Page 13 of A Crown of Darkness
‘What you are suggesting is an act of war,’ Hestia protested. ‘He is a prince of Ilanthus. He was injured beneath your roof, under a truce, by one of your servants. Right here. This goes against every tenet of the Pact.’
But Ylena just tilted her head to one side as if looking at a recalcitrant child. ‘You think we are not already at war, Lady Hestia? That witchkind chit was no servant of mine. More likelyshe belonged to your kind. I never took you for a fool, but you came here on a fool’s errand so perhaps I misjudged. Know this, I will send that boy back to his father in pieces if needs be. I will know what you did with the princess and I will know now.’
They could tell her, Finn thought, but she really wouldn’t like it. And killing him would only…
‘Then you do my father’s work for him,’ he said in what he hoped was the same arrogant tone Leander would use. He knew it far too well. ‘You’ll rid him of a failure of a son, clear the way for Finnian Ward to be his heir, and give them all the war of vengeance they have longed for. All in one go. Well done, Lady Ylena. How long do you think they have been planning this? Asteroth will be razed to the ground and the earth sown with salt. Look around you. You no longer have the Aurum to protect you. And my father has been gathering his forces for years, waiting for his moment. Do not hand it to him on a platter.’
Lady Ylena’s eyes narrowed and he knew he’d scored a point or two there. Not that it truly mattered. Not to her. It was probably a mistake. He was good at them.
‘Take him away,’ she snarled.
Hestia cried out something, words in othertongue that made his skin crawl.
His gaze went unerringly to Maryn. The Maiden of the Aurum trembled, her hands clenched into fists at her sides as she struggled to channel what power she still could. With the Aurum asleep, she was also scraping away at her reserves. For him, for Hestia.
‘Go,’ she told him, her voice strained. ‘Quickly. Both of you. Hestia, you know what to do. I give you the strength, by my vow, what magic I can. It’s old magic but all I can offer.’
Before Finn knew what was happening Hestia seized him in her arms. Pain and exertion lined her face as she drew on those fragments of magic she could glean from the world aroundthem, old magic of stone and silence, long forgotten and alien to her. Maryn had woken it and now Hestia used it, trying to transmute its poison into some kind of power. Shadows spilled out all around them, twisting around their bodies, and Finn felt the light inside him flicker wildly. Pain lanced in its wake as the dark magic threaded through Leander’s body fought against it. This wasn’t possible, he wanted to say, not here in the Sanctum, not here in the heart of Pelias.
A travelling spell, one woven of a magic both familiar and entirely different to the light or shadows Finn had felt before, coalesced through them.
Hestia screamed in pain as it burrowed through her, tearing at the shadows of her own power and pulling it apart. It was vicious and determined, and Finn felt it wind around them, the light in his mind and the darkness in Leander’s body screaming at its touch. But it was strong, this old magic, stronger than it should ever be, choking the powers innate in him and in Hestia, as it swept the two of them away.
‘CHOSEN PATHS’, FROM GUIDANCE ON MAGIC BY LIVIA, MAIDEN OF THE AURUM
We know of magic of light and dark, and that of the wild which is all but lost to us. We study and align ourselves with one or the other and sink ourselves into its nature so that it becomes a part of us. We breathe it, and it nourishes us, the magic of our chosen path.
Attempting to use the other is like trying to breathe underwater, or a fish drowning in air. A Maiden of the Aurum reaching for the Nox, or a member of the sisterhood channelling the Aurum, is pouring a poison into her soul.
And using the magic of the wild, that old magic, if it can be found, that way lies madness. It may steal all that you are and leave a hollow shell. It may steal your heart and your mind and leave behind a wild beast. It may make you, briefly, stronger than ever before, until it leaves like the fickle creature it is, and takes all you are with it.
But in the end the result is always the same. Giving yourself over to old magic is folly.
CHAPTER 7
ELODIE
The light burned and blistered. It never wavered, but beat down on her, relentless and uncaring. Elodie had never been afraid of the Aurum before but now…now she barely knew it. It was everywhere, all-encompassing, her entire world, her whole existence and it would never stop.
That was what it told her.
Over and over again.
And she ought to be no more in that light. She ought to be burned away.
But something small and stubborn, something that was so fundamentally the core of Elodie, clung on.
Not Queen Aeryn of Asteroth. Nor yet the Chosen.
Just Elodie.
The woman who had loved Roland and given him up for the sake of her kingdom. The woman who had raised a child and seen past her origins to make her a good and strong person in her own right. A hedge witch. A healer.
Slowly, she tried to uncurl.
‘I will not be destroyed. I will not give in. I still have a purpose.’
Something laughed. Something bright and terrible.
