Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

WREN

Everything Wren had learned about magic came from Elodie, knowledge which in turn came from Asteroth and the Maidens of the Aurum. Oh, she was aware of the Sisterhood of the Nox in Ilanthus, witches bound and subjugated to the service of the dark goddess Elodie had defeated and scattered, precipitating the war. There were other witches too of course. Hedge witches, for one, those usually of little power who lived in the most remote areas, alone and prey to Ilanthian witch-hunters or whoever else felt the urge to persecute them. Usually they had a kind of symbiotic relationship with a local community and sought their protection in return for healing and herbs. Some of them could still touch the ragged remains of old magic and work charms. She and Elodie had lived as such on the outskirts of Thirbridge for all of Wren's life up to the point when she had met Finn and everything had fallen apart.

There were also the rebel witchkind of Garios, those who lived by the rallying cry: ‘We are witchkind. We will live free or we die.' Wren knew less of them as they resisted any kind of allegiance but their own. They were wild and untameable, legendary, the stuff of tall tales and campfire stories.

To fall afoul of them was to suffer untold horrors. Everyone said so. They were never specific about what that entailed and Wren had always wondered. She'd never got an answer.

The College of Winter, on the other hand, seemed little more than a staid place of learning, occupying a common ground between the light and the dark. It welcomed anyone who wished to study, men and women of any lineage, but people seldom left the same, if they left at all.

The Maidens of the Aurum had taught Elodie everything she knew, had taught her forebears too. There wasn't a word of othertongue they had not trained her in, not a theory of magic or a practical charm that she had not rehearsed a thousand times. And Elodie had taught all that to Wren.

Or at least she had tried to. Wren's magic didn't work the same way. Quite the opposite in fact. Thus far, Wren had tried to keep herself as far away from the maidens as she could. She didn't know what witches of such power would be able to discern in her. Only Sister Maryn had come close to her, at that meeting in the garden. And that had been awkward enough.

But the maidens had the keeping of Elodie until the trial and if Wren wanted to see her, there was no option. She had to try.

Wren approached the maidens' doorway now, through the outer courtyard, where absolutely everyone could see her. Lords and ladies, gentlefolk and commoners, servants and stableboys, knights and squires, she didn't care. She had done it every day, and every day she had made the humiliating return journey as well.

At least she now knew she wasn't the only one. Roland was doing the same thing. Day after day.

Carlotta trailed after her, because the light forbid she should go anywhere on her own. Lynette had decreed it. Once Wren would have said that Elodie kept too firm a hand on her life. She was nothing compared to Lynette.

She couldn't doubt it was well-meant. At least there was that. But if she had to sit through one more interminable explanation of court dynamics, or dress fittings, or etiquette lessons…well, Wren couldn't be responsible for what she might do.

The gown she wore at the moment was thankfully one of the simpler ones – a day-gown, Lynette had informed her in a tone that put it one step above a sack. Carlotta had been attending her this morning, thank the light, because the rest of the maids were as opinionated as their mistresses, her ladies-in-waiting. Wren couldn't stand it. She had already realised that most of them were insulted that they had not been put in charge and the in-fighting was getting out of control. In all honesty, she already feared one of them would do another an injury. At least Lynette listened to her. Sometimes.

‘You might need a bodyguard,' she had told Lynette last night as they sat in the banqueting hall with the court spread out around them. Roland was somewhere else, making himself busy, she guessed. Finn was nowhere to be seen and Wren tried unsuccessfully to push him from her mind. ‘Someone is going to push you down the stairs to climb the social ladder.'

Lynette had just laughed. ‘They could try, my dear.'

As Wren marched across the courtyard she caught sight of a group of the younger knights filing out of the Grandmaster's hall. There was another problem she still had to deal with. Her father. His plans for her. Finn wasn't among them – she knew too well – but they all stared at her, their eyes following her like hunters.

She felt her skin flush, warming all over, and put her head down, marching onwards in as defiantly an unladylike way as she could manage.

‘My lady,' Carlotta called after her, hurrying to keep up. ‘Do you really want to do this again? They won't let us in. They've made that clear. And it isn't safe.'

It didn't matter. She was going to do this every single day until they let her see Elodie. Her last moment with the woman who had raised her was not going to be seeing her marched off like a prisoner. Nor was the next one going to be seeing her stand trial. It was ridiculous anyway.

But then again, a treacherous voice inside her whispered, Elodie had a lot of questions to answer. Why had she fled Pelias after the Nox was defeated? Why had she run away? And why had she not told anyone about Wren?

It was obvious that Roland was Wren's father. Neither of them would be able to stand in front of each other and deny the resemblance. But still Elodie had refused to confirm anything.

Not that it mattered. Wren was still her daughter. And therefore her heir. Paternity of the queen of Asteroth meant next to nothing. Too many Aurum-sworn knights had heard her in the stone circle claiming Wren as her own. Her daughter.

The door to the Sanctum of the Maidens of the Aurum was always closed. It was their retreat, a holy place in and of itself, where they could dedicate themselves to its service, to the practice of their magic and prayer, to devotional rituals that the world was not allowed to see. The palace took up one side of the citadel, and the Sanctum the other. In between them, the dividing line was the Aurum itself, and the Sacrum that surrounded it. Sacrum and Sanctum, people here would sometimes say, to invoke protection. No one outside the citadel could pass uninvited into either. And for the Sanctum, that included those who came from the palace.

The wards were strongest here, Wren thought, riddled throughout the palace, cunningly designed magical spells woven of light which protected the people who served and worshipped the Aurum. She could feel them in the stones beneath her feet and in the walls pressing close. If she closed her eyes she could feel them aglow with otherlight. And even now, years after the defeat of the Nox, the wards were still kept strong and whole.

The Sanctum was a place of refuge, of meditation and study. It was a place of women. And magic.

The door was heavy oak, studded with iron, with a grille that could be pulled back to see outside if needed. As she approached, the shadows around her stirred, the sense of threat rising. There was magic woven through the fabric of the door too, and the walls on either side and her own magic responded to it. More wards. Shadow kin couldn't pass through them. And the shadows that clung to Wren were weaker for it, no threat. Not here. She tried to breathe easy. It ought to be a good thing.

Wren pushed the dark magic which nested inside her down with a ruthlessness she would never have believed she possessed only a short few weeks ago. And it obeyed. Another surprise that no longer surprised her.

She was getting stronger, or the dark magic was becoming more compliant to her wishes, more malleable. That was not the comfort she would have hoped for.

Part of her, a part that still believed she belonged somewhere else far away, running wild in the forest of Cellandre, wanted to hammer her fist on the door until she got someone's attention but there was a rather delicate bell hanging beside it and so, deciding to play along this time, she rang it and waited.

‘ You catch more flies with honey than vinegar ,' Elodie would always say.

‘ Why do you want to catch flies? ' Wren had replied and Elodie had laughed.

Great light, she missed that sound. It hadn't been that common an occurrence. But it had been sweet.

The grille in the door slid back and a sour-faced woman peered out at her.

Speaking of vinegar, Wren thought, and kept that thought very carefully unsaid.

‘No,' said the maiden and slammed the grille shut again. The same way she had every other day Wren had tried this, leaving her to turn around and traipse back to the palace, in full view of everyone.

But not today. She was not putting up with this any longer. She rang the bell again, more insistently this time.

For a moment she wondered if they would ignore her entirely, but the grille opened again.

‘Were you always this obstinate?' the maiden asked.

Wren tilted her head to one side and smiled as sweetly as she could muster. ‘Maybe you should ask Elodie.'

The maiden snorted out a huff of air. ‘No one by that name in here to ask.'

And she slammed the grille closed again.

‘Maybe we should go back,' said Carlotta softly, already trying to cajole her and persuade her.

Wren's temper got the better of her. She couldn't help it. She had been trying to be nice about it, and all she wanted to do was talk to Elodie. Even for a few minutes. She had begged, wept, asked politely, everything. The woman was impossible. Before she knew what she was doing, she lashed out, not with her body but with her mind. Shadows recoiled from the bell and light burst from it. Behind her Carlotta gave a shriek of alarm.

The bell didn't so much ring as explode, leaving a pool of molten metal on the dusty ground underneath it.