Page 64 of A Touch of Shadows

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.