Page 69 of A Kiss of Flame

He knew he ought to ask all his questions, get those answers that no one seemed willing to give him. But right now, he didn’t care. Or rather he didn’t care enough. Elodie was here, and she was safe. She wasn’t dead and for those dreadful moments after that bastard Sassone lit the pyre he had thought that he was about to lose her forever. Again.

But Elodie, his Elodie, was here. Safe. In his arms.

‘Later,’ he told her. ‘You can tell me later. I’ll wait. I’ll wait as long as you need me to. I’ve waited twenty years. What’s a little more time?’

‘But you…’ She looked so delightfully confused. Elodie, who always thought she knew everything and who usually did. ‘You need to know. They’re going to want to put her on the throne and they can’t, Roland.’

‘She’s your daughter – our daughter… Of course she’s going to sit on the throne after you, but not for many years, my love.’

But instead of comforting her, his words made it worse. He could see that in her blue eyes, the shattering of hope, the desolation of despair.

‘That’s the problem… She is our daughter, but not… not actually…’ She pulled back, cursing, and he let her go, because fighting her at a moment like this would never work. She wrapped her arms tightly around her chest and her teeth worried at her lower lip, like she used to when she was young, when she didn’t want to tell him something or own up to anything wrong. ‘You must have suspected. After the trial. You must have guessed.’

‘What happened, Elodie? All those years ago? If you don’t want to tell me yet, I will wait, but one day… one day you’ll have to tell me. Please. I’ve waited, I’ve searched, I’ve guarded your kingdom for you. Yes, for duty too, but mainly for you. And when I saw Wren, the moment I saw her, I knew. I just knew. She looks like the women of my family, all of them. My mother’s eyes, my aunt’s build, my sister’s?—’

Elodie shook her head. ‘I know what she looks like. But it isn’t as simple as that.’

‘Then explain it to me.’ He sighed and raked one hand through his greying hair. ‘Use the simplest words.’

At that, she laughed, a bitter and broken sound that was almost relief but was also something else, something lost and sad.

‘You won’t understand.’

He raised an eyebrow at her. ‘I know where children come from, love. And we did enough to create a child, didn’t we?’

Her lips wobbled and she dropped her gaze to the bedclothes. And that was somehow worse, because a rosy blush spread up her neck to her face.

She looked up sharply, as if a thought had occurred to her. Her hands closed tightly on the fabric of his shirt, her grip as strong as ever. ‘There was never anyone else but you,’ she told him adamantly.

‘I didn’t think there was.’ He tried not to sound bewildered. All these years, and she was a beautiful woman, one with needs and desires. And yet, he believed her. Because how could he not? ‘Nor was there anyone else for me but you. You know that, surely.’

Any other woman would be pleased to hear that, he thought, but Elodie nodded glumly. ‘I’m sorry, Roland. I’m sorry for everything. It’s all my fault.’

She opened her arms to him again and waited until he settled himself beside her to curl in against him. He stroked her hair, freshly washed and brushed to a sheen like silk. He just wanted to hold her, now that he could.

‘What grievous sins have you committed now?’ he asked. ‘The Aurum didn’t seem to think there was any blame. It hasn’t roared to life like that since?—’

He stopped, remembering. It hadn’t acted like that since the last time she was here, when Evander had killed himself and summoned the Nox, and Elodie had fought it and won, vanquishing their ancient enemy in the holiest place in Asteroth.

‘Since I fought the Nox,’ she whispered.

‘You defeated it.’

Please say yes, he thought. Please, Elodie, just say yes. Tell me you broke it and scattered it, and the dark goddess was banished forever. Tell me the pretty story about our triumphant queen who sacrificed herself to save us all, the one the maidens had spread throughout Pelias before Evander’s corpse was yet cold.

‘It… it was almost defeated,’ she whispered, staring up into his eyes. ‘It took a thousand forms, each more terrible than the last. It came at me like a dragon, like a whirlwind, like a thing from beyond our world with a million teeth. It tried everything and I drove it back.’ Her hand closed on his shirt, her knuckles going white around the locket. ‘It made itself great and terrifying, and still I drove it back. I broke it to pieces, chipping away at it with the Aurum blazing through me. And then…’

Roland held his breath, listening because there was nothing else he could do. Part of him wanted to cover his ears or tear himself away from her. To call her a liar. But his voice was lodged in his tight throat, useless, helpless. Like him. And he couldn’t let her go anyway.

‘It was almost done. Only fragments of it remained. I had all but banished it to the beyond. But at the last it took one more form. A baby. A little girl. With… with eyes and hair and skin like yours… Our child. The one we would have had. Should have had. It looked into my heart and my mind and it took the form I would never be able to hurt. It locked what remained of its power inside her and… I couldn’t kill her, Roland. She’s part of you and part of me, and I couldn’t harm her. It knew that. It has always known. She is our child, the one we might have had in another lifetime, if we were different people. But…’

‘But?’ He didn’t know how he managed to ask. Elodie was a taut wire against his body and his pulse was thundering through his brain.

‘But at the same time, she isn’t. She’s the Nox. The last, vital part of it. And if she succeeds me, if they place that crown on her head and she stands before the Aurum…’

The words were ancient and hollow and had never felt more real or more terrible. ‘Then the lost queen stands alone,’ he whispered. ‘That’s you. But you won’t be alone, Elodie. I’ll be there. I’ll?—’

‘You’ll be dead. You’ll all be dead. Asteroth will be at the mercy of Ilanthus and it will exact such vengeance on us… I’ll be all that’s left. Because it will want me to see our utter destruction. Alessander will want that. So will Leander.’