Chapter 36

CHAPTER 36

WREN

Finn's name died on her lips, as she watched him slip into unconsciousness.

He lay there, sprawled like a fallen tree. At least he was breathing. Not easily though. It came in fits and starts, laboured and then faint.

Wren turned her gaze on Elodie as if she no longer knew her.

Elodie advanced on her, knife in hand. She'd said she'd make it quick and all Wren could see was the exposed vein in Finn's neck, standing out as if protesting at all of this. He looked so vulnerable, helpless. She thought of Dancer, and Finn's mercy killing. Of the way he'd begged her to do the same when he thought the shadow kin would possess him. It was nothing of the kind.

Wren folded herself over him and pulled on all the darkness in the room, gathering it to her.

She'd use it, even if she wasn't sure how, even if she had to turn it against Elodie. She had done it before to protect him. And she would again. ‘I won't let you kill him.'

Elodie shuddered to a halt, tendrils of shadow wrapping around her like Wren's black hair. She gave a snarl of surprise and shook it off effortlessly. ‘So that's what you think of me now? Thank you very much, young lady. Is this what you've been up to? Gathering dark magic? Very nice. Wonderful what you've learned from your new friends.'

She moved faster than Wren could have anticipated, grabbing Wren's hair, wrapping it around her knuckles and dragging her forward onto her hands and knees. The knife flashed between them, so close to Wren's scalp that she felt it like wind, severing the lengths of her hair as if they were made of the smoke into which they dissolved moments later.

Wren cried out as the magic she'd been building around herself fell away to nothing. Released from Elodie's grip, she fell back to Finn, still trying to protect him. Even if all she had now was her own naked body.

Elodie took an ominous step towards her, but her voice was tinged with regret now and didn't sound quite so terrible.

‘I don't make a habit of murdering faithless knights, more's the pity. Or any great number of Ilanthian princes either, despite my reputation. Just the one and, honestly, he did that himself to spite me. Now get dressed, Wren. We have to go.'

Elodie hadn't been talking about Finn's life when she had said she'd make it quick, Wren realised with something akin to relief, but about her hair. Now it swung about her face, no further than the line of her jaw. And the magic it had let her control was gone.

She still didn't move. Not until she had answers. ‘What have you done to him?'

‘It's just a sleeping powder. He's fine. He'll wake up with a headache, that's all.'

The tightness in her chest eased a little. A sleeping powder. Nothing permanent.

‘We can't just leave him here like this.'

Elodie picked up some clothes from the cupboard without even looking at them and threw them at Wren. ‘I assure you, we can and that's exactly what we're going to do.'

‘But they'll find him here. They'll blame him.'

‘I rather think that's his problem, don't you? I won't tell you again, Wren. Get some clothes on and come with me. It's too dangerous to be here. We need to get back into the forest as quickly as possible. Where it's safe.'

Safe. That was a joke.

‘The forest is crawling with Ilanthians,' she told Elodie, but the hedge witch just gave another dismissive snort.

‘Correction. It was crawling with Ilanthians. Between the knights bumbling around and my own efforts there are significantly fewer of them. The forest and I have a longstanding arrangement. They run fast when startled. If they're lucky.'

That was sobering. What had Elodie done? Her magic was powerful, and the forest constantly bent to her will. Wren only knew half of what Elodie could do. If that.

And if Elodie was really the queen of Asteroth, perhaps Wren didn't know her at all…

‘And Leander?' Wren asked. Part of her dreaded hearing the answer, no matter what it was. He'd been… right up until he'd turned on her, he'd been… charming. She shook her head, trying to clear the muffled feeling that settled on her when she thought of him.

‘They really got their claws into you, didn't they? That family.' She turned such a look of pity on Wren that she shrank back in shame. ‘Great light, Wren, didn't you listen to anything I ever said? Ilanthians are witchhunters, all of them. Their princes are the worst of them. They will do anything to trap you, anything.' She cast a scathing glance at Finn. ‘Now, are you finished? Come on.'

Wren pulled on Finn's clothes. Right now she didn't have a lot of choice and it was going to be more practical than any of the gowns. Barefoot would have to do. She tightened the belt around her waist and looked up defiantly at Elodie.

‘Where are we going?'

‘I already told you. Back to the forest and then far away from here.'

‘But you told me to go to the Seven Sisters.'

Elodie paused in gathering her magic like strands of gossamer. She stared at Wren.

‘When?'

‘In the book.'

Elodie threw her head back in frustration. ‘What bloody book, Wren? I don't know what you're talking about.'

Wren grabbed it from the bedside table and thrust it at her. ‘Your diary. This book.'

Elodie froze, staring at it. Then she snatched it out of Wren's hand. ‘Where did you get this?'

Someone knocked on the door and a concerned voice sounded. ‘Princess? Are you quite well?'

Elodie let out a string of curses and, shoving the book into the pouch at her belt, grabbed Wren's wrist. Her grip was like iron and she hauled her to the window. The knocking became a banging, the careful inquiries shouts of alarm.

Moonlight shimmered, a spider web stretching out with Elodie at the centre.

‘Hold on to me,' said Elodie and wrapped her cloak around Wren, holding her tight. The words Elodie spoke were othertongue, but such a stream of them as Wren had never heard. They shook their way through her body, wrenching all the remaining power from her, dragging the shadows from the room around them, from the night itself and bending them to Elodie's will.

The door burst open, and Roland stormed in, followed by Yvain and several servants with lanterns. For a moment the Grandmaster just stared, dark eyes wide, locked on Elodie. Wren felt the other woman suck in a breath of alarm, and then she frowned. A dark, determined expression.

Just as Wren had inadvertently done in the forest when she called the darkness, Elodie now did the same in reverse, pushing back the night to suck light from every available source to power her spell. Light flared all around her, light so bright that Wren had to clamp her eyelids shut to avoid blindness, while the others shied back. The light of the Aurum blazed through them both, blinding and terrible. It scoured its way into Wren's skin, winnowed through her flesh, like lightning, ripping along her veins and driving the shadows away.

Someone screamed. Wren realised only later that it was probably her.

And then they were somewhere else.

Somewhere full of light and flames that danced against their skin, a sickening aura of colours spiralling around them, somewhere in between. Wren's stomach twisted in on itself and her gorge rose, ready to vomit. It hurt. Everything hurt. She tried to pull away, but Elodie just held on to her with an implacable grip.

As abruptly as it had appeared the light was gone and Wren dropped to the forest floor on her hands and knees, throwing up everything she had eaten earlier in the day.

Elodie sank down to sit behind her, watching her closely. It was excruciating, as if Wren was still a child to be watched at every turn. But all the same, the feeling of Elodie's hand on her back, right between her shoulder blades, was the only comfort she still knew. This was a touch that had cared for her all her life, nursed her through illness and comforted her since she was an infant.

When there was nothing left to bring up, Elodie handed her a small flask of one of her tinctures. Much as Wren wanted to tell her to go and burn herself alive right now, she grabbed the little vial and drank its contents, because no one made cures like Elodie did.

Elodie produced a pair of boots from the pack she carried and handed them to Wren, who couldn't exactly reject them. Not if Elodie meant her to walk, which she clearly did. Wren pulled them on and wrapped her arms around herself, feeling the black fabric brush against her, inhaling the scent of him. At least she had that.

‘Better?' Elodie asked after a long silence.

‘No,' Wren lied. She had a million questions. Not least, what had Elodie just done to her? How had they got this far away from the garrison?

Unfortunately Elodie had questions of her own, and she got there first.

‘What did you think you were doing with Finnian, Wren? Using him like that. It's… it's despicable. How could you?'

Wren didn't understand. ‘ Using him?'

‘He didn't stand a chance against your magic, did he? Right from the first moment he saw you, I suspect. I thought I taught you better than that.'

‘I didn't force him.' She would never do that. But that was what she had been worried about, wasn't it?

Wren knew magic was not a thing to be turned on people, never to be used to take away free will. She hadn't even been sure it was possible until Elodie said that. She hadn't known what she was doing, it was an accident if she had. But Elodie seemed to think Wren was capable of anything all of a sudden.

‘You wouldn't have had to. He's besotted. Anyone can see that. You used the Aurum to save him, didn't you? I felt it in the air and the earth. After that, he wouldn't have stood a chance against you. Your magic winds through him. You have to be better than that.'

Oh that was enough. Elodie had no right to talk like that. No right at all. Wren was living proof of that. ‘Like you were with Roland?'

Elodie surged to her feet, blood draining from her face. ‘You have no idea what you're talking about.'

But Wren had seen the look they exchanged in that instant before Elodie had worked her magic and whisked her away. She'd seen the love, and the agony, and the rage. No one felt that much if they didn't care. No one felt that much if everything had not gone horribly wrong somehow and there was too much guilt and blame to bear.

‘Don't I? It's the reason I'm standing here, isn't it?'

For once, words failed Elodie.

She stood there, mouth opening and closing while nothing came out. Then she turned away sharply. ‘No. You have no idea.'

‘He's my father.'

‘No he is not.' She bit out every single word.

‘Really?' Wren pulled the locket from her neck and hurled it at Elodie, who turned at the last possible second to snatch it from the air. Her hand closed over it and shook as she pulled it in against her chest as if it was the world's greatest treasure. ‘What's that then? He certainly thinks so. Don't lecture me, Elodie. Not anymore. Not when you left him thinking you… that both of us were dead. You're all he thinks about, even now. You were all he wanted to know about when he questioned me. Just you.'

To Wren's horror, Elodie's eyes glistened with sudden tears. ‘You spoke to him?' Her voice came out thin and stretched, as if it was a torture to ask.

‘Yes.'

‘How… how is he?'

She sounded like something had just knocked all the air from her lungs. And Wren saw it then, stark, written all over her face. Elodie still loved him. More than loved him. Adored him. And she'd walked away and broken him. Twice now.

‘What did you do? Tell me. What happened? How are you the lost queen?'

Slowly, Elodie wrapped her arms around her body and seemed to diminish, folding in on herself.

‘I'll tell you what I can. But we need to leave this place before they come after us. And they will come after us. Asterothian and Ilanthian alike. They want our magic, Wren. They want it more than anything. They want to enslave us both and use us. I will not let that happen. Not again. That's why I had to leave Pelias, and that's why we had to hide for so long. It's why we have to run now. As fast and as far as we can.'

‘Where?'

‘I can't leave the kingdom, but it's a big kingdom, Asteroth. The mountains perhaps. In the south. It's sunny there. You'll like it.'

Wren doubted that very much. She hated sunshine.

‘What about Finn?'

‘Finn will be fine. He's a Knight of the Aurum. Without you there, his life will right itself and he'll be back on the path intended for him. He'll be safe again. They might even accept him as a Paladin now after what you did to him. Who knows? They want a new one badly enough.'

‘And with me there?'

‘With you there…' Elodie let her head fall back and sighed to the stars overhead. ‘Wren, my love. I know his line, I know what's in his blood. I saw it all. If you're there, the darkness will take him. I can't explain how or why. I can just tell you that it will. Leave him to serve the Aurum. It's what he wants. Now come on. I need to prepare, to gather my strength again if I'm to work another path of light so soon. And we are still too close to Knightsford.'

But Wren dug her heels in. ‘No.'

‘Wren, we don't have time for this,' Elodie said in that stern tone that always ended up with things going her way.

Not this time, Wren told herself. ‘You can't make me come with you.'

‘Can't I?' The look was a threat, a warning, and Wren felt her skin go cold. Because Elodie could. Of course she could. There was very little Elodie could not do.

‘You wouldn't.'

Elodie shook her head. ‘I'm sorry my love. I wish you'd cooperate but so be it.'

And with that a silvery web of light fell all around Wren, trapping her in an instant.