Page 63 of A Kiss of Flame

And then she saw him, far below her, Roland, still dressed in the ceremonial armour from the trial, gilded and etched with patterns of flames, and not even the slightest bit practical. It made him beautiful. More than beautiful. Great light, he was everything she might have hoped to see as her last vision. Her Roland. He was older than in her dreams, harder than ever, but he was still the one thing she wanted. The one thing she missed about life here. The only thing…

She still ached for him.

Tears scalded Elodie’s face as she stared at him, as she studied the expression on his face, the traces of fear, the anger, the wrath…

‘Aeryn of Asteroth has a confession to make,’ Sassone roared through the horrified silence encircling Pelias. ‘Hear her and witness her execution.’

‘Tarryn,’ Roland shouted back. No title anymore, no honorifics. He wouldn’t sully his lips with them. ‘Don’t do this. Let her go and?—’

‘Hear her confession,’ the earl shouted over him and turned to her. His face had turned florid, spit flecking at the corners of his mouth. Was he deranged? Enchanted? Or simply driven by lust for power and other delusions? ‘Speak, woman.’

Elodie drew in a shaking breath but as she opened her mouth another spear of pain lanced through the whole length of her body. Laughter echoed in her ears, distant and invisible, but still there.

They’ll burn you, and scatter your ashes as you burned and scattered me. You will be nothing but a hated memory.

The metal was an icy fire on her skin, as if the Nox threaded itself through it. No, she thought. She couldn’t give it the satisfaction. Wren would be safe by now, surely? The boy would have got her clear, taken her back out the way she came in. Elodie hadn’t meant a word she’d said. Wren was hers and would always be hers. She’d needed to make sure she left.

From somewhere she found her voice. It was thin and agonised but it was hers. That was all she had left now. Her voice.

Elodie locked eyes with Roland, down below her, staring up helplessly. He was saying something to the men around him, still issuing orders, but he never tore his gaze away from her. He held his horse in check, the beast straining beneath him. Nightbreaker, strapped to his back, sang out to her, the Aurum’s light in it trying to give her strength. And perhaps it did.

‘I am Aeryn,’ Elodie shouted, her voice rising on the wind. ‘I am the trueborn queen of Asteroth, the Chosen of the Aurum. Everything I have done, everything they accuse me of, was done in defence of my people, my kingdom and in service of the great light.’

She glanced at the Earl of Sassone, who was opening and closing his mouth in disbelief. ‘Your confession?—’

Elodie shook her head. ‘That’s all I have to say. Were you…’ The pain surged back, clawing inside her, tearing her apart, but she didn’t care. She smiled through it. ‘Were you expecting something more?’

He snarled a curse at her, violent and final. ‘Very well, perhaps your child will be more cooperative. I’ll soon bend her to my will.’

Elodie bit her lip until she tasted blood and scowled at him. She made sure her voice carried again. Let them all hear. Let them know the truth at last. If she couldn’t protect Wren it was all for nothing anyway. ‘What… child? I have no child.’

Sassone grabbed the torch from the guard beside him. The flames turned his face scarlet and black, sweat gleaming. ‘This is your last chance, witch.’

Elodie lifted her face to the sky, feeling the faint touch of the last rays of light lingering on her skin like a lover’s caress. Roland was there, but he was too far away. She had no magic left to her.

A dreadful boom filled the air and the wall below her shook. A battering ram? He had a battering ram. Elodie almost laughed. Roland was going to tear this place apart, bring down the gates and the walls and anything in his path to reach her. Because he was Roland, her Roland.

And he would always try to save her.

Too late, the voice that taunted her seemed to say. Far too late.

Sassone thrust the flaming torch into the pyre, which caught in an instant. He knew what he was doing. Perhaps she wasn’t the first woman he had burned.

The boom of the battering ram again, shouts of rage, the crackle of flames, and the pain, the endless waves of pain coming one after the other. They swirled to a crescendo and then one sound cut through them all.

A scream, high and desperate, so scared… a voice which had brought Elodie running no matter what was happening to her for twenty years now. A sound she would always put first. Wren’s voice, Wren’s scream, and all around the darkness howled in triumph. Wind whipped around Elodie, lashing her hair across her face, but all it did was fan the flames underneath her. Smoke rose, black and choking, and even as she reached for the light the flames ought to embody, the metal turned cold as ice and the smoke closed on her, smothering her.

Wren was down there somewhere and all the light left in Elodie’s world rushed to the girl’s command. And all the darkness too.

They would all know what Wren was. They would all see.

Everything Elodie had done, all she had given up, had been in vain. She screamed, her voice breaking as she threw back her head, trying to warn Wren, trying to stop her and failing.

A terrible crash told her the gates had shattered, either the ram itself or helped by Wren’s power, Elodie no longer knew. There was no magic left to reach for, no light, nothing.

Hooves thundered on stone, and Elodie saw the flash of a sword, a line of pure white light arcing through the night. The heat beneath her was unbearable and she was locked in the cold embrace of shadow-wrought steel. Fire caught on her skirts, rising around her, and she tried to take its light, tried to use it to protect herself, but the enchanted metal sucked that away in a moment and turned it back on her in agony. It was voracious and unstoppable, this spell. It would devour her.

She was lost. Darkness surged up around her and Elodie felt the last glimmer of light in her heart flicker out.