Page 89 of A Kiss of Flame

She nodded as bravely as she could manage. If Roland thought she was brave, she could be brave. She had to be.

‘You aren’t my father, are you?’ she asked, and she couldn’t keep the heartbreak from her voice.

That made him pause. He glanced down at her and suddenly he wore that grim smile. It meant so much to her. More than she had realised. ‘Elodie said that the Nox formed you based on her dreams, her wishes, on what the two of us once had. It reached into her heart and took what it found there. So I am your father in every way that counts. Just as she is your mother. Always remember that. Finnian?’

‘Here, Grandmaster.’

And there he was, by Wren’s side again. She didn’t know where he’d brought Leander. Outside the chamber somewhere, hidden, she hoped.

‘You need to get Wren out of Pelias. As far away from the Aurum, and the regents’ council, and the queen, as you can. Understand?’

Finn stared at him as if he had lost his mind. ‘Are you telling me to?—?’

‘You know what to do, your highness. I believe you have the means. On my mark.’

Roland raised Nightbreaker and stepped straight into the full force of Elodie’s magic.

CHAPTER 47

WREN

Wren screamed as the light of the Aurum licked around her father like the white-hot flames of a forge. But Roland stood there, unmoved, holding his sword in front of him, legs braced against the onslaught.

‘Elodie,’ Roland called again. ‘Elodie listen!’

Something flickered in the flood of power, in that blinding light, a candle flame in the inferno. Elodie seemed to hesitate, as if she recognised him. As if for a moment she might be herself again.

‘Now, Wren,’ Finn said, and took her hand in his, ready to run as his guardian had ordered.

But she couldn’t.

They were her family, Roland said, in every way that counted. Elodie had always been there for her. Always.

Wren couldn’t abandon her now. She reached out with everything she had in her, light and dark, all her emotions and everything she ever owed to the woman who had saved her and raised her and taught her to be herself.

All her love.

But even as she did so, she knew she had made a terrible mistake.

Oh Elodie stopped. And Elodie stared. Her arms fell to her sides and her mouth moved, forming Wren’s name.

And then something else, something dark and terrible, something twisted and barbed, rose out of the shadows in the corners of the room, grew from the gaps between the stones and dropped from the rafters on black-feathered wings of darkness. All of it focused on Elodie. All of it tearing through the pitiful remains of her defences.

She stood against it for a moment, her expression horrified, betrayed.

And then she fell.

The light of the Aurum flickered and died. Roland and the knights shuddered, and dropped like stones to the Sacrum floor.

Wren cried out her name and tried to run to Elodie. She had to reach her, had to help her.

Finn grabbed her and pulled her back, dragging her through the doorway to a small antechamber on the other side. Leander lay in the middle of the floor, still convulsing, holding his stomach, his face a mask of agony as he bled out.

The door slammed shut and Hestia barred it.

Suddenly everything went quiet. Far too quiet.

‘Let me go!’ Wren yelled, and reached out for the shadows which clustered around her. They were the only weapon she had, the only way she could tear herself free.