Page 78 of A Crown of Darkness

The force slammed into Lynette’s face, knocking her head back as if punched. She slid to the ground at Yvain’s feet.

Snarling, she wiped her bloody nose and clawed her way up his leg. Elodie began to spin another defence, waiting for Lynette to turn that magic on her.

‘Yvain, kill them both,’ she commanded instead.

And Yvain of Goalais, poor, faithful, loyal Yvain, the perfect husband and perfect knight, shuddered, all emotion wiping from his features as he stepped forward, sword raised, a living, moving and deadly statue.

CHAPTER 44

ELODIE

Maryn tried to put herself between Elodie and the blow as Yvain bore down on them. Elodie twisted to one side and grabbed the goblet of water. There was old magic everywhere. She couldn’t just seize it as Lynette did. She needed its cooperation.

‘Help me now,’ she prayed to the water and the air and the stones, to the trees and the flowers, to the clouds above. ‘If ever we were friends. We had a bargain once for Wren’s safety and I need to save her now. Help me.’

She whispered into it, creating another charm until the water steamed and boiled. Without hesitation she flung it at the knight who reeled back for a moment and then, skin blistering, started forward again as if it hadn’t hurt him at all.

It wasn’t that it didn’t do him harm. It was that he couldn’t feel it. He couldn’t feel anything. What had Lynette done?

Hedge witch magic could only do so much but it was all Elodie had. She couldn’t free Yvain, not from so many enchantments woven over so many years. Maryn couldn’t reach the Aurum any more than she could and that was worry enough. But their danger was much more immediate as Yvain attacked again.

If only she had a sword. That would be something. He was much bigger and stronger than she was, but she was fast and skilled. She could hold him off for a little while, surely. Grabbing the platter from the table, she flung it at him.

Maryn tried to grab his arm and he flung her forward towards Elodie, right into the path of his sword.

Elodie launched herself forward to push Maryn away and her cousin cried out as she fell. It left Elodie entirely exposed and she knew in that moment she’d made her last mistake. He’d kill her. He wouldn’t even know he was doing it. Yvain was gone from the eyes that fixed on her.

With a shout, a dark figure dived through the open door, a sword in his hand no more than a blur of light. He moved faster than should have been possible, light suffusing his skin and every movement lethal.

In a moment, he was between them, blocking Yvain’s advance.

‘Elodie!’ Maryn gasped and her hands burst to incandescence as her lost magic wreathed her again. The light of the Aurum blazed through them both and for the first time Elodie saw fear enter Lynette’s eyes.

‘No, it’s not possible!’

But it was. Everything had changed. Elodie felt only a vague echo of the magic she had once channelled but Maryn raised a shield and then turned the full force of her fury on the treacherous witch. She had been putting up with far too much for far too long, trying to keep Elodie safe. She had compromised herself. She had been betrayed and seen her city betrayed. Everything she believed in had been betrayed. Her fury was terrible to behold.

Elodie turned to the knights, hoping against hope that the spell on Yvain could be broken.

The man battling Yvain was pleading with him, begging him to stop, to listen, to stand down. And Elodie knew that voice.

It was impossible but she knew that voice. She would know him anywhere.

But Roland was dead. She had seen him in that in-between place, and known all that meant. How was he here?

And if he was a ghost risen to defend her – she winced as Yvain got in a brutal blow which drove Roland back, almost winding him – he was in an entirely physical form.

But how had the Aurum come with him? It wasn’t in him, not more than in any other Paladin. And yet, he was here, her Paladin, her beloved! How?

Finn stepped through the doorway and she had her answer. If Roland glowed with the inner light of a Paladin, the boy was a beacon in human form. Everything in her, everything that she had ever learned and every instinct she had ever had about magic, wanted to drop to her knees before him.

Finn Ward. Finnian of Sidon…

It wasn’t possible. He was a man. He wasn’t of her lineage. He was Ilanthian.

But none of that seemed to matter anymore. The Aurum had chosen.

‘Hold,’ he said and the whole building trembled with his voice. ‘You are my knights. You swore to serve. We fight the Nox with fire and flame, not each other. You made vows to me, and to the queen. So hold. I command it.’

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