Page 27 of A Crown of Darkness

But Robin shook his head, his eyes gleaming in the firelight like emeralds, giving him a trickster cast, something just a little too other about him, as if something far older was looking out at Roland through those eyes. Lark snuggled in against her brother, watching in silence, just as keenly. ‘I don’t think so. Not yet anyway.’

They were witchkind, this strange pair. They lived free or died. Roland rather suspected more died than anyone knew. Some went to the College of Winter and that was that. And others…

He was suddenly ashamed to realise he had never questioned what happened to the others.

It felt like the edges of his world were slowly being chipped away and he did not like it one bit, the way the twins watched him, the things they said, and he felt a savage surge of shame and remorse.

‘Your queen was like us, for a while, when she was Elodie of Cellandre, a hedge witch. We knew of her. It gave us hope.’ Robin poked the fire with a stick, staring into it. After a moment it grew brighter, flames burning more merrily than before, and Roland narrowed his eyes, glaring at it.

He ought to ask about that, he thought, but the subject of Elodie was still heavy on his mind and he didn’t want to discuss it. Or that same shame and remorse. Perhaps they had turned from needling his knights to needling him. Testing him. Seeing what threads they could pull until he unravelled.

He laid his hand on the sheath holding Nightbreaker and forced his mind to calm. When he opened his eyes again, they were both watching him with that strange predatory intensity.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘The sword…tell us its story?’

Like children again. And yet, not quite. ‘It’s the sword of the Grandmaster of the Knights of the Aurum, forged in its flames by Aelyn the First. No blade had ever been Aurum-forged before. They say it has never failed a knight of true heart, and never will, that the Aurum goes with it and that the men who carry it will always be true.’

Robin nodded slowly to himself but Lark didn’t look so convinced. ‘There’s light in it, that’s true. But it can’t decide ifsomeone is true, or dictate who they are. That’s up to the men themselves, isn’t it? Are you true, Roland?’

Was he? He’d failed Elodie, left her behind, lost in that endless sleep. He was trying to find a way to help her, and Ylena wouldn’t have let him near her if he had stayed but…

Enough, Roland thought. This strange pair knew nothing about any of them. They were just prodding at weak points to get a reaction. He didn’t know why. For their own amusement, it seemed. He rose to his feet, intent on finding Olivier and Anselm. They should have been back already and the mountains were not safe to wander in. He’d tell them to ignore the witchkind and keep their own counsel from now on. Perhaps agreeing to have the twins as guides was a mistake but he couldn’t deny that they had taken a much quicker path to the College of Winter with them leading the way. A witchkind path, they had called it, but to Roland it looked like any other road through the forest. That said, he wasn’t so sure it was entirely natural. He wasn’t sure of anything anymore.

The trees pressed close around him as he passed, but up ahead he saw another clearing, one bathed in moonlight, where Anselm bent over Olivier, his face all concern.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Olivier was saying. He sat on the ground, his legs drawn up against his chest. ‘It was years ago.’

‘Of course it matters. He has no right to make such insinuations. If we didn’t need him I’d?—’

But Olivier looked up at Anselm, and his face held anguish. ‘He isn’t wrong though. And he’s just a boy and he’s had a hard life. He can’t help but be blunt. My family might have treated me like those children. And if I had not pledged myself to the Aurum, what would have become of me? They wouldn’t have kept me, not knowing that about me. It was the only way. Otherwise?—’

‘There is no otherwise. You gave up a birthright to the Aurum. You are where you’re meant to be, Olivier.’ Anselm dropped to his knees in front of his friend and pressed his gloved hand against Olivier’s face. ‘The two of us are.’

Olivier tried to smile, but the expression didn’t really take hold. ‘My parents would have something to say about that as well. Shameful, Anselm. That’s what we are.’

Anselm just shrugged. ‘So be it then. They can think what they want. But you and I? We’renotshameful. There is nothing wrong with this.’ He leaned in closer, his lips brushing Olivier’s, his fingers burying themselves in the other man’s hair.

It was a private moment, far too private. Roland withdrew, careful not to make a noise.

Olivier had a secret and Lark had come very close to the mark. Many of the knights said they gave something when they took their vows to the Aurum. Roland had never felt it himself but then Elodie had long ago told him he had the magical sensitivity of a large rock. But Dain had, so had Yvain. His fellow Paladins had felt the power of the Aurum in all things. Perhaps it was something they should have discussed more, but it always seemed to him a personal choice, like who to love, and none of his business. It didn’t make them less of a knight. But clearly Olivier was concerned.

Family expectations, and judgemental beliefs, could be damaging.

Men called to knighthood had to give up anything magical to the Aurum. Was that what Olivier meant? It had clearly not been an easy choice, and he felt he had been given no choice at all. Which was wrong.

Tomorrow, Roland thought, he would find some way to reassure the young knight, hopefully without revealing what he had seen and heard here. But Lark had been right in one thing.

It was up to a man, or a woman, to decide who they were, and whether they were true.

Snow began to fall again and the wind was rising. Roland returned to their camp to find the witchkind twins on their feet, on the far side of the fire, facing the darkness beyond. They were watching something, something Roland could not yet see.

‘Roland?’ Lark whispered, and all the bravado was gone from her. She was focused, but not afraid, intense. ‘Draw your sword. Quietly, carefully.’

There was an edge to her voice that made Roland obey, slowly and smoothly slipping Nightbreaker free. A soft glow illuminated the blade, neither firelight nor moonlight, but something else entirely. The horses stirred nervously, whinnying in growing alarm, and Roland felt the skin tighten across the back of his shoulders, the hairs rising. He knew this feeling. Knew it far too well.

Shadow kin threaded through the trees towards him, like sharks scenting blood.

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