Page 72 of A Crown of Darkness

‘She’s strong,’ the woman replied, with not a little pride in her voice. ‘But she can’t fight it forever. The shadow kin poison in her and the bindings will wear her down.’

‘I need my queen at my side. You promised you could do it.’

‘And I will, your majesty. You have the crown and you will have your queen. When you face the Aurum together, everything will be as you wish. Just a little longer. She is still too strong. She will fight it.’

‘Don’t fail me like Oriole did. Whatever sad little ritual you need to perform needs to happen soon. We can’t hold this wretched city for long without her. Your council may be abject cowards but there are others with more fight in them. We need to stamp out their hope and she’s the key. I have the crown. I just need the head to put it on. Make her cooperate. He’s almost here.’

And then he was gone again. He didn’t even bother to address Wren directly. She didn’t matter anymore. She was just a piece in a game, a queen, but queens were only there to be used in service of a king.

I have the crown…

But Laurence had the crown, Wren thought with a sob. What had happened back there? How long had it been? She’d seen Roland fall but Finn had been there, Finn like a blazing fire in human form, so unbearably beautiful to look on that it made her heart break to see what she had made of him. But at least he had been there. He would save Roland, wouldn’t he? He had to.

Laurence was just a boy, thrust into an impossible quest. He wouldn’t have stood a chance in a shadow kin attack, or an ambush. With the knights distracted, shadow kin could have taken him and the crown as easily as they took her.

She’d got this all so wrong.

The woman tending her lifted a goblet to Wren’s parched lips. ‘There now, take a drink, my dear. You need to stop fighting. It’s too late anyway. This will help. Just drink deeply and forget, Wren. Become the queen you were always meant to be and it will all be over soon.’ She leaned in closer, her whisper turning conspiratorial, the whisper of a friend,one she desperately needed to hear. But the words were no comfort. ‘Once you’re crowned, we’ll teach them all. Especially that upstart king. You and I, my dear, we will make him beg forgiveness.’

The liquid burned like molten metal down her throat and Wren swallowed reflexively before she even realised what she was doing.

Too late, the world started sliding into darkness again, a darkness which rose like a tide around her, and this time she couldn’t fight it. She had no strength left.

And now we come to the end of it, said the Nox, its voice like a breeze, blowing away the cobwebs of hesitation and doubt in her mind.Those who would make us slaves will learn. Once we are crowned, we will teach them all. We will show them the queen they forsook, the goddess they trapped, and then they will pay.

Wren tried to hold on, tried to burrow down deep inside herself to hide, but the darkness followed her and found her there.

Finn would come for her, she tried to tell herself. He would always come. Her Finn, her love, he would rescue her. He would come.

She didn’t know if she said it out loud or just screamed it in the depths of her own failing consciousness. It didn’t seem to matter.

‘Of course he will,’ said Lynette.

Lynette? How was Lynette here? And what was she doing?

Wren’s eyes snapped open to look into the face of the woman caring for her, the woman who had always been there from the moment she had been taken to Knightsford, who had tried to take Elodie’s place in her life.

‘Shh,’ Lynette cooed. ‘All will be well. It’s the only way, Wren. Just a little longer, my love, and you’ll free us all.’

Was this some kind of trick? Some kind of ruse to stop Leander? It had to be. Lynette was her friend. She’d always been on Wren’s side.

‘Lynette? What’s happening? What are you doing?’ The words wouldn’t form properly. Her lips felt parched and swollen at the same time. Her throat closed as she tried to speak. Her body was no longer her own. Whether she succumbed to the potion or the poison or something else entirely, something inevitable that had just been waiting all this time, she couldn’t fight any more.

Instead, she felt the Nox fill her, pushing her back into that tiny knot of a place deep inside her, into the darkness and the cold where she could do nothing at all.

‘Don’t fight,’ Lynette urged her, lifting Wren’s fingers to her lips and kissing them. ‘Let go. It has to be this way. For witchkind. You’ll understand soon enough. You can do this, Wren. I believe in you. Trust me.’

HERANDAL’S THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF SIDON

There are conflicting reports of the fall of Pelias to this day. In some, the knights were taken unawares. In others the regents’ council ordered the gates to be opened. Yvain of Goalais, sometimes named traitor and sometimes named the Scapegoat, is often blamed for the failure of the knights to defend the city. Whatever happened on that fateful day, one thing is clear, Pelias was betrayed from within, at the highest level. The city guard could not defend against such a force and hundreds died in the attempt.

It should have been King Leander’s moment of triumph.

CHAPTER 41

FINN

Finn was keenly aware that Robin and Lark were still watching them like a pair of wild animals sensing danger. He couldn’t tell if they were afraid or all too eager. The forest seemed to stir around them and when Robin hissed at his sister to stop, it stilled again. A seer and a witch who could affect the natural world, running wild and unschooled…that was what had come of rejecting witchkind. The short-sightedness of it rankled.

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