Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

WREN

The fury of the storm raging outside couldn't smother the sound of the woman's suffering inside the simple cottage on the edge of the village. Her sobs and cries sent Elodie running up the stairs, her instincts as a healer always taking control in moments like this.

Wren followed in her wake with all the bags slung around her, like she was a pack animal rather than an apprentice. The stairs were steep and narrow, cutting right through the heart of the home, but that didn't matter to Elodie. It didn't even slow her down. The healer was a force of nature. Wren had known that all her life. It was unavoidable. Nothing got in her way, especially when someone was in need of help.

Lindie's cries of pain ratcheted up a notch and Elodie vanished behind the door to the bedroom. Wren was about to follow when Pol appeared. He'd been lurking at the other end of the landing and looked as if he was about to throw up or pass out. Wren's stomach dropped at the sight of him.

She'd loved him once, or had fancied she did. Dreamed of a life with him, rather than one banished to the forest with Elodie. Handsome, funny, skilful Pol, who was a better hunter than anyone in the village. Who had chosen Lindie.

He looked haggard now. ‘Can you—can you help her?'

The words felt like knives. Other words, words spoken in anger and fear not so long ago, rang around her head instead.

You're a freak. A monster. I don't even know what you are.

Wren shied back but he reached out and grabbed her arm in his fist. Her breath caught in her throat.

‘I'm needed,' she whispered, her voice strangled. Afraid.

She'd never imagined she'd be afraid of Pol, back when the summer breeze had touched her skin alongside his hands, when they'd laughed and never had a care in the world.

But she wasn't the only one scared now.

‘Please,' he said urgently. ‘You have to help her. Please, Wren, anything. I'll do anything.'

He meant it too. Pol had never loved Wren. Not really. She'd been an idiot to think he did, that he might. That it was even possible.

But he adored Lindie.

Everyone did. She was beautiful, gentle, the perfect girl. A woman now. She was no more a girl than Wren was anymore. She was Pol's wife.

Wren still recalled the smile Lindie wore on her wedding day, when they had all stood in the village square to celebrate them. Elodie had turned away with a snort of disgust. But Lindie had caught Wren's eye just before she left with the healer, and she'd smiled that smile. That nasty, triumphant, petty smile.

‘Wren,' Pol hissed and his hand tightened to a circle of iron, squeezing into her skin. ‘Wren, you have to?—'

Her whole body stiffened in disgust.

She didn't have to do anything. Lindie could die screaming for all she cared. Lindie could?—

Wren caught the thought and pushed it down, turned it aside. No, that wasn't right. No one deserved death, especially not for having the misfortune to marry an idiot like Pol. Childbirth was unforgiving and the complications Elodie suspected here were dangerous indeed. And unnatural.

‘Let go of me Pol. And get out of my way.'

But he didn't. ‘I know what you can do. Please, whatever it takes. We only wanted a son, and we thought the darkwood… but this… Not like this. Help her. Whatever the price, I'll pay it. Just do it.'

His touch was bruising and Wren felt the brush of the shadows coiling around her, stirring her hair against her shoulders. He had no idea what she could do. Not really. But what little he did know had been enough to make him cast her aside and choose Lindie instead.

‘Wren!' Elodie shouted from inside and Lindie cried out again, the sound torn from her throat. Pol started, and then seemed to realise he was still holding Wren. He pulled back as if scalded. They stared at one another and Wren wondered if that was guilt she saw in his eyes. Elodie's voice sounded again. ‘Where are those candles?'

Wren pushed by Pol like he was made of air and closed the door of the bedroom firmly behind her.

The scene inside was bad.

Lindie was red-faced and drenched in sweat. Her mother knelt beside her, muttering prayer after prayer to the Aurum, much good that would do her. Elodie was already moving with her usual ruthless efficiency, closing the shutters against the night and scattering the protective herbs all along the boundaries.

‘Candles,' she snarled again, the harsh voice completely at odds with the beauty of her figure and face. This was even more serious than the message had let on. Something terrible was happening here. Not just the perils of childbirth. Something else. Wren could feel it crawling up the edges of her consciousness, like the shadows she'd already had to push aside.

Wren shook her head and dumped the bags on the ground at the foot of the bed. No time for hesitation now. The shadows still pressed so close. She could feel their power like a shroud and the meagre candles the family had lit burned low, their flames guttering. She'd brought a stack of fresh ones, ones that she and Elodie had made only yesterday, as if they had known what would be needed. Perhaps Elodie had. Wren moved as quickly as she could, jamming them into holders and placing them around the room in a circle, then a second one, inside that, surrounding the bed.

‘I'm sorry,' Lindie wept as the contractions subsided. ‘I'm sorry. I only wanted… I only wanted?—'

Whatever she had wanted was lost in the next wave of agony that ripped through her.

We only wanted a son. That was what Pol had said. What had they done to ensure that? Where had they gone? He had mentioned the darkwood. Oh this was bad.

Wren knew that people from the village sometimes went into the darkwood for bargains. Some boons were greater than others. Some came to nothing. Elodie had warned them not to almost as often as she had warned Wren not to stray there. At least Wren had the sense not to ask anything of those places of power. Bargains made there were always double-edged. But they didn't really connect the darkwood with the Nox itself. The Nox was gone and the darkwood had been there forever and… well, it was only a superstition, wasn't it?

I'll pay it, Pol had said. Wren shuddered. What had they done?

Lindie screamed, this time full-throated and desperate, and Elodie pressed a pale cold hand to her brow, muttering words in the othertongue the villagers couldn't hope to understand. Wren could barely follow the secret language of magic herself. Light blossomed there, a faint glow that slowly permeated the woman's body, illuminating the room in an eerie flickering gold.

The candles were ready. Wren took out a taper, ready to light them, but before she could something rattled the window, like a hand reaching out and trying to get in.

The night seemed to still, falling silent all around them. Not just quiet – something deep and endless, a complete absence of sound. Even Wren's own breath sounded too loud in her ears. Darkness swelled up outside, beyond the shutters, beyond the house. It came from the forest. It came from the land itself, and it was waiting. Wren was aware of Lindie still sobbing and crying, of her mother still praying, the same useless prayers over and over, but it was too late. The darkness had come to claim what it was owed.

‘I only wanted to give him a son!' Lindie shrieked, the words twisting with her torment.

Wren reached for the shutters, to secure them again, and the wind tore them from her hand, flinging them open. Shadows flooded the room, coiling around the people within, climbing the walls, hanging over them like a vast tower of night about to drop on them and tear them limb from limb.

‘Now Wren,' Elodie commanded.

But Wren's hand shook. The darkness was singing. She could clearly make out a voice. It was soft and enticing, like a memory of long ago, a lullaby. She didn't know the words, couldn't make them out, but the tune was?—

She leaned into it, trying to listen closer, trying to hear.

The song of the Nox was an echo, murmured by the shadows. It sang to Wren, a special song, just for her. It was hungry. It wanted so much. More than anyone could ever give. More than she had in her. But the Nox was gone, defeated and scattered. Everyone knew that. Only fragments of it remained. And yet it stirred something, something she'd pressed down and hidden away for so long that she?—

‘ Wren !' The alarm in Elodie's voice speared through her and Wren jerked back. Her hand was on the window itself, ready to throw it open, reaching for the mass of deeper darkness pressing against it on the other side. Her hair was wild around her face, almost blinding her. And the candle still in her hand was coated in frost.

‘Now!' Elodie said, her teeth gritted. Was she holding it back all by herself? She was shielding all of them. But Elodie only had so much strength.

You have no place here , the voice whispered, the one that sang the lullaby, the one that whispered in the night. Come away with me. Let me in.

But Wren had heard its lies too many times. Elodie had warned her, time and again, and Elodie was always right. Always. She slammed the door of her mind against it and pushed the darkness back, driving it from the house, from the village, back into the deep woods. It took her breath with it, her heart thundering against her ribs.

Then there was nothing.