Page 65 of A Touch of Shadows

‘Yes.’

‘How… how is he?’

She sounded like something had just knocked all the air from her lungs. And Wren saw it then, stark, written all over her face. Elodie still loved him. More than loved him. Adored him. And she’d walked away and broken him. Twice now.

‘What did you do? Tell me. What happened? How are you the lost queen?’

Slowly, Elodie wrapped her arms around her body and seemed to diminish, folding in on herself.

‘I’ll tell you what I can. But we need to leave this place before they come after us. And they will come after us. Asterothian and Ilanthian alike. They want our magic, Wren. They want it more than anything. They want to enslave us both and use us. I will not let that happen. Not again. That’s why I had to leave Pelias, and that’s why we had to hide for so long. It’s why we have to run now. As fast and as far as we can.’

‘Where?’

‘I can’t leave the kingdom, but it’s a big kingdom, Asteroth. The mountains perhaps. In the south. It’s sunny there. You’ll like it.’

Wren doubted that very much. She hated sunshine.

‘What about Finn?’

‘Finn will be fine. He’s a Knight of the Aurum. Without you there, his life will right itself and he’ll be back on the path intended for him. He’ll be safe again. They might even accept him as a Paladin now after what you did to him. Who knows? They want a new one badly enough.’

‘And with me there?’

‘With you there…’ Elodie let her head fall back and sighed to the stars overhead. ‘Wren, my love. I know his line, I know what’s in his blood. I saw it all. If you’re there, the darkness will take him. I can’t explain how or why. I can just tell you that it will. Leave him to serve the Aurum. It’s what he wants. Now come on. I need to prepare, to gather my strength again if I’m to work another path of light so soon. And we are still too close to Knightsford.’

But Wren dug her heels in. ‘No.’

‘Wren, we don’t have time for this,’ Elodie said in that stern tone that always ended up with things going her way.

Not this time, Wren told herself. ‘You can’t make me come with you.’

‘Can’t I?’ The look was a threat, a warning, and Wren felt her skin go cold. Because Elodie could. Of course she could. There was very little Elodie could not do.

‘You wouldn’t.’

Elodie shook her head. ‘I’m sorry my love. I wish you’d cooperate but so be it.’

And with that a silvery web of light fell all around Wren, trapping her in an instant.

CHAPTER 37

ELODIE

When Elodie had been a child the world had handed her everything. She lived in a palace, and she was the apple of her father’s eye. There was nothing he would not do for his little princess. She was already pretty, but those who tended her made her beautiful. Every single day. And she was not just beautiful but brilliant as well. They took her gifts and made them wonders. She was tutored by the greatest minds, she trained with the most skilled warriors, and she was loved. Loved by everyone. Her family, her courtiers, her people.

When she first saw the dark-haired son of a country knight, skulking around the kitchens having been sent on a fool’s errand by his new superiors, she’d known in an instant that he was the man she would love. Maybe not in the way adults knew such things, but she knew he was meant for her. When others mocked him, a fire burned in her. She didn’t understand why they couldn’t see Roland as she did, why they dismissed him.

And Roland, her beloved Roland, had fought and struggled and made his way from the bottom right up to the top. He was her champion by the time she was seventeen, her lover by the time she was twenty, but always he was her everything.

He’s mine, she had said. And never had words been more true. Heart and soul, they belonged together.

Right up until the moment Evander of Ilanthus arrived.

The prince was handsome. No one could deny that. Charming and courteous. Everything a prince should be. The brother of a king, sent on a mission of reconciliation, to seek a marriage that would form an alliance.

Roland looked heavy-set and inelegant in comparison. He wasn’t schooled in scholarly works like Evander, and he couldn’t dance. Or wouldn’t. He got embarrassed and she would tease him. It was done with love but later she realised that he was sensitive about it and regretted every time she had laughed.

Evander courted her with the utmost care, set out to seduce her as only he could. And she fell for it. Idiot that she was, she let herself believe in the wrong fairy tale, in the wrong handsome prince. She agreed to the marriage.