Page 46 of A Touch of Shadows

Another breath, and another, and the reality of it slammed into her mind like a fist. What had she done?

Even as the world shifted around her, lines of power melting away, she could make out the leading knight dismounting and coming towards them, a man tall and broad.

He removed his helmet to reveal his midnight hair and eyes as endlessly dark as her own. He strode across the space between them, his expression all concern, but not for her. He didn’t know her. How could he?

‘Finnian? What happened?’ asked Roland de Silvius.

Wren felt Finn’s arms tighten around her, as if he could somehow protect her from what was coming. He couldn’t. She knew that. They had all seen her. They all knew what she’d done. Her world was about to change and there was nothing either of them could do about it. Not now.

ON THE ILANTHIAN-ASTEROTH WARS

In the days following the defeat of the Ilanthian army, chaos reigned in the royal household.

Besieged in the fortress of Sidonia, the royal family made supplication to the Nox, but the dark incarnation of the power was no more. Their goddess was broken and as defeated as their force of arms. No sacrifice was enough. Witchkind blood covered the black stones, to no avail.

In desperation, King Alessander brought his youngest son to the secret chamber, intent on using his royal blood to summon the lost goddess and attempt to make her whole once more. This had been the promise of the House of Sidon, that if they shed blood royal, the Nox would always answer.

Before the blade could fall, the Knights of the Aurum arrived, seizing the child and others of the royal line as captives, carrying them off as trophy and hostage.

So Alessander the Defeated gave up his youngest son to his enemies, and waited for his time to come again.

CHAPTER 27

ROLAND

The sky lit up in a way Roland hadn’t seen in more than twenty years. An Aurum-sent beacon.

Every instinct took control, driving him and the other Paladins beyond reason and logic. The knights followed, trusting their leaders and their training as ever, investigating reports of Ilanthian witchhunters in the forest near Knightsford forgotten in an instant. They had ridden at that light, as if driven from behind by holy fire, as if drawn to it like moths, as if nothing else had mattered in the world. The world had thundered and burned and he had felt it inside him, beating in time with his heart, the song he knew so well. All Roland knew was that the Aurum was blazing through him, the light unleashed. He had heard her voice. He was sure he had heard Elodie’s voice, calling them, rallying them to arms. And he had no choice but to answer.

Only one person had ever been able to send up a beacon like that, and she did it only in the direst of needs. His heart soared inside him, every nerve alight, as he looked for her.

The Aurum-sent beacon vanished as they attacked, but for those few moments it had been glorious. It had surged through his veins, strengthening him, filling his heart with endless courage. He had known it of old, the light of the Aurum as it had been wielded in battle in the past, bright and terrible. The way Elodie had wielded it…

For a moment his fractured heart had hoped… prayed…

But Elodie wasn’t there. Of course she wasn’t. Why would she be? Elodie was gone.

Stupid. So stupid.

But what did it matter?

If this girl could wield the light of the Aurum, if they had truly been blessed in such a way, he would pay any price. It was as if all his dreams had come true.

No. Not all of them. Not quite.

The girl wasn’t Elodie.

He didn’t know who she was. She’d passed out with the effort, even as the battle was done and Finn, beaten and exhausted, still bound in shadow-wrought chains, just held her, whispering her name over and over again. Begging her to stay with him.

Wren.

The routing of the Ilanthian incursion force took a lot less time than Roland had anticipated. They fell back through the trees and, though he sent a significant number of his men in pursuit, Roland himself stayed behind. Let the younger men have the glory of mopping up the rest. He had Finnian to think about and anything of use that might be garnered by way of intelligence from what had been left behind.

Leander had slipped through his fingers, but that was probably just as well. The peace was fragile enough and the crown prince desperate to disrupt it. He was too like his bastard uncle, Evander. Capturing the king’s favourite son on the wrong side of the border was never going to work out well for anyone. His bodyguards had spirited him away as soon as the knights came within sight.

Just as well, or Roland had no doubt Finn would be dead now. It had been too close. Thank the Aurum for the girl who had saved the man he loved as a son. Whoever she was Roland knew he owed her a debt of gratitude.

The girl was pretty, though very pale and weakened from the magic she had channelled. She hid behind a mass of wild black hair, and curled in against Finn’s body, clasping a small leather book in her hand, crushed against her chest. When anyone tried to come near, even for a second, Finn snarled at them with a ferocity Roland hadn’t seen in him since he was a child, newly arrived from Sidonia.