Page 74 of A Touch of Shadows

‘You know what you have to do, Wren, my love. If you can save him he’s yours. But only if you can save him. I’ll let you all go. If he lives. So go on. Make him live, princess.’

The mockery in his voice made her recoil. But she’d show him. She had to show him. Even if he didn’t keep his word, she couldn’t let Finn die.

With no light to help her, she had no choice. If she was going to save him there was only one way to turn. She reached out to the shadows instead.

Elodie cried out her name, just her name. A warning. A denial.

And then Wren was somewhere else.

The darkness pressed in on Wren from all around, crushing her, like a candle flame deprived of air. It was vast, endless, and all of its attention was fixed upon her.

The voice, when it sounded, was like a rumble of thunder. It rolled through the air with the storm and shook its way into her body.

What are you doing, little vestige? Why do you defy me?

Wren felt herself drop to her knees, helpless. Why did she defy it? Because she had to. She knew what it was. Deep inside her, she knew that this was the Nox and, if she let it, it would consume her entirely.

‘You belong here.’ She forced the words out and it was like tearing strips of skin from the insides of her throat. ‘You don’t belong in me.’

The Nox laughed, the laugh of a young woman, her own laugh perhaps. It shook her to the core. In you? No, you have it all wrong. You belong in me. Come home, little one.

It pressed down on her again, trying to force her open like an oyster, something like a knife sliding into her mind to twist it apart.

You’re mine, little one. Part of me. You came from me. Surely you always suspected that. I’m your mother.

‘No. Elodie… Elodie’s my mother…’

That thief? The tone turned vindictive and vengeful. She stole you from me when I was weak, took you away and hid you. For years she hid you. I sent all the remaining fragments of my power looking for you but to no avail. She made a bargain with the old magic in the forest to hide you. But here you are now. And so is she. When I’m free, we are going to do such things to her. We’re going to tear her apart a piece at a time. Now, stop fighting me. You belong to me.

It was lying. It had to be lying. And yet everything suddenly made sense. Why Elodie hid her away, why the darkness responded to her the way it did, why the fragments of the Nox and the shadow kin flocked around their home… looking for her.

It couldn’t be true. But the moment it was said, Wren knew somehow that it was. That some vital part of her had come from this thing and that it meant to take her back.

Wren screamed but there was nothing she could do, nothing that would stop it. She was trapped and the Nox was inside her, around her, everywhere. She felt it fill her and for one last moment she struggled, clinging to her own consciousness by her fingernails.

She had to hold on.

I can save him for you, the Nox whispered.

CHAPTER 44

WREN

Wren didn’t mean to let go. She couldn’t help it. That offer, that suggestion, startled her and she was lost. Finn was dying. Somewhere, in her helpless arms, Finn was dying. His blood burned on her skin and his eyes stared sightlessly at her face. And she was going to lose him forever, before they had even begun to discover what they might really have.

Another voice reached Wren, distant and faint, no more than a sigh, so different from the Nox’s insidious whisper. A voice she knew…

‘It’s a trick, my love. A lie. Hold on. Just a little longer.’

It sounded almost like Elodie. But that was impossible. Elodie was out there – somewhere – on her knees, in chains, helpless and in Leander’s power.

Some tiny part of Wren that still remained reached out to the voice and found a sliver of light still cutting through the shadows. No more than a glimmer, but it was there.

Her mother.

Only Elodie had never called herself that.

It didn’t really matter one way or the other if Elodie had actually given birth to her. She had raised her, taught her to walk, to read, to reason, to think for herself. She had been there when Wren had taken ill and nursed her through it. She’d been there when Pol first broke her heart. She had always been there. Caustic and fierce, short-tempered sometimes, but still there. Holding her, helping her, guiding her to the light. Always to the light.