Page 77 of A Kiss of Flame

‘But I can barely manage to control my magic.’

‘Because you are trying to suppress half of it. Or push it away. I’d like to help you as well if you will let me. Show you how to use it properly, the darkness as well as the light. It’s easy, Wren. So easy for someone like you. Let me show you.’

Her hands spread wide, and her long elegant fingers moved in an intricate dance. The darkness behind her rose like an inhalation of breath and then subsided. Wren felt it inside her, moving in time with her own heartbeat. And then, just as suddenly, it fell back, a wistful sigh.

‘What did you do?’ she asked, trying to stop her voice shaking.

‘It’s an invitation. There’s trust involved as well. But you can trust it, and me. I promise. Try.’

Wren swallowed hard. If Hestia was right she had hope of some measure of control. She hated the way the Nox spiralled out of control and tried to overwhelm her, but if there was a possibility of something else…

She closed her eyes, inhaled, and the shadows responded. For a moment, panic seized her but then Hestia took both her hands and held them gently. ‘Just breathe,’ she whispered. ‘Let it in and then let it go. That’s it.’ Wren followed her voice and the power slowed its advance. It lingered in her, at the back of her mind, flowing through her like an underground river. She exhaled, and the magic receded. It was like the balls of light Maryn had had her conjuring. It was the same thing, she realised. Two sides of a single coin.

She opened her eyes to see Hestia smiling affectionately at her. ‘You really are a wonder. Your control is sublime. When you don’t panic.’

She had never had control before. She longed for more.

‘When it cooperates, perhaps. It isn’t like that normally. That was nothing like when the Nox tries to come through. It’s… she’s… She doesn’t care what happens to me.’

‘We can change that. There is always a risk with any great power and she was once the greatest. Well, the Nox and the Aurum. But such magic can consume you, burn all the way through you and leave nothing behind. It’s as dangerous for them as for us. But they don’t have the capacity to understand that. They see things differently. I thought Elodie would have taught you that. She would know better than anyone.’

Wren shook her head. Elodie had left out so much. She’d seen the Aurum fill Elodie at the trial and now she knew why. If Elodie had her way, they would still be back in the forest behind all her wards, protected by whatever agreements she had made with the trees and the rocks and all its living things, and Wren would never have had to face any of this.

‘That’s why you came? To teach me?’

‘One of the reasons. Even in Ilanthus the sisterhood felt what happened between you and the Nox, felt her reawaken, mad and desperate. I knew we had to help you or it could destroy you both.’

‘And the other reasons?’ Wren flexed her fingers again and felt tendrils of shadows wreathe around them. Her hair drifted, alive with magic, a mass of living shades.

‘I am here on behalf of my king and my country, as I said. Ilanthus wants peace and that is going to take work on both sides. The other reason is Finn. He is the other key to all of this.’

A chill spread up Wren’s spine. She didn’t like the sound of that. What did the Ilanthians want with Finn now? She knew the stories. He’d told her, everyone had told her. They’d tried to kill him, as a boy, to sacrifice him to the Nox. And ever since he had been promised to the dark goddess which sought to steal Wren’s body.

‘Finn? What do you want with Finn?’

CHAPTER 41

FINN

Wren’s scent lingered around him. There was no denying the way she wound through Finn’s mind and around his heart even after only one night back together, how she was a part of him. His everything. He could sense her still, as if at any moment she would walk around the corner, as if he just had to reach out with his mind to find her.

If Roland had thought separating them would make it lessen, what Finn felt for her, he had been sorely mistaken. There was no diminishing this.

She enchanted him without even trying. They were bound together somehow. Perhaps they always had been.

And he wasn’t the only one. The other Ilanthians couldn’t help themselves either. From the lowliest servant, right through the guards to the highest ranks, all the various diplomats, the general, Hestia and of course Leander himself, they gazed on her with a kind of wonder which ought to be deeply disturbing.

He should never have brought her here. Never. He should have known better.

But at the time it was the only option, without leaving Anselm to die and braving whatever madness had engulfed the palace. She certainly would not have been safe there. If Sassone could reach into the Sacrum itself and take Elodie…. Take the queen in her place of power…

And Wren had almost given herself away. She had no longer been herself and he feared he knew what had taken her place.

Of course he knew. Pretending otherwise was fooling himself. He knew what she was. He had known from the beginning. He had felt the magic that ran through every part of her reach out and claim him effortlessly and he had welcomed it.

In the courtyard of the embassy, he waited with the horses, the guards mustering around him. It wasn’t far, he told himself. They would take Wren to the palace. They would explain the situation. And then he would do his best to get Hestia and Leander out of Pelias as quickly as possible. Because everything was going wrong; throw an Ilanthian into the mix and it would mean war.

Especially if that Ilanthian was Leander.