Page 26 of A Crown of Darkness

Elodie sank down, her body without strength, without hope, lost in the emptiness.

ON OLD MAGIC BY PALIGINAUS

When we consider old magic we think of it as something long ago broken and dispersed, but it still lingers. It finds its way through the world, sometimes in familiar faces, sometimes in new ones. Sometimes in the wind, the rocks and the water, seeping through cracks and empty crevices in our world. It is an unknowable thing.

Some may claim to understand it. They lie.

CHAPTER 14

ROLAND

The College of Winter lay deep in the harsh mountains of the north, and could only be approached by certain roads, many of them secret. With Robin and Lark accompanying them, the three knights made their way through the forest leading their horses. Light slanted through the tall pines which towered over them. Snow began to fall and by the time they left the cover of the trees, it was coming thick and fast, and Roland feared it would slow them down further. Robin was right. It was like the College didn’t want to be found.

Neither of their witchkind guides talked much, but then nor did Roland. Anselm tried to engage the children in conversation while they ate and sometimes while they travelled.

‘We should reach the College tomorrow,’ Olivier said as they camped for the night. Mercifully the snow had stopped but the wind was still bitterly cold as they set up shelters and huddled together by the fire. He was studying the maps he had brought with him, his expression still grave, as if they defied him somehow. He was trying not to make eye contact with Robin or Lark, Roland noticed, and never addressed them directly.

Lark seemed to find this intriguing. In fact Olivier was the one person she seemed drawn to, the one she wanted to talk to.It was clearly starting to get on Anselm’s nerves but then the young Lord Tarryn had always been protective of Arrenden.

Robin clapped his hands together and blew on them. Neither of the siblings were equipped with the heavy cloaks the knights had brought in their packs but the cold didn’t seem to affect them quite as much. Robin was quicksilver, always moving, always watchful. His long brown hair tumbled over his green eyes and he had wound a scarf around his neck as he hunkered close to the fire.

‘Is there a history of craft in your family?’ Lark asked Olivier.

Olivier just glared at her. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘A hedge witch, perhaps?’ Robin asked. They were like a pair of magpies harrying their prey. ‘Healers? Or even Maidens of the Aurum? You have the instincts for it, and you’re clearly sensitive to the tides of power in this world. Your sense of direction alone?—’

‘I know how to read maps, nothing more.’ Olivier got to his feet and stalked away to the edge of the clearing, the conversation finished. Roland frowned at Robin who just shrugged, entirely unrepentant.

‘Must you?’ Roland asked.

‘A man should be true to himself. Your knight is not.’

‘There is no knight more true,’ Anselm snapped, his voice unusually sharp. ‘You just delight in causing trouble. All witchkind do.’

He got to his feet and followed Olivier, muttering darkly under his breath.

‘Perhaps not all witchkind,’ Roland said. ‘But he isn’t wrong about you, is he? What do you want? Really?’

Lark rolled her shoulders back. ‘At the moment, something warm to eat and perhaps a steaming bath. As if…’ Robin laughed at her but gave no reply of his own.

Roland sighed, took off his own cloak and held it out. ‘I’ll thank you to stop needling my knights. They are tired and they have given up everything to this cause.’

Robin wrapped the two of them in the cloak and nodded his thanks, managing to look a little chastened at least. Meanwhile, Lark’s eyes alighted on the sword, strapped to Roland’s back.

‘Is that it? Nightbreaker?’ she asked. When Roland nodded she smiled, an expression both knowing and mischievous. ‘I always thought that was an interesting name for the sword of a Grandmaster of your order. How many knights has it broken, do you think?’

Roland shrugged. ‘Every Grandmaster who has carried it, I imagine. The name is no joke and the double meaning is intentional. Our role is not something to be taken on lightly. They say it carries part of the Aurum in it, like a Paladin. Chosen and blessed.’

‘And those two are both Paladins like you?’

‘Yes, I believe so.’

There was still a seed of light in each of them, but something else as well. Something Roland didn’t want to consider. Wren had put it there. It wasn’t darkness. Not quite. But he didn’t have a word for what it was.

Robin hummed to himself, warming his hands again. ‘What would they give to serve the light, do you think? What would you give?’

‘I’ve given everything,’ Roland told him bluntly.

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