Chapter 40

CHAPTER 40

WREN

Something dark and endless enveloped the both of them, ripping them out of the path of light and slamming them back to the ground with a crack like a lightning strike. Light flared, bright and blinding, and then darkness swept in behind it.

Wren rolled slowly onto her back, every part of her protesting. She stared up at the cloudless night's sky, the moon high and the stars clear and bright. And, as she brought her gaze down lower, she saw the stones rising in a ring around her, tilted in towards her like the teeth of some great beast rising from the dark earth. Elodie lay a little further off, at the edge of the circle, very still, a crumpled heap.

Shapes circled them, moving, sliding from shadow to shadow. Not human. Wren knew that in an instant. There were shadow kin gathered all around them, clinging to the edge of the stones, stalking their newly arrived prey.

What had she done?

‘Elodie?' she called. But Elodie didn't move. Wren forced herself up onto her feet and stumbled across the space between them, half running, half crawling, until she reached Elodie's unconscious form. ‘Elodie, I'm sorry. Please… please, wake up.'

‘Well,' said an all too familiar voice from the darkness. ‘This worked out better than expected, didn't it, little bird? I hoped to snare you. I didn't for a moment imagine we'd get her as well. Well done, my darling. You're everything I hoped for and more.'

Leander leaned on one of the standing stones as if he hadn't anything better to do with his life. As Wren watched, his remaining men fanned out around the stones, keeping clear of the swarming shadow kin but cutting off any possible escape, even if she was lucky enough to make it that far.

And to flee now, she'd have to leave Elodie behind, so that wasn't about to happen.

What had she done?

Leander walked towards her, brushing one of the shadow kin back when it drifted too close to him. It obeyed his thoughtless gesture instantly, like a dog well-trained by its master. Who or what was he? A prince of Ilanthus who could command the dark fragments of the Nox? Wren's mouth went dry and her throat tightened.

‘I couldn't have imagined my little book would work so very well. It was more of a whim to leave it there for you. I'd thought the queen would have taught her daughter better than that, but it seems she was remiss in a lot of areas, wasn't she? Too many secrets to keep, that's her problem. Always has been.'

His book. So they must have been his words all along. Telling her not to trust Finn, not to trust Elodie, to run away, to hide, to come here. Confusing her, frightening her. Playing with her.

Great light, she was such a fool.

Wren grabbed the book from her side and hurled it at him, aiming straight for his head. Leander laughed as he snatched it out of the air, petting it like something precious. ‘Now princess, we're really going to have to do something about that temper of yours.'

‘I'm not a princess,' she told him.

‘Oh I think you are. More than a princess. You're something very special indeed. I can smell it on you. And when we're wed, you're going to be a queen, and more. Ilanthus has a special crown waiting for you.'

‘Wed? I'm not… There is no way I'm marrying you.'

Leander shook his head as if dealing with a child. ‘Take them both,' he told his men. ‘We've got a lot of preparations to make but this is as good a place as any. Strong and old, powerful. The earth itself is stained dark and I can feel the veil at its thinnest.'

The shadow kin drew back and his men rushed in. They didn't look as certain of any of this as he did, but to argue was clearly to invite instant death. They seized Wren, pulling her back from Elodie, and then dragged Elodie clear of the stones. In an instant, chains snapped closed around Elodie's unresisting arms, the same dark metal that seemed to glow with a black and blue nimbus with which Leander had imprisoned Finn.

Finn, Wren thought desperately, what would he say now if he could see her? That she was a fool who had brought this on herself, that she should have stayed where she was safe, that she shouldn't have trusted anyone let alone Elodie. Oh and he would have some choice words to say when he knew she had been acting on the suggestions of his own brother.

The guards brought Wren to Leander, releasing her to stand before him at the edge of the circle. He smiled at her, such a beautiful but terrible smile.

‘I prefer your hair longer,' he said, but he reached out to stroke the short length all the same. His touch was so gentle, like Finnian's had been, and Wren fought to suppress a sob. He frowned and, unexpectedly, his voice gentled. ‘Don't be scared. Once we're finished here, my love, you'll never be scared again. I'm going to make you so strong, so powerful, no one and nothing will ever be able to hurt you. You'll see, Wren. You'll thank me.'

‘Leander, I don't know what you think is going to happen but I?—'

He shushed her, his hand closing on the back of her head, his thumb stroking her cheek. She couldn't move, couldn't escape him. He pulled her close and kissed her lips, his mouth warm and devastating. Her body went limp in his grip, helpless, and then his words – the words he spoke even as his lips brushed against hers, as his breath played against her skin – reached her ears.

It was a song. It was othertongue, and she recognised every terrible word. Her mind translated it as if it was her native language now. She had listened too well, and it had taught her to understand.

It was Leander's voice, but not just his voice. It was many voices and they were all bent on one thing. It was the song in the trees, the music that had come out of the darkwood.

Come, oh divine darkness and be made whole once again. Come to your servant, supplicant before you here, where the veil is thin and your prison walls are weakest, come to the vessel that once was yours. Come and be mine, and let me be your servant forever .

She pulled herself back, ripping herself free of him and colliding with one of the stones in the ring. Reversing course, she stumbled back into the circle of the Seven Sisters. The stones took on that same darklight, the blue-black glow shimmering over their surface like the shadow-wrought metal binding Elodie's magic. The moonlight grew horribly bright overhead and the ground trembled underneath Wren as a web of magic spread out beneath her feet. The air filled with a humming and she saw the shadow kin whirling through the sky above her, their eyes aglow like the stars. So many of them, too many of them, gathering together to form one terrible mass.

The world seemed to pause around her, the air itself expectant.

‘What have you done?' she shouted at Leander.

‘Just one more thing needed,' the prince of Ilanthus called back to her, his voice carrying over the rushing air and swirling darkness. ‘We still need that final ingredient to restore the Nox. Millennia ago my forefathers offered her a sacrifice, a tradition we have kept faithfully generation after generation, royal blood to be spilled for the goddess. Until now. My father failed. I will not.'

Royal blood? He couldn't mean his own. Even Wren could see that.

He wasn't the only member of the House of Sidon, was he? But Finn was far away, back in Knightsford. Safe.

Leander drew his sword, brandished it like a talisman before her. Blue-black light glinted along the edge, shadow-wrought, the blade of a prince blessed by a dark goddess.

‘Did you think he loved you, little one? Did you think a girl who grew up isolated in the forest, raised by a witch of our most hated enemies, would naturally engender the devotion he showed you from the start? He couldn't help himself. And now he's here to die. Not for you, little one. For her, for the Nox.'

And Finn Ward stepped up to the edge of the stone circle, armoured, sword in hand, his face blank and his eyes ablaze.