sorry, Hestia,' he said, his voice bleak as the winds of winter. ‘I have to.'

All you have to do , Hestia had told him, is break this, and it will bring you home.

Finn broke the pendant around his neck and released the spell Hestia had woven through it. Leander's blood boiled on its surface and something sharp stabbed into his hand. Shadow kin coiled out. Stronger than any he had ever known, more powerful. He felt them burrowing through him, deep inside him.

And from that place deep inside him, from his blood and his bone, something responded. Something dark and endless, which had just been biding its time.