Page 85 of A Kiss of Flame

Roland half-shrugged his shoulders. ‘What’s left of him. Perhaps.’

Finn thought back to the shadow kin in the keep of Castel Sassone and tried not to glance at Anselm. No telling what he thought, or what he might have to say on the subject. They both knew what Wren had done there.

‘And his conspirators?’ she asked in a voice that could have come from the wintry wastes. Roland shook his head.

Elodie turned her attention on the group from the embassy. Her tone didn’t change. The fearful authority that threaded through her words made it even worse.

‘Bring them to the Sacrum. Let them face the fire of the Aurum and speak truth whether they like it or not.’

‘Your majesty!’ Hestia cried out in protest. ‘We have nothing to do with this. Prince Finnian brought the princess to us for safety. That was all.’

‘Did he?’ Elodie’s voice was so cold and Finn felt something inside him tighten in fear. She had once defeated him without so much as breaking a sweat, without drawing a weapon, with no more than a handful of dust. It had been humiliating then and he still felt the sensations of that cloying dust in his mouth and nose as his consciousness had slipped away. She had almost killed Leander in a swordfight. In the Sacrum Finn had seen her at her full power, channelling the Aurum, bright and terrifying as any nightmare spun for wayward Ilanthian children. If she thought his people were to blame for even the slightest part of this coup, they were in trouble. If she thought it was his fault…

Wren straightened, said something soft and low, and confusion flickered over Elodie’s beautiful face. Her gaze strayed to Finn, bored into him as if seeking confirmation. He held himself still and strong, as if he could convince her of his faithfulness by appearance alone. Elodie’s eyes narrowed.

‘Very well.’ Her voice had gentled. It was barely perceptible, but it was there. He could feel it. The gratitude that she believed in him should not have felt quite so much like relief. ‘We will get to the bottom of this. Come, Prince Finnian, Prince Leander. And Lady Hestia.’

Finn didn’t like to say what might have happened if she had tried to separate Hestia from them right now. She, too, was witchkind, and very high in the Sisterhood of the Nox. Perhaps she was even a match for Elodie, had their goddess not been broken and scattered. And she had Leander’s keeping. He might be a monster, and she might be controlling his magic with the bracelet, but she was also responsible for him. And if anything happened to him, Alessander would make her suffer indeed. Worse, he would take it out on her son as well. Finn’s father made Leander look like a saint. And Gaius had taken Laurence with him, not through any altruistic motive. He was a bargaining chip, an offering. Hestia had to know that too.

Elodie’s use of Finn’s title, and giving him precedence over Leander, didn’t bode well at all. His heart felt like something had speared it, something cold and dark indeed. He could almost hear the taunting laughter of the Nox. He’d always been an Ilanthian here.

As they stepped into the cool interior of the keep, he felt Wren take his hand. He hadn’t even seen her lingering in the shadows beyond the door

‘Are you all right? They didn’t hurt you?’

He shook his head. He didn’t even know what to say to her.

‘Will Hestia and Leander tell them you’re to be king?’ she whispered, as if she didn’t dare to say it any louder.

He didn’t want to say it out loud himself.

‘My family lies as soon as they breathe,’ he replied. ‘I don’t know what they’re planning, none of them. This could all be another trick. Never trust them. I mean it, Wren. Don’t ever trust anyone from my family. It will only end in misery.’

She wrapped her arm around his and pulled him closer, folding in against him, warm and intoxicating. Perhaps she meant it to be a comfort, but it reminded him of the way he lost himself in her, in his desire for her, and in the ingrained need to do whatever she asked of him without question.

It reminded him that he was destined to serve the Nox, no matter how much he struggled against that fate, and the pendant around his neck felt heavy.

With Wren so close, the darkness teased at the back of his mind, and he thought he heard a ripple of laughter.

Laughing at him.

Will you bring her misery, little king-in-waiting? Oh how we long to see it. In her despair she will embrace her darkness and then we will be whole again. By all means, break her heart.

He sucked in a breath of alarm and she pulled back to look at his face, confused.

Where had that come from? It had sounded like the Nox but that dark power couldn’t be here. Not right in the heart of Pelias.

The doors to the chamber of the Aurum closed behind him, the sound echoing in the high-ceilinged room hewn from white stone, lit by its flickering light, and the dark whisper was cut off.

He could feel the light in his veins, pulsing inside him, calling to him, as if an invisible string drew him forward. He longed to drop to his knees before the flames and proclaim his faithfulness to it. To at last have it accept him as a Paladin, as its servant.

And yet something else held him in place. Wren. And what Hestia had told him of the future.

‘Someone,’ said Elodie in that voice like the north wind, ‘needs to explain the meaning of all of this to me right now.’

CHAPTER 45

ELODIE