Page 87 of A Kiss of Flame
‘Please, I… I must speak with the queen.’ She stumbled forward, her eyes wide, pupils so dilated they filled her sockets with pools of darkness. Her body trembled, skin shivering, gleaming with a sheen of sweat as she struggled against something unnatural. It wasn’t right, Elodie realised. There was something wrong with her, something crawling within her. She moved like a marionette. Otherness surrounded her, grey and nebulous, strands of light and dark magic twisted together in unnatural knots.
And Wren was still standing directly in front of her.
The maid stopped, and then reached out a shaking hand. ‘Please, princess,’ she whispered. ‘Please move aside. You’ve been kind to me and I… I don’t want… please…’
Wren reached for her and a long-honed instinct made Elodie react, ready to lash out with her power before the servant could touch her daughter. As the air crackled between them, she felt others respond as well, Hestia raising a shield around both her princes, Roland and his Paladins surging forward in response to her, and Wren…
Wren reached out to Carlotta, for the only real friend she had made here.
Tears streamed down the other young woman’s face. It made her look much younger, no more than a child. A lost child. Her mouth moved. ‘She made me. I’m sorry, Wren. She made me.’
Her voice sounded ragged and desperate, broken, as if her own words were being forced out under great duress.
She was fighting a magical compulsion. Elodie could see the threads of magic woven around her. She was witchkind, young, vulnerable, compelled to do something against her nature and her will and fast losing that battle… and no one would be able to stop her in time.
Carlotta’s fingers touched Wren’s, a look of anguish on her features. She said something, something which made Wren’s expression turn from confusion to horror. Wren tried to pull away, but it was too late.
Carlotta drew a knife, a long blade like a silver leaf reflecting the light of the Aurum, and pulled Wren against her, a hostage… or bait.
The princes of Sidon were here as well, along with a high priestess of the Nox.
And Wren was in mortal danger.
Finn threw himself towards her, heedless of the threat, desperate to stop the serving girl from hurting Wren. Because of course he did. What else could he do? But he wasn’t alone.
Leander reached her first, nearer and faster to begin with, and Carlotta buried the knife up to its hilt in his guts. The prince staggered back in shock, so that the servant wrenched the knife free again. Blood spilled everywhere. The blood of Sidon.
Come, oh divine darkness and be made whole once again.
The shadows stirred, the Nox coalescing, and through Elodie, already on alert, the Aurum answered without hesitation.
CHAPTER 46
WREN
Carlotta’s eyes – huge and unnaturally dark – held her gaze and from somewhere Wren heard the laughter of the Nox. It was everywhere, all around her, inside her, thundering with her blood.
‘I’m sorry, Wren,’ Carlotta whispered, silver tears scoring lines down her face. ‘I didn’t mean to… I didn’t want to… I couldn’t stop her…’ Her eyes glazed and another voice came from her mouth, one familiar and strange at the same time. It snarled and growled the words and all Wren could hear was its vindictive tones, echoing through her head.
We are witchkind. We will live free or we die.
Magic boiled up through Carlotta’s frail body, lines of lightning crackled across her skin, dancing and dispersing into the servant’s form. Carlotta wasn’t doing this. She couldn’t.
She turned the knife on herself, the razor-sharp edge sliding across her throat without hesitation. Blood spilled down her front and she crumpled like a pile of rags.
But Carlotta’s blood, while that of a witch, while spilled against her will, didn’t matter. Not now.
Leander’s blood, on the other hand, blood of a prince of Ilanthus, blood of Sidon…
It pulled power out of Wren as if she was nothing but a well. This wasn’t the balance Hestia had spoken off. There was no breathing her way through it. This was more than a summoning. This was an assault.
Wren flung up her hands, trying to draw her power around her to protect herself. She didn’t mean to call on the shadows but they always answered first in her time of need. They were always eager to help her. Shadow kin answered her, so many.
Instantly, light blasted through her defences, sending her sprawling backwards. For a moment she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t draw in any more air. Everything hurt. Everywhere.
‘Wren!’
Hestia grabbed her, held her close, frantically trying to control the magic running rampant through the girl, to fix it back in its division of light and dark. She grabbed Wren’s arms and pulled her to her feet, dragging her to one side as blinding light erupted where she had been only moments before.