Page 68 of A Kiss of Flame

Roland paced the corridor, from one end to the other, never stopping. He couldn’t stop, couldn’t allow himself to have a moment when he might rest, and think, and consider what might have been. What had almost happened…

People came and went from the bedroom, Maidens of the Aurum, various physicians and nurses, but no one who wasn’t thoroughly checked first. His Paladins patrolled the corridors and there were knights posted at every doorway. Sister Maryn, still bloodied and bruised, had all but snarled at him when he challenged her but he let that go because she was almost as frantic as he was.

Elodie was like a sister to her. And Maryn had been there when Sassone had taken her. She had failed to protect her. She couldn’t fail now.

The rest of the regents’ council were under heavy guard, in spite of their many protests. Even Ylena. Perhaps especially Ylena. Roland didn’t know if she was involved in this or not but right now he didn’t care. Let her stew for a while. It served her right and her arrogance could do with taking down a peg or two. Or more.

If they had planned this together, he would gladly see them all hang. He would put the nooses around their necks himself.

There had never been a coup in the history of Asteroth and it had come so close to succeeding.

‘Roland?’ Maryn opened the door and beckoned to him. ‘She’s asking for you.’

He moved without thinking, like a raw recruit summoned to his first parade.

They had brought her to her old suite of rooms. The maidens still clustered around her, but she lay in the bed of the queen now, a raised confection of a thing draped in silk and cloth of gold, not in the narrow and stark cell where he had last seen her. And she looked so small. Almost childlike.

Her golden hair spread out on the pillow around her and the white nightgown didn’t help the illusion. Her skin was too pale, but there were no signs of injury or burn marks now. They had cut the collar and shackles from her skin and laid healing hands on her. Elodie opened her eyes and gazed at him for so long he wondered if she still knew who he was, or if instead she had lost her mind completely. When they tried to stop her sitting up, she waved them away imperiously and there she was, his Elodie, the look of pure irritation almost making him laugh out loud with relief.

‘Out,’ she tried to say, but her voice was strained.

He had heard her screams. They had almost driven him to distraction. In all honesty he had lost any sense of reason as the gates had shattered – he had no idea how as the battering rams alone should have taken twice as long to break through but he blessed the light for it. He had ridden his warhorse up the stone steps at a gallop, trampling the guards beneath him, and plunged into the flames to reach her.

And then the Aurum had erupted through them all. As if by taking her from that vile fortress, he had let her call it. But she hadn’t. She couldn’t have. Elodie had barely been conscious. She couldn’t have raised a spark. He knew that. It had to have been someone else and he suspected who that might be. But how could she have done that from up here?

He remembered Finn telling him of the madness that had overcome him when Wren was in danger and Roland knew now he should have been more sympathetic. He knew the feeling just as intimately. Only then it had seemed something lost to the past and another lifetime.

Now it was fresh and ragged and raw. It still churned in the pit of his stomach.

He would have done anything to spare her. Anything.

He still would.

The servants and the healers backed away, leaving the two of them alone. He hardly noticed when the door closed behind him. All he could see was Elodie.

‘You’re alive,’ he said.

She gave him that look again, the one that called him an idiot of the highest order. She still had that perfected. He might be Grandmaster of the Knights of the Aurum, but Elodie would always see the boy he had been. The same way as he saw the girl instead of the queen, the witch and the Chosen of the Aurum.

‘Thank you,’ she said, and he wondered for a moment if he had misheard her. ‘If you hadn’t come…’

She closed her eyes again, trying to push away the memories of what had happened to her. Her brow furrowed and, the next thing Roland knew, he was on the bed, holding her in his arms.

He shouldn’t. It was a terrible idea. All their shared and separated past, all the lies and deceptions, everything they had done and every way they had hurt each other told him that.

But right now he wasn’t listening to anything but her.

‘I will always come for you,’ he told her, his voice rough in his throat. He took her hand and pressed the cold metal of the locket into her palm.

Slowly, Elodie curled in against him, taking a deep breath. Her hands came up to his chest and rested there, so cold through the fabric of his shirt. But oh, that touch was worth anything. Anything at all.

‘I thought…’ Her voice shook and she couldn’t go on. He could hear her fear now, feel it the way he had felt it in those terrible moments before he pulled her free. Trauma still racked her body and it would haunt her for years to come. He knew the way of it.

Carefully, he cradled her cheek in one hand and pulled back so he could look her full in the face, to fix her with his gaze and hold her full attention.

‘I will always come for you,’ he repeated, a new vow, one just for her. ‘That was always true, El. It still is. Always, just as I promised.’

Tears spilled from her eyes, falling like jewels down her cheeks. ‘I had to go, Roland, all those years ago. I can’t explain everything but I-I simply had to. If I had stayed… if I hadn’t taken Wren…’