Page 17 of A Touch of Shadows

She closed her eyes and pictured the great flames of the Aurum, tried to clear the image of the devastation the last time she had stood before them – the smears of blood on the marble floor and the great white stones of the circle, the viscera, the broken bodies – and see it once again in its purest form. It was a risk, reaching out to it like that, but the Aurum never denied her.

That was her sin. Denying the Aurum. Turning her back on it, and on her predestined life. Running away.

But it was always there, just beyond her waking mind, no matter how far she ran, no matter how many walls she raised in her mind. Even if she didn’t want to admit it. Didn’t want to let it in. But she had no choice. The Aurum stirred for her, blinked to wakefulness, just for a moment.

‘Show me,’ she said again in othertongue, a command, and it responded.

The water glowed with sudden light, golden and bright, rippling like molten metal. And in it she saw?—

Fire leaped from house to house, doors barred from the outside, screams, desperate terrible wails, men cut down in the square, blood pooling, the flash of blades in the sunlight, warhorses trampling faces she knew until no one could hope to ever know them again…

No, this couldn’t be happening. There should have been more warning. There should have been something.

Where was Wren? She had to find Wren.

The images in the bowl swept across the forest and she saw more horsemen. The one in the lead pulled off his helmet and white-blond hair fell free.

Elodie’s heart jerked like a fish on a line. It couldn’t be. Not here. Not now. She pushed herself back so sharply that she almost upturned the bowl. But that face was unmistakable. He’d grown, filled out. The boy she had known had become a man. Still beautiful, of course, all that line were. But also cruel, haughty and relentless. She knew them all too well. The line of Sidon.

‘Light curse you, Leander,’ she hissed, as if he could hear her. In the water, he looked up at the sky as if perhaps he could. He had a sense of magic, like a hunting dog sniffing out prey. He lifted his head to the sun, as if searching for her. He’d been a child when she last saw him but he had grown into a man as handsome as his uncle. And from the glint in those cold eyes, just as heartless.

This was bad. Beyond bad.

Why was he here? It couldn’t be her, she’d been too careful. She’d done everything she could to shield herself and Wren.

But their enemies were here anyway.

She had to find Wren first. One last chance then and she’d have to pray Leander didn’t sense her. Or worse, sense Wren.

She’d have to be quick. And then… then she’d have to run. They both would. But only if she could find Wren first and warn her. They could regroup and she’d open a path through the light to somewhere else. Anywhere else. Somewhere safe.

She couldn’t leave Asteroth, but it was a big country. There were many hidden places like this. She just needed to find the right one.

Once more she focused on the glowing water and bent her mind to the girl, to her little bird, to the exclusion of all else. To hell with caution. This was an emergency.

And this time she found her. On the Elenwye ridge, with a telescope to her eye, her mouth twisting in alarm as the poor girl realised that Thirbridge and everything she knew was gone, that her life here was over, that the thing Elodie had always warned of had come to pass and there was nothing she could do.

Elodie’s heart ached for her, though she’d never show it. She knew that feeling, remembered its sting far too keenly. To feel it again, when she’d thought they were safe?—

Curse it, they had been safe here for so long, close to the border, but not too close. Far from the Aurum and its knights but not too far. Certainly not within the range of the witchhunters of Sidonia. Until now.

What could have brought them across the border? That was an act of war, a breach of the accords drawn up at the end of the war when the Pact was agreed. Heads would roll for it. Literally. She could name some of them. There had been hostages exchanged and guarantees made. What would make Leander risk this? And why would Alessander allow it?

Wren scrambled back in shock, perhaps feeling the touch of Elodie’s consciousness or perhaps just in horror at what she was seeing, and someone caught her, taking the telescope from her shaking hands, speaking to her in a way that calmed her.

Elodie let out another string of curses as she saw the man with Wren and recognised him. Not him, not really, but his eyes.

Bluer than blue, bright as a cloudless summer sky. The kind that laughed and sang with joy, that could make a girl believe anything. Believe in love, believe in possibilities, in a future. The kind that lied as easily as blinking. The eyes of a traitor. The worst kind of traitor. Dear light, they were everywhere. Closing in on her.

‘Don’t listen to him, little bird,’ she whispered, forcing power into the words, reaching out across the space between them to make them fly to Wren’s mind on the wind. ‘Don’t trust him. Run, my love. You know what to do. You have to run. We both do.’

Wren frowned, her eyes narrowing. Elodie saw her mouth form a question and the man with her shook his head. Of course he did. He wouldn’t want her to hear, to receive a warning at all. Shadows coiled around them, shadows that blocked her voice from reaching Wren.

Was it already too late? Was that which should never be awakened already stirring? Was her Wren already lost?

No, not after all these years. She wasn’t having it. And if Wren couldn’t hear, if the dark powers were stopping her, Elodie would just have to find another way to warn her.

At least Wren knew what to do. They had always discussed this, what to do in the case of danger, or attack. What to do if they needed to run.