Chapter 25

CHAPTER 25

WREN

Leander's body pressed hard against hers and the knife was a burning line against her skin. The trickle of blood crept lower and she trembled, hating herself.

Whatever Wren had done to Finn transformed him into a wild thing triggered by her scream, killing and maiming with an unholy speed, his eyes burning with blue fire, leaving her sick and shaking. She didn't know what she'd done or how, only that it must have come from her.

Just like the light that had healed him last night. Maybe part of that. She had changed him. Made him hers.

What kind of beast had she made of him?

The guards finally secured him and dragged him outside. Leander shoved her forward with his whole body, still holding the knife at her throat. His other arm encircled her chest, pinning her arms to her side as they stepped out into the encampment.

‘Don't get any ideas,' he told her, in a voice that wasn't as firm as he tried to make it sound. She could smell his fear and, despite her predicament, it sent a thrill of vengeance through her.

His charm was gone now, that thin veneer of civility. It had all been an act. She'd been a fool to be taken in but there was nothing she could do about that now.

‘What are you going to do?'

‘I'm going to kill him. Like I should have done the moment I saw his sorry face. I thought to help you, show you the truth, to teach you. But it's going to have to be a different lesson, isn't it?'

She wanted to threaten him, to find some way out, but there was nothing. He knew Finn was her weakness now.

‘I'll do what you want. Please, just… just leave him alone. I'll make him behave. I'll find a way.' She didn't know how she'd do that, but she had to try. She couldn't let him kill Finn.

‘Too late, princess. There's nothing left of him there to control. Don't you see that?'

Manacles snapped closed around Finn's wrists and suddenly the strength seemed to go out of him. The metal glowed with an unearthly nimbus, as if she'd been staring into the sun and looked away, a sort of half-light glow. It was black and blue, and it burned. Finn bit back a scream, but the pain on his face was self-evident.

‘That'll hold him long enough,' Leander said and released Wren. She staggered forward and fell to her knees in the dirt, staring at Finn, unable to tear her gaze away.

‘Never seen that before, have you? Shadow-wrought, blessed by the Nox herself ages past. It negates the power you put in him. Now do as you're told or I'll put them on you as well. I'm told it's like ice, so cold it burns. Leave it on too long and it'll kill you. But you'd lose your mind first. Probably best you don't find out just yet.' Leander stalked towards Finn. Though never getting too near, she noticed.

Finn snarled at him, his body shaking with agony, his eyes narrowed to slits.

‘Give me a sword. I want to do this myself.' The weapon handed to Leander was huge, the type of thing to be wielded with both hands. He lifted it with ease, swirling it before him without any apparent effort. His confidence oozed back through him and he grinned at her. ‘I'll deal with this and then I'll be back to you. Don't go anywhere, little one. We're just getting started with your lessons.'

This couldn't be happening.

She fixed her gaze on Finn's face, his features taut with agony, his blazing eyes blind with it. He bared his teeth at the crown prince of Ilanthus. He knew what was happening. He knew he was going to die and there was nothing he could do. Somewhere within the feral creature she had made of him, he was still there. And he knew. His gaze latched back on to hers.

The force of the look struck her like a physical blow. Need, desperation, hunger, everything all wrapped up in one. It was as if a wild animal gazed at her from his eyes, but one who would do anything for her, who needed her more than he needed life itself.

Leander raised the sword. It glinted in the light of the setting sun, casting a long black shadow on the ground between them.

Wren's breath caught in her throat.

The shadow was stretching out towards her, darkening, and somewhere she heard the singing that haunted her nightmares. And the whispering dare that came with it.

You could destroy him if you wanted to. There are different words of othertongue. Words that can do more than you could ever imagine.

She could almost hear them, in the song behind the voice. Words that would solve everything, that would make her strong.

All you have to do is reach out. Claim them.

So she did.

Wren reached effortlessly through the veil of power that had seemed so solid. Through it and then beyond it… into a pure endless void where a thing made entirely of darkness waited.

She felt it gather itself together, turning its eyes on her. But it was cracked, like shattered glass, so many tiny fragments missing from its wholeness. And a single vital gap right in its heart, if heart was a word that could be used about something so hollow and empty. It was like a puzzle missing half its pieces but still trying to hold itself together.

She stared into the endless night, at the collapsed stars swirling through its eyes.

There was no light there and never would be. It hungered but was eternally empty.

And it looked back at her, standing there, helpless and so very small. Lost in its gaze, something touched her, probing. And then drove itself through her body and soul. It felt like lightning spearing through her to the ground, the earth itself making her a conduit.

When she opened her eyes again, it was like looking through the same fragmented glass. The encampment around her came alive with swirling lines of power. Wren tilted her head to one side, studying the way they moved. Light and dark ran like rivers through the ground, spiralling to a vortex around the two brothers.

Leander pulsed with the channels of shadow, standing over Finnian, the golden light threaded through from his blood. The shadow-wrought chains binding him suppressed it, but it still writhed beneath his skin, desperate to get out. To join the blazing flow surrounding him.

As she watched, hypnotised, the sun was setting, the night drawing in. The shadows, so many shadows, responded by stretching out around her. The balance between the powers was shifting. Light was not the answer. Not here and now.

Wren drew on those shadows now. And they answered as they never had before, racing across the ground towards her.

‘What are you doing?' Leander growled at her. ‘Stop it or I kill him.'

‘You're going to kill him anyway,' she said, and the voice hardly sounded like her own. Calm, distant, determined. In such contrast to his, filled with the passion of his hatred and insatiable need for vengeance. Not even for anything in particular. Finn's existence alone was the insult.

Her eyes locked on Finn's, and he gazed up at her in fierce adoration. Trusting, faithful, ready to do anything for her. Even die, if she asked it. It was a different kind of power, his trust in her, her responsibility for him, one she had never expected and the strength of it shook her to the core.

More shadows raced towards her and she welcomed them, felt them inside her, crawling under her skin. Where she had always turned them away before she called them to her now, and oh, it felt good. The air shimmered, and the other Ilanthian guards edged backwards, fear making their loyalty to their crown prince waver.

And Leander knew it.

‘You can't channel the Aurum, Wren. It will burn right through you.'

Wren laughed, a bright sound in all the darkness rushing in around her. He thought she was touching the Aurum? She may not know exactly what she was doing, but it was not light she was gathering to herself.

Light might be flooding into the places from which she pulled the shadows, but the darkness that filled her had nothing to do with the Aurum. There was only one thing it could be and she didn't dare to name it.

At the sound of her sudden amusement, Leander went even more pale and she saw the hands holding the sword tighten. Fear, she could smell it on him. She let a slow smile spread over her mouth, let him see it, and darker laughter rippled through the back of her mind.

The voice from far away seemed to sing to her. The one that had sung to her as a child. The one Elodie had always driven away.

Show him . Show him how wrong he is. They have grown arrogant these kings, without my hand at their throat. Make him bow and beg.

And she could. She knew she could. She could reduce Prince Leander of Ilanthus to a quivering wreck if she wanted to. She could turn him from a prince to a slave with a thought.

She only had to look at his brother. She thought she had burned all the poison of the shadow kin out of him. Maybe she had. But seeing how the powers flowed together with her new sight, how each filled in the space when the other was drawn… had she left something else behind? Something bright and terrible. Then, when she had been in danger, could he have pulled on that power to protect her? Just as she did now for him.

And, from the deepest darkness, something else was reaching out to fill her. She didn't even know herself. Perhaps she wasn't herself. But, delirious with power and righteous vengeance, she welcomed it.

‘Take her!' Leander yelled at his troops, who stood as if spellbound around her, staring. His voice was a howl of panic. ‘Take her down now!'

They couldn't. They wouldn't. She would kill them all if they tried. More and more shadows filled her and she wound them together, ready to lash out in a wave of nightmare and darkness.

‘Wren,' another voice said, soft and tired. So very tired. ‘Wren, don't. This isn't you.'

Finn? But how was it Finn? She'd turned him into a monster. She hadn't thought there was anything of Finn left in there.

‘Wren, please…'

She stared at him, still on his knees, still staring at her, still at Leander's mercy.

No, that was not acceptable. He was a beacon in the shadows she wrought, bright and beautiful, blazing with light now, and she would not allow anyone to snuff it out.

‘Finn?' she whispered, her voice surprisingly frail for the amount of power she could feel racing through her veins. She couldn't control it. It was slipping through her fingers even now, taking more of her than she wanted to give. It was flooding her. Drowning her. ‘Finn, there's so much… I don't know what to… I can't…'

Leander chose that moment to strike, but Wren got there first, throwing herself forward, between the two of them. It shouldn't have been possible. She shouldn't have been able to move that fast, but the shadows twisted and the world blurred and suddenly she was there.

The sword plunged through her as if she was made of smoke herself, as if there was nothing there for it to strike. She flung her arms out and Leander flew back. The ground trembled and a roaring in her mind made her shake with it. All she knew was rage, unbridled and terrible. The shadows filled her now, every shadow in the place, every scrap of darkness, except perhaps for that within Leander's heart.

Wren! Stop!

The voice shook through her, rattled through her mind and sent her to her knees. Elodie. It was Elodie. There was no one else it could be. She would know that if she no longer knew anything else.

You don't understand, she wanted to say. I have to. I need to.

No, my love. This isn't you, little bird. Please, stop. Don't give in to the shadows. Let go of it, Wren. Just let go. Help is coming.

Overhead the sky burst with waves of light.