Page 33 of A Touch of Shadows

But he couldn’t bring himself to do that to her.

It wasn’t that he had qualms about breaking a confidence, not when the security of the kingdom was at stake. He’d been in his native Sidonia to gather information, as one of the few able to travel between the two kingdoms with any ease. While the crown prince would kill him on sight, and take every pleasure in it, not everyone felt the same way. Until Leander took the throne, Finn still operated under a measure of protection. So long as he always returned to Asteroth. So long as he never dreamed of betraying those who had raised him. Or of ever going home for good.

But he didn’t even know where home was. Not really. Finn was lost between two worlds, trying to make the best of it and find his own path forward.

So why did the idea of searching for the diary in Wren’s bag and reading it feel like it would be the worst kind of treachery? He didn’t owe Elodie anything. He didn’t owe Wren?—

Except he did. Especially now. He owed her his life, his humanity, everything.

The pulse of light still ran through him, a steady beat in time with his own heart, the liquid pleasure still not entirely abated. When he looked at her exhausted face, with the long black hair coiling about it, at the delicate contours of her features and the sensual mouth he longed to kiss again, he knew he was in trouble. Deep trouble.

Finn had fancied himself in love before. There had been lovers at the court, various daughters and sons of the nobility who liked to slum it with the ward of the Grandmaster, to risk fraternising with a son of Ilanthus for whatever thrill it gave them. He’d enjoyed his time with all of them, knowing all along the reaches of the relationship and parting without much regret. But he had never felt the fierce rush of need he felt whenever Wren was near. There had never been a moment like that second when her lips met his.

Finn didn’t know what to do with it. It couldn’t be natural. It couldn’t be right.

In Ilanthus, where his people gave themselves over willingly to hedonism in honour of their dark goddess, such feelings were celebrated. But he had not been raised in Ilanthus, and Asteroth frowned on such things. Feared them. With good reason. What would Roland say if he confessed it to him?

A spear of shame ran through him. If he confessed his feelings about Wren to the Grandmaster, he’d have more problems than that. Especially if she was who he feared she was.

He couldn’t keep thinking about it, about her. Whatever this was, he needed to push it down, force it from his mind and take charge of his own body. He could never act on it again and no one could ever know.

Not Roland, and especially not Wren.

Never.

From somewhere far away, on a breeze perhaps, he thought he heard laughter.

CHAPTER 19

ROLAND

Everything brought him back to Elodie. On the long ride north from Pelias, there wasn’t much else to do but ponder the past.

How could it not, when everything he did was in her service? Even now.

The regents’ council still existed in the vain hope that some day some trace of their lost queen might be found, that she might be found. That somehow the Aurum had saved her.

Sometimes Roland wondered if she had really destroyed the Nox, or if she had been devoured by it, and felt like the worst kind of traitor for thinking those thoughts. He had seen her there, framed by shadows, bathed in firelight. His last glimpse of her…

But there were still fragments of the Nox in the world, and its cursed shadow kin were still at large. Why would they survive when she did not? Elodie had been indomitable.

Rumours sometimes circulated that she had been found. A number of pretenders had come to the royal court over the years, but they had all failed the test.

Roland had known they would the moment he set eyes on them. He would always know Elodie. He’s mine, she had said. And the words were prophetic. He still was. Even now.

The regents’ council had not been forgiving of such pretenders.

So, Queen Aeryn of Asteroth lived on as a saint in the minds of her people. She had battled the Nox to keep it from the Aurum, turned back the darkness from the holy light, and paid with her existence. That was what he had to believe too. The alternative – that she had left him, run away to live out a life without him – was too terrible. She had never been a coward. She knew her duty better than anyone, and time and again she had met it head on, no matter what the consequences. She’d even agreed to marry Evander, even though she knew what he was and all he stood for. For the sake of the kingdom. For the vain hope of peace.

The night of the wedding still haunted him. Roland had stood guard outside the chamber, torturing himself with the knowledge that, inside the room, she gave herself to another man. Until she cried out and he couldn’t stand it any longer. He’d burst through the doors like a charging bull.

The thoughts of that bastard Evander still made his stomach knot with rage. His hands around her throat, pushing her down onto her knees in front of him. The audacity of the man. She was the queen. She was… she was Roland’s everything.

‘We know how to deal with witches where I’m from,’ the Ilanthian prince said. ‘I know where you belong. Now do what you’re good for, woman.’

How she hadn’t already killed him with all the powers at her fingertip, Roland would never know. He had wanted to snap the bastard’s neck that instant. It was like he’d bound her with some kind of power, curtailed the magic flowing through her veins, leaving her helpless.

Perhaps she was just stunned, too shocked to believe what was happening until it was too late.