Chapter 49

CHAPTER 49

WREN

Nestled in Finn's strong arms, Wren felt the rush of dark magic around her. It was like the travelling spell Elodie had cast to take her out of Knightsford. If that spell had been turned inside out. This time, instead of a place full of light and flames that danced against their skin, a sickening aura of colours spiralling around them, there was a knot of shadow kin and a whirl of blue-black light. Blood surged in her veins and the Nox laughed as they passed through its realm. Dark tendrils of consciousness wound around her, tried to drag Wren away and drown her in the shadows.

Finn's arms tightened around her and she tore her gaze from the chaos around them to look up at him. He watched her hungrily with a curious otherness in his eyes.

Something was wrong. Terribly wrong. Not just this dark version of the travelling spell, not this traverse beyond the veil and into the maw of the Nox, something was wrong with him.

‘Finn?' she whispered and shook off the cloying tendrils of darkness creeping back through her brain.

‘Don't be scared,' he told her. His eyes glittered in the otherlight of the shadow kin's embrace. They were blue, so blue. Like jewels. Like flames. Like the eyes of the shadow kin all around them. ‘It's going to be all right now.'

Scared? Why would she be scared with him?

She was never scared with him.

‘Finn?' Something was wrong, a voice deep in the back of her mind whispered. Something was wrong with him.

Tears matted his lashes together and spilled down his cheek. He pressed his face into her hair and kissed her head, still holding her far too tightly. The bracelet on her arm burned, pressed between their bodies, hot and cold all at once.

She felt the Nox squirm with sudden concern. Something was terribly wrong. It tried to reach her again, dark tendrils which wound about her like her hair when it tried to hold him. But those shadowy strands couldn't quite find purchase, slipping from her, and the Nox's cry of rage echoed around her, shaking her to her bones. And Finn's grip just tightened further, digging into her flesh, bruising her.

Wren tore herself free of Finn just as the shadow kin unfurled around them and she fell. She couldn't stop herself, couldn't hold herself up. She was weak and wrung out, as if the spell had ripped every ounce of energy, light and dark, out of her. Her body was barely her own. Only the burning line of the bracelet on her arm gave her something to cling to, some indication that she was still real, still feeling things, still alive.

The flagstones she hit were black as night and polished to a mirror-like shine. She stared at her reflection, a strange wild girl with a fall of too-long hair the colour of raven wings around her pale and pinched face, her eyes so black they looked like holes in her head. She didn't look like herself. She barely looked human. Something fell from the pocket of the long Ilanthian dress she wore. The little bird Carlotta had given her.

It will remind you of what you are, Wren.

And it did. It reminded her of who she was, what she was…

She was Wren. Not the Nox, not the Aurum. She was more than a vessel for magic. The Nox wanted to wipe her away and take control of her physical form. And the Aurum…now she realised that the Aurum had tried to do the same thing.

She thought of Elodie, the Aurum burning through her, of the knights overwhelmed by the powers they served, used and cast aside. And when Elodie couldn't serve it any more, it had turned on Wren, sought her out and tried to use her instead.

And Wren…she had left them behind, Elodie and Roland, Anselm and Olivier, Hestia and Lynette…all of them. She had fled with Finn and…

Great light, they needed to go back to Pelias. Elodie needed her. The Aurum blazed inside Elodie and it would burn her away, destroy her. Perhaps it already had done so.

The sound of weapons being drawn surrounded them both and she heard Finn breathe in deeply, taking a moment to ground himself. She could almost hear his heart, like an echo of her own. It pounded in her chest, a frantic staccato beat.

But he didn't panic. That was her Finn through and through. Wren glanced up at him for reassurance and froze.

Something was wrong with him. Every instinct, light and dark, everything she was, screamed it at her.

A multitude of coloured light fell around him from the high stained-glass windows which soared up the walls of the cavernous chamber in which they found themselves. Blues and purples, every shade from the palest to the depths. They illuminated him and Finn held his head erect, his features utterly impassive. His eyes had changed. They were still blue, but the blue-flame of shadow kin eyes she had seen during the spell which brought them here. They hadn't changed back but kept that unnatural brightness. He looked like a statue, a pale carving sculpted by a master's hand, not like a living breathing man, but cold and inaccessible. He still wore an Ilanthian tunic and sash from the embassy, as did the men surrounding them, though his were of a far finer quality. All men, she noticed. All dressed as he was, all stone-faced and hostile. They bristled with swords and spears, a wall of weaponry which turned on the two of them.

And then Finn spoke.

‘I am Finnian, son of Alessander, of the line of Sidon. I am the lost prince of Ilanthus, hostage to the enemy Asteroth. I am the one chosen who was forsaken, the one foreseen to wear the crown. I am called home. I demand an audience with his majesty.'

There was a hushed intake of breath as everyone absorbed that statement.

Not Finnian Ward, Wren thought. Of course he wasn't Finnian Ward, not here. And certainly not Finn. Not her Finn. She had trusted him, a member of the line of Sidon. Even though he had warned her…

‘Let them pass,' said a cold voice, hardly more than a murmur, but it echoed around the room as if the acoustics of the room itself had been designed to carry it. A voice used to power and obedience, she realised. A voice that did not suffer fools or disobedience in any way.

The guards snapped back to attention, weapons still bare but pointing to the far off gilded ceiling now instead of at the new arrivals. As if two people arriving in a whirlwind of shadows was nothing more than an unexpected turn of events here.

Before Wren could get to her feet, Finn seized her arm and dragged her up, propelling her across the black marble floor. No hint of gentleness now. No sign of who he had been.

There were people everywhere, staring at her, all dressed in the rich silks and satins of Ilanthus, that now familiar sweep of a sash across their bodies. The women kept their heads bowed but Wren could feel them examining her. The glow of power off some of them was muted, but unmistakable. The air reeked with their magic, though none of them wielded it openly.

It was the royal court, she realised. They had arrived right in the heart of the royal court of Sidonia at some kind of vast assembly.

And Finn walked through it, ignoring all the eyes upon him. They let him. No one tried to stop him. He walked to the steps beneath the raised throne and then stopped.

Wren couldn't help herself. He still held her wrist in a grip like iron, pressing the bracelet into her skin where it sizzled and burned.

‘Well? Back again, Finnian?' the king asked and Wren forced herself to look up at him.

He had more of a resemblance to Leander than Finn, cold and hard, pale as ice and made of sharp edges. No wonder Leander was the favoured son.

But Finn met his cool gaze without wavering. ‘Hestia told me of your offer, which I accept. I bring a prize with me.'

King Alessander turned his attention on Wren and she wanted to shrink back, to fall to the floor and let it swallow her up.

‘A prize?'

‘The living embodiment of our dark goddess, called forth by the blood of your brother Evander, Father. The Nox incarnate.' He jerked up her arm, displaying the bracelet. ‘Her power bound and contained. At our mercy instead of the other way around.' To hear him say it like that, to utterly betray her secrets and lay them bare before the whole of the Ilanthian court, was too much.

She tried to pull free but he didn't release her. He didn't even react. It was like he was another person now.

He is , the Nox whispered, that now familiar laugh cutting through the words. He is the prince of Ilanthus, heir apparent in his brother's stead. He is the new crown prince. He is your master and our slave. He is become what we made him, my little vestige, you and I.

Its amusement echoed around her head until she wanted to scream.

But she couldn't say a word.

‘Princess Wren of Asteroth,' said the king and smiled. ‘What a pleasure. As our son has served as a hostage in your capital for so many years, you may now return the gesture. Well done, my boy. We are well pleased. We have waited far too long to welcome you home openly.'

He held out his hand and Finn released Wren. It didn't matter now. There was nowhere she could go. She shrank back, cradling her arm and staring as he sank to one knee at the foot of the throne, taking the offered hand so he could bow his head and kiss the royal ring in a show of fealty.

‘Too many years, Father,' Finn said, no trace of emotion in his words. He rose elegantly to his feet, moving with the grace she knew to be an innate part of him but which now seemed alien and strange. ‘Too long lost among our enemy and waiting for the right moment.'

‘But it came at last, and you didn't fail me. Hestia did well. Go and refresh yourself. Tonight, all of Sidonia will feast in your honour.'

But Finn hesitated. He glanced briefly at Wren and she didn't know the man behind those eyes. ‘And the princess, your majesty?'

The king was gazing at her, his eyes hungry and cold at the same time. Wren could feel the Nox inside her almost as if it was singing along her veins, wild and mad and dangerous.

Alessander gave a brief laugh, as if he had judged her with that glance and found her more than wanting. ‘She is a treasure indeed and when she is trained, she will rain down vengeance on our enemies. But not yet, I think.' He leaned forward, peering closely at her. ‘No, just a frightened girl. The sisterhood will need to break her apart and open up the way properly.' He gestured to the nearest guards. ‘Take her away and secure her.'

Finn held up a hand. ‘She is my prize, Father. Mine to do with as I please.' When the old man inclined his head in agreement, Finn glanced at the guards who approached her warily. ‘She won't give you any trouble. She has nowhere to run to now.'

And he was right. She knew he was right.

‘Finn?' Wren tried again. ‘Finn, please.'

He turned back to her, one hand on her face, his other closing on her hip to pull her to him, and he kissed her. For a moment she thought that it was all a bad dream, that she'd wake up and he would be in her bed, that they would be somewhere else, somewhere safe. Then his kiss turned harsh and demanding, all control and force which left her breathless, helpless.

He released her just as ruthlessly. ‘Take her to my chambers and hold her there. I'll be with her shortly.' He fixed her with a terrifying look, one which froze her to the core and stole all fight from her. She didn't know this man. She had never known him. Her gentle lover, her Finn, had all been a lie. She saw that now. ‘Remember your place, little bird,' he said. ‘You were warned never to trust a member of my family. You didn't listen. And now it's too late.'

‘But I—' She didn't even know what she meant to say. This couldn't be happening. It couldn't be true. Her mind scrambling, she tried to call on the shadow kin but they didn't answer. Even if she hadn't been wearing shadow-wrought steel, she knew that they wouldn't.

The Nox had what it wanted now. It was back in Ilanthus, where it wanted to be. And she was helpless before it. In no time at all, with the help of its servants, it would overwhelm her defences, and make itself whole. Then Finn would take his place as its consort and Wren would be no more.

It had used her as surely as Finn had.