Page 31 of A Kiss of Flame
The next morning Finn was gone.
It shouldn’t have hurt quite so much to wake up next to the space where he should have been and know that she wouldn’t see him today and that she didn’t know when she would see him again. Honour and duty made sure of that. They had made love, worshipped each other throughout the small hours of the night. He’d called out her name and she had whispered his. And now he was gone.
Wren dragged herself out of her bed far later than she should have, and made her way to the training yard where she was to meet her guards.
She was dressed now in a simple tunic and breeches instead of the gowns and dresses which had been forced on her since coming here. ‘You look more comfortable in yourself, my lady,’ Olivier Arrenden said.
It was the first time in weeks she had felt comfortable at all. And yet without Finn she felt like a hollow shell of what she had once been.
‘But not like a princess,’ she told him.
‘Always that.’ The tall, austere knight bowed gracefully. He was handsome but she wondered if he ever smiled. There was something terribly proper about him. A marked contrast to Anselm, who had that kind of open, honest face that had invited her to like him instantly from the first moment they met.
Where was Anselm? she wondered. She’d thought he would be here as well. The other guards were introduced but she barely noticed their names. Rude, she warned herself. She would have to make up for it later. Right now it didn’t matter, she would only be training with Olivier for the time being.
‘And within this square, you are Wren,’ Olivier told her. ‘Titles and honours will get in our way. We’re here to train in combat, not politics, not magic. And while we won’t hurt you, no one learns anything if there isn’t some effort put into training. Pull no punches, give no quarter. We will train like your life depends on it. Because it does.’
It sounded so solemn, like another vow binding them together. She wasn’t sure she liked Olivier Arrenden, but she respected him. He treated her like a person and called her by her name.
Without Finn, at least she had this.
And oh how she ached later on. Every muscle in her body, even ones she didn’t know she had, made its displeasure known by the time they finished. Wren was exhausted and longed to sleep but that was not to be.
Every second of her day was mapped out, it seemed. And that helped in a way. She still missed Finn, but time went by quickly.
In the afternoon, she made her way to the Sanctum where Maryn met her at the gates, shutting those guards who had accompanied her outside.
‘You’re here to learn focus and control,’ the Maiden of the Aurum told her. ‘You grab the power in the land like a greedy child. I’m going to teach you to be a surgeon. You need to control the magic in you, not allow it to control you.’
The afternoon was an interminable round after round of creating a glowing sphere, expanding it and then shrinking it down to nothing again, all the while listening to Maryn’s instructions and then mentally trying to adjust them so that they would work for her, while never letting on what she was doing. By the time that was done, her mind was as wretched and exhausted as her body. And while Maryn treated her as a student rather than a friend, it was still better than being a princess.
At least she got to see Elodie, even if only briefly. They sat together in the garden, where Elodie brushed her hair, and trimmed it, and whispered about memories and dreams. When Wren asked her about seeing Roland, what they had spoken of, Elodie smiled and changed the subject.
Wren didn’t mention Maryn’s suspicion that someone had tried to kill him. Perhaps she had told Elodie herself, or perhaps Roland had but she doubted that.
The time she and Elodie had was precious. They spent it on themselves and no one else. And somehow, after all the training of her body and her mind, even half an hour with Elodie soothed her and healed her.
Elodie didn’t mention Finn either. Perhaps she didn’t know. But, no. Even now, there was little Elodie didn’t know. Word came that Elodie had a visitor and Wren had to leave. She wondered if it was Roland and was surprised to find that she hoped it was. Because suddenly the thought of seeing anyone reunited with the person they loved was important.
She knew from Elodie’s reaction to the news that it had to be someone she loved. Even if she would not admit it anymore.
In the evening there was yet another banquet, another court event Wren tried to circumvent and escape. As before, when she couldn’t, she lingered as much in the background as she could and left at the first possible opportunity. She didn’t have Finn to shield her, to escape with. She didn’t have anyone.
Lynette was beside herself. ‘You can’t keep doing this,’ she said as she found Wren back in her rooms just after dark.
‘They don’t even need me there,’ Wren protested. ‘All they do is stare anyway.’
‘That’s because they don’t know you. Befriend some of them. It isn’t hard.’
Easy for Lynette to say. Wren had never done anything like that. She’d grown up with only Elodie for company, and the children of the village had hardly been what you might call friends.
She had never felt so lost as the days slid by, each one the same.
Lynette had picked out a ballgown which was more ornate and ostentatious than anything so far. Wren stared at it in abject horror as they dragged it over her body and she stepped out from behind the screen to see herself in the large mirror which had been hauled in along with all the other paraphernalia which was part and parcel of this nightmare. The gown was scarlet trimmed with gold, layer upon layer of silk and lace which hardly seemed to cover her properly at all. It hugged her waist and slid off her shoulders, and there was far too much of it around her feet.
‘I can’t wear this,’ she said.
‘This ball will be the most formal event of the season, Wren,’ Lynette told her, threading her fingers through Wren’s dark hair as if she might make it longer through sheer will alone. ‘Of any season. You can’t turn up in something plain. Or in those breeches you love so much.’
