Page 11 of A Crown of Darkness
Hestia drew herself up to her full height. ‘I will in a heartbeat. I’ll tell you whatever I can.’
Maryn’s eyes flicked over her face, tracked over to Finn, and then back to Hestia. ‘Well, you’ve changed your tune. That’s interesting. Bring them both.’
The body in which Finn found himself was still weak and he hurt everywhere, but that didn’t matter to the guards who manhandled him up to his feet and dragged him from the cell.
Hestia followed, walking independently but entirely surrounded, and behind her Sister Maryn swept along like a ghost. Anger came off the woman in waves.
This was not good. Not at all. Maryn loved Elodie, he knew that. Apart from Lady Ylena she was the only blood relative the queen had left. She would do anything for her. And she was powerful, the most powerful of the Maidens of the Aurum.
Finn couldn’t quite catch his breath or still his swirling mind. What had happened and how? He’d been all set to take Wren to Sidonia, for her own safety. Once there he’d thought hewould be able to find time to think again, and work out what to do. But now…he was still in Pelias, in Leander’s body. And presumably…
A jolt of pure rage and betrayal shot through him. He tore himself free of the guards just for a moment and turned on Hestia – Maryn, the knights and their perilous situation forgotten.
‘How is this possible? Did you do this?’
His cousin shied back from whatever she saw in his face. And then the knights stepped in between them – Hector Uderon and Vasilly Grey. Finn’s mind filled in their names just before they closed on him, weapons raised. Finn ducked and rolled, moving instinctively in a body which protested every action. But it didn’t matter. He had to stop this, whatever was happening. He twisted around, assessing the situation in lightning speed. The guards had drawn swords and it only took two blows to take one. Poor Vasilly didn’t see him coming. The weight felt cool and familiar in his hand. It belonged there.
‘Stop!’ Hestia screamed, not at them, he realised, at him. But he couldn’t stop, not now. He would not be marched off to die in his brother’s stead. He would go down fighting first.
Because the only thing running through his mind was that, somewhere, Leander had Wren.
Light flared inside him, light so bright he felt it burning through him, acid in his veins and a migraine in his head. It brought him to his knees and when he was able to look up, Maryn was standing over him, her face fixed in a terrifying expression of interest.
‘What has happened to you?’ she asked. Her hands traced figures in the air around him, studying something he couldn’t see, and she glanced at Hestia. ‘Did you do this?’
‘No. As if I’d have the power here. You know that, of all people you know that.’
Hector seized Finn’s arm, hauling him to his feet, and this time Finn couldn’t fight him. His body felt like jelly and he couldn’t quite breathe.
‘Bring him,’ Maryn said. ‘Fetch the regent. Now. And you, Leander of Sidon, don’t try anything like that again.’
‘I’m not Leander—’ he began.
Maryn froze, staring at him in much the same way as Hestia had. ‘Then who or what in the name of the great light are you?’
‘I’m Finn,’ he whispered and the light surged through him again. Light and fire and the body housing him screamed at its touch.
CHAPTER 6
FINN
The chamber of the Aurum was strangely cold and dark. Someone had lit lanterns all around the edge but their light didn’t seem to penetrate as it should. In the centre, the bowl-like depression where the flames should have been was empty. Finn took all this in just before the knights let him go and he fell onto the marble. It was polished to a mirror sheen and in it he could see…
Long silvery hair, falling like silk around a thin, elegant face with high cheekbones, a strong jaw almost hidden by beard growth, and eyes so cold and heartless they looked like ice. He supported himself on his shaking arms, staring at Leander’s face, with Leander’s eyes, and knowing that it was him in there. Finally seeing the reality of it made the thunder of his heart drown out any other sounds at first. Nausea boiled in his stomach.
Hestia reached him first, her hand hooking under his chin to draw his attention up to her instead. She knelt in front of him like the mother he had never known.
‘Don’t look,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll work this out. There has to be a way?—’
‘And I would very much like to hear the explanation,’ Maryn cut in. ‘Or is this another Ilanthian trick?’
‘It’s not a trick,’ Finn said. The corners of his eyes stung but he would be damned if he would let tears fall at a time like this. Rage and fear and everything in between flooded him. ‘How? How is it possible?’
Hestia helped him to his feet. ‘The Paladin’s light is still in you, a part of your soul, but Leander’s body is rejecting it. Don’t try to draw on it again, understand me? It might kill you.’
Maryn was still watching but everyone else had gone now. She’d sent them away, he realised, because whatever was going on here was against every principle she knew and clearly no one wanted word getting out. He stood between Hestia Rayden, servant of the Nox, and Sister Maryn, the foremost Maiden of the Aurum, and neither of them knew what had happened to him any more than he did.
Maryn approached carefully. ‘Strange,’ she murmured, making Finn feel like some kind of experiment. ‘Do you see this?’
