Page 16 of A Kiss of Flame

She kissed the top of Wren’s head. ‘Off you go. And find a way to talk to Finnian Ward. He doesn’t hate you. Not really. He will help you. He’ll have to.’

He wouldn’t have a choice, not anymore, but she didn’t want to tell Wren that. Not yet. She had to trust that the line of Sidon ran as true in him as she feared. She knew he was brave, she’d seen that. Roland had raised him to be a Knight of the Aurum. But all the same… blood always ran true.

She walked Wren out to the main gate, with Sister Maryn and Wren’s young maid trailing behind them, hugged her close again and then let her go. It was like wrenching out a vital part of herself but she had to do it. She held herself together until the door to the Sanctum closed behind her and then found herself face to face with Maryn.

The maiden wore far too insightful an expression on her face.

‘Well?’ Maryn asked.

‘I need to talk to him,’ Elodie whispered, hardly daring to say it.

‘You were the one refusing to see him, if you recall. He has waited for so many years for an explanation. But why now?’

‘He needs to help her.’

Maryn gave her another shrewd look.

‘She’s his daughter. Of course he’ll help her. In all ways. Surely you don’t doubt that. You know Roland de Silvius better than anyone else.’

Elodie sighed. She had known him. The man he was now? Not so much. He was angry, she knew that, and dour. And broken inside. And it was all her fault. But she had not had any choice in the matter and it hurt more than anything to realise that she was the one who had broken him.

‘None of you understand,’ she murmured and turned away. ‘I’m not even sure I understand myself. But Maryn… I need to speak to him.’

‘I’ll arrange it. He has come here every day asking for you and I’ve sent him back as you requested. I could set a time piece by him at this stage. He’ll be here before sunset and you know that as well. Don’t pretend you haven’t noticed. I’ve seen you watching, and I know you too well.’ Her old friend smiled with a forced sweetness as Elodie frowned at her. ‘Or I can go and summon him now, if that’s what you want?’

Summon Roland. How many times had she dreamed of doing that?

Elodie nodded and lowered her gaze so Maryn wouldn’t see what was in her eyes.

‘More important than whatever her father wants or does not want,’ Maryn said, eager to change the subject to one more pertinent to her interests, ‘Wren’s power needs to be trained, to be honed. Her abilities are already so strong and her instincts?—’

Elodie nodded again because there was nothing else she could do. If she wanted their cooperation, she would have to play along. Maryn meant well, she knew that. But she would never understand what Elodie had done. None of them would. Or why. And no one could afford it if the maidens found out the truth about Wren.

‘She will agree to training. We spoke of it. But do not push her too hard, please, I beg you. She’s young and she’s been sheltered and?—’

And that was Elodie’s fault as well.

‘I understand,’ said Maryn gently. ‘But her carefree days are over. You know that, don’t you? She’s your heir. In so many ways.’

Elodie couldn’t deny that either. She thought back to the maelstrom of powers which had encircled Wren in the Seven Sisters stone circle. Carefree was not a word that could be applied to either of them anymore, if it ever had a place. The darkwood had always been there, right on the edge of their lives. Waiting. The shadow kin were hungry and the Nox…

The Nox lurked on the other side. Its fragments gathered around Wren, from the first time she had walked out into the storm that night they arrived in Cellandre, so many years ago. They had almost taken her right there and then and Elodie had made her choice to save her, to keep saving her, in order to save everyone. That was what she told herself. No matter what anyone thought, the Nox was far from gone. The dark goddess of the Ilanthians, the antithesis of the Aurum, was always waiting.

It wanted Wren. How could it not? And when it called to her, something inside the girl responded eagerly, something Wren couldn’t control.

She would have to learn to control it, however, and the maidens were the only people Elodie could think of to teach her. The only ones she trusted.

Everyone else would try to use her for their own ends. The College of Winter would want to study her. But the maidens…

No, the maidens would want to use her too. Of course they would. They all would.

Sometimes Elodie thought she should have gone to the rebel witchkind long ago, but that would have opened another world of trouble. And what would they have done with Wren? They were busy fighting their own war. They would have seen the young girl with such power only as a weapon dropped into their hand. Elodie couldn’t have that either.

Witchkind lived free or they died. Elodie had adopted their mantra herself for a while. Part a disguise, part a vain hope. Hedge witches, rebel witches, and even the College of Winter, they were all the same, standing between light and dark, just trying to survive. And using whatever came their way to do so. If they ever took the fight into the open, so many people would die.

Wren would be a spark in a room full of dry kindling.

It wasn’t only the Sanctum and the Sacrum at risk now. It was more than the city. It was more than even Asteroth. It was their whole world.