Page 6 of A Crown of Darkness

‘Sleep now,’ he told her and she realised he had drugged the wine again. Of course he had. It could hardly be a surprise at this stage. He needed her to be compliant. And whenever it wore off, she would try to escape again.

One day, she promised herself… One day she would make it out. No matter how long that took.

Her body grew heavy and sleep crept up around her like shadows. She curled into his arms and let it take her.

It was easier than fighting. That was all she did, every day, internally and externally. Fighting against him, against the court of Ilanthus and what it would make of her, of the terrible desire that rose within her and threatened to overwhelm her entirely. Against the power of the Nox which flowed in her veins. Against her memory of a love she had thought pure and true, and endless.

Because no matter what happened, she was not going to give in.

She couldn’t give up hope, no matter how he tried to trick her, seduce her or steal it from her.

As her exhaustion took her, Finn buried his face in her hair, breathed in her scent and gathered her close. His voice was the faintest whisper on the edges of her dreams.

‘You can’t keep doing this to yourself, Wren. Sooner or later, you’ll accept it, accept me, and become who you have to be here. Otherwise my father will lose his patience and when that happens, it will be so much worse. You realise that, don’t you? You must accept it, willingly. Please, just give in, little bird. Let go.’

HEDGE WITCH PROVERB

When you are lost, look for us in birdsong.

CHAPTER 3

ROLAND

Roland dreamed of Elodie that night. Like every other night. She was reaching out to him from a tangle of twisted briars formed of shadows, her pale arms torn to shreds by their thorns. And though he hacked at the seething mass with his blazing sword, he couldn’t free her. Even Nightbreaker had no effect on them. They kept growing, coiling around her and crushing her in their sharp embrace.

The earth of Asteroth drank down her blood and the land sang with its touch. Old magic hummed in the air, something far beyond either light or dark. And certainly beyond the two of them. It demanded more and more, sacrifice, blood, self-destruction.

He woke up swallowing down a scream of rage and loss before it could escape. They had camped last night in a patch of ragged woodland on the edge of the Great North Road. They had left Pelias and even Knightsford far behind them now. The land here was wild and uncaring, the mountains stooping over them. The road to the College of Winter should have been direct and easy but something kept turning them around, something not quite natural. They were not lost. He knew that. Olivier’s mapsshowed them the way. But they couldn’t find the path, or when they thought they had, it twisted in another way.

Olivier looked up from keeping watch, his back to the embers of their fire, but said nothing. Anselm slept on, a deep and dreamless sleep of a man with no regrets.

Boys, thought Roland wearily. They were just boys and he should never have allowed them to come with him.

But he had, and it was too late to send them back. Not to mention far too dangerous. Who knew what Lady Ylena and her pet councillors would do to them for freeing him.

If he tried, they would argue of course. They were good at that. Well, Anselm was. Quick and clever and oh so determined. And Olivier’s loyalty was beyond question. Where Anselm would argue, Olivier would just carry on, stubbornly, doing what he thought was right. That had not changed. They were in their twenties now, far from actual boyhood. But to him, they were still boys. Still the squires he had taken under his wing along with Finn, grateful that his ward had friends. Each in their own way in need of his protection, he had given it with his full heart, sure then that he would never have children of his own so lavishing that care on them instead. In his own way. He was still the Grandmaster of the Knights of the Aurum then and they were sworn to serve.

He lay back again, trying to calm his breath and his erratic heart, staring at the stars peering through the high canopy of leaves overhead.

He’d left her behind. Left her lying there helpless. He hadn’t even been able to say goodbye, not really. His Elodie, his love, his queen…

And if she did awaken would she call him a traitor as well? He’d stood against her when she had been consumed with the power of the Aurum, but he had done so in order to save Wrenfrom her wrath. Surely she would understand that. The Aurum itself might not, but Elodie would. She had to.

If she understood anything at all anymore. If she ever awoke.

No, he couldn’t think like that. He had given up on her once and she had come back to him. He had to keep believing. He would find a way to save her. Sister Maryn of the Maidens of the Aurum believed an answer could be found in the College of Winter, and that was where he would go. He’d find a solution. Elodie would awaken and they would be together again.

But something dark and foreboding in the back of his mind taunted him with the thought that his life had never been simple and he didn’t deserve such blessings. He’d left her behind. Just as she had once left him.

He had to pray that the Aurum would protect her. He had to believe that. She had been locked deep in its power, and it was trapped inside her. It needed her to survive. At least that was what Maryn had implied. He only hoped the maiden was right. She knew secrets of magic and the mysteries of the flames. She had to be right.

Trying to sleep was pointless now. It would be dawn soon. He roused himself again and got up.

‘Grandmaster?’ Olivier asked. No more than that but it was his way. The query was unspoken. What did he need? Was something wrong? What could Olivier do to help?

There was no way to answer. Roland wasn’t sure he even knew the answer anyway.

Nightbreaker, the great sword of the Grandmaster of the Knights of the Aurum, lay by his side, instead of the woman he loved, the queen to whom he had devoted his life even in her absence. He strapped it back against his body and felt the weight as something that belonged there. Part of him.

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