Page 46 of A Kiss of Flame
Hestia cast Leander a glance which promised something even worse than murder but she stepped back all the same, her hands falling to her sides. Was it Wren’s imagination or did Leander almost wilt with relief as she did so?
The steely arrogance was back a moment later and she was far too familiar with that.
‘What is he doing?’ she whispered to Maryn.
‘What he does best. Causing all the trouble he can,’ Maryn replied. ‘But I think he will pay for it this time. I’ll enjoy that enormously. Maybe I should ask Lady Hestia for a front-row seat. Do you think a sister would grant that to a maiden?’
Leander approached Elodie cautiously and when she said and did nothing in response, a cunning smile spread over his features. ‘Queen Aeryn married my uncle with the promise that he would be safe here in Pelias, that he could practise his worship as he would, and that no harm would befall him. She promised him a child, and did nothing to deliver that child.’
He almost glanced at Wren but caught himself.
Wren felt something cold and dark slither up along her spine. She stepped back, reaching beyond the light now, for the corners, for the shadows. She couldn’t help herself. He was up to something. Something terrible.
Because that was what Leander did. Was he going to denounce her right here? What would that gain him?
On the far side of the chamber, she saw Finn’s head come up, almost as if he sensed her distress and what it might do. He couldn’t do anything to stop Leander now. But he sensed that she needed him. She knew that. Suddenly he was moving, leaving the Ilanthians and pushing his way through the crowd.
‘Your uncle took his own life,’ said Elodie in a voice tinged with regret. ‘I had no hand in that.’ The flames climbed up again, brightening with her truth.
‘So you say. Who else is to know that? And why would he? Why would a prince take his own life? You killed him to summon the Nox here. Everyone knows the blood of our line calls her forth, gives her form.’
Elodie fixed him with a glare. ‘A myth,’ she said, but her voice shook a fraction. And she glanced, unwittingly, at Wren. ‘You are distraught, Prince Leander.’
A slow smile spread over Leander’s face, a look of triumph, as if he had just sprung a trap.
‘I’ll prove it to you. I’ll prove it to you all.’ His eyes gleamed in the light of the Aurum, the pale grey turning silver in its glow.
From his belt, he drew a gleaming knife which had looked ceremonial with its jewelled hilt and curved blade. It wasn’t, Wren realised. It was wickedly sharp.
Leander steeled himself for a moment and then slashed through the pale skin of his unadorned wrist. ‘Come, oh divine darkness and be made whole once again.’
CHAPTER 23
WREN
Bright red blood splashed on the white stones paving the floor of the chamber of the Aurum.
Someone screamed but it wasn’t Wren. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t do anything.
From far beyond them, something rose up behind her and within her like a tsunami. Something so powerful it would have brought her to her knees if at the same time it didn’t seize her in its grip and close its jaws around her.
A dark shadow dived from the crowd and ploughed into the crown prince of Ilanthus, taking him off his feet and to the floor. For a second she thought it was shadow kin, racing through the darkness. It moved so fast and fluidly, ghosting across the white marble of the floor. The knife went flying, clattering across the floor until it came to a halt against the low wall around the flames of the Aurum. The prince and the second figure struggled on the ground.
Finn, Wren realised. It was Finn. He pinned Leander down, containing his struggles effortlessly.
The prince laughed at him and spat in his face, but Finn didn’t move. He held Leander’s injured arm in a vice-like grip, staunching the blood flow. When Leander tried to pull free, Finn drew back and punched him hard in the face.
Everything erupted into chaos and disorder, people moving in every direction. Wren started forward towards the two princes of the line of Sidon, struggling on the floor, but the next thing she knew Anselm and Olivier were there, flanking her and making her move away, towards a simple and unobtrusive door in the wall. One through which she and Finn had once entered secretly. And fled through.
Her feet stumbled and turned sluggish. Something was wrong, terribly wrong. And all the while she heard it, heard the song ringing out through the chamber, echoing off the stones. The Nox, it was the Nox. It had to be. She would have known that voice anywhere, even if she couldn’t make out the words. It echoed through her and her eyes burned in their sockets, her skin tightening about her bones. She started forward, drawn by the play of darkness and light in the reflected blood on the stones.
‘Get her to safety,’ Roland bellowed and the two knights didn’t hesitate, seizing an arm each and manhandling her towards that small door.
She fought them every step of the way, and the shadows surged around her, falling from the roof and rising from the ground, twisting in the blinding light of the Aurum which had turned luminescent with rage at this intrusion.
A pillar like fire stepped forward, a figure walking across the stones towards her… No, towards the two men still fighting each other on the floor. Towards the blood.
Elodie. It was Elodie.