Page 1 of A Crown of Darkness

PROLOGUE

ELODIE

All Elodie’s life had been mapped out for her, its course rigid, unwavering, absolute.

She knelt before the flames and bowed her head, trying to focus and run through everything exactly as she had been told. Reach out to the Aurum, offer up yourself, your heart, your soul.

‘All who walk this path walk upon a knife’s edge.’

The words of her ancestor Aelyn rang through her head and they were forever true.

This was the first step. She was Chosen, they said. But she was also fifteen years old. Just fifteen and already she had no future.

She thought of the boy in the kitchens. He was a year older than her and he was a newly made knight. His kit was old and clearly repurposed. It might have belonged to his father, or an uncle. Or even his grandfather. The light alone knew, the Knights of the Aurum never changed.

But he was kind. And gentle. And he had the loveliest eyes, dark and deep. And that smile, a rare and precious blessing. She might have chosen a man like that herself, if she was ever given a choice. But that, too, was impossible. Still, she could dream.

He hadn’t known who she was and she had liked that. Roland, he said his name was. And he blushed.

‘You’ve left it far too late,’ Aunt Ylena sniped at her mother from just a little distance away, beyond the ring of white stones around the Aurum’s flame, where they stood watching her, as still and austere as the unmoving statues of their ancestors encircling the chamber. ‘This should have been done years ago and you know it.’

Elodie’s mother laughed. ‘She’s just a child, Ylena. Don’t wish her life away.’

‘She should have already made her formal vows to the Aurum, not this playacting. She should be married. She’s your only heir, and the line must continue. If you’d put aside?—’

‘Enough,’ Aelenor snapped, and all the good humour was gone. They were forever at her to set Elodie’s father aside and take another husband – because Jonquil had not given her another child – but Aelenor would never do that. It wouldn’t make any difference, she had told him, when Elodie’s beloved father had begged her to listen to her advisors. And that was that.

‘She is to be queen. I would have thought you would understand that.’

‘I want her to at least have what I have, Ylena.’

Love. She wanted her daughter to know love. And Elodie did, perhaps. Or the first stirring of it. She had looked at Roland and something in her mind had said, quite clearly,He’s mine.

She would just have to persuade him of that. Because once her bodyguards had finally found her – safe and unharmed, of course, just talking to him in the kitchens by firelight – he had been horrified. He’d dropped to his knees, begging her forgiveness. And the spell of anonymity had been broken.

‘She must marry. We need this alliance, or there will be a war.’

A cold shadow passed down Elodie’s back, like a whisper of winter. Marry? Who did Aunt Ylena want her to marry?

‘I notice you bring this up when your own child has taken the vows of a maiden.’ Aelenor’s tone was scathing.

‘That was hardly my choice. Maryn is headstrong. Almost as bad as her.’

Her. Elodie smiled a little. They couldn’t see anyway, and wouldn’t be looking if they could. She was communing with the flames of the Aurum, or was meant to be, but the Aurum rarely responded to her anyway. They weren’t exactly chatty at the best of times. The holy fire was distant and silent but one day she knew she would channel it and speak with its voice and divine its will. Like her mother did as queen and Chosen.

Maryn would have been so much better at this than she was. But Maryn was the daughter of the second-born princess royal, not the queen. A cousin, not an heir or an equal. Not Aelenor’s daughter. Everyone was fond of reminding both of them of that. And Maryn knew her mother of old. She and Elodie were like sisters more than cousins. And now Maryn wasn’t here. She’d joined the Maidens of the Aurum, where her magical abilities could be put to the best service of the kingdom. Mainly, Elodie thought, to escape the machinations of her own mother. Lady Ylena, princess royal of Asteroth.

Elodie tried to focus again. Maryn could do this. The flames danced for her, grew bright and blinding when she approached. Perhaps Maryn should have been chosen and not her. Perhaps…

There was no good in wishing for things which could not be. Like freedom. Like Roland.

Light and dark, flames and shadows, Elodie’s whole life was divided into what was allowed and what was not allowed. She suspected the country knight in the kitchens fell very much into the not allowed category. Oh, but she wanted him.

‘I’m not sure Evander of Ilanthus is…’ her mother paused, picking her words carefully, ‘an ideal match.’

‘But he is the best hope of peace. And we can ensure his cooperation.’

Aelenor sighed. ‘There’s no need for that, surely. It’s…distasteful. No, there’s time yet. The Aurum will guide us. She’ll know when she sees him.’

---