Page 41 of A Crown of Darkness
Whispered words of release in othertongue echoed around them and the ropes unravelled at his wrists and ankles.
He surged forward and she couldn’t move in time to stop him. He caught the back of her head in one hand and wrapped the other around her waist, sweeping her up and then lowering her to the ground beneath him. So there he was, hanging over her, still inside her. Slowly, he lifted his head, his expression dazed and wondering as it rose to take in the transformation of the chamber of sacrifice, and finally came to rest on her once more.
He smiled. Actually smiled. The tenderness of that look almost destroyed her.
‘Wren, what have you done?’
Slowly he withdrew and then took her hands, raising her to her feet. As they touched, she let her magic sweep through him to heal him and strengthen him. He almost dropped to his knees before her again, this time in deference, but she pressed her hand to his chest, stopping him.
‘That was both of us,’ she told him. ‘Not just me. And now, I think, it’s time to leave.’
‘They’ll be waiting for us. I can’t defend you like this.’
As if she needed defence. But she knew he would try all the same. He was her Paladin and there was nothing else he could do.
‘Not that way,’ she replied. ‘We aren’t going that way. Not now.’
Don’t go any deeper, Hestia had said. But that was then. And that was something she had told just Wren. Now, everything had changed. The Nox drew her deeper into the caves, to the dark and secret places long forgotten by anyone else. It would protect them, help them. That was what it had promised. And now she had nothing else to trust.
Without another word of explanation, Wren took his hands. Darkness closed around them as silent and as complete as the night itself and they vanished.
‘THE BALLAD OF THE LOST QUEEN’
He whispered words of love to her,
She took him to her bed.
But he it was who wore the crown.
Though he placed it on her head.
In the shadows still she weeps.
In the darkness she must wait.
The lost queen who was forsaken,
Is bound by Sidon’s fate.
CHAPTER 23
ROLAND
Roland watched their new companions. Something wasn’t right, there was something that didn’t ring true. There was no darkwood here, nothing to call the shadow kin in such numbers. They had seemed to focus entirely on him and the more he thought about it the more convinced he was. And this was before addressing all his other questions, about Vambray, Robin and Lark and whatever was going on at the College of Winter.
Reason argued that he was on edge and exhausted, that he was jumping at shadows – a thought which amused his bitter humour far more than it should really – that all would be explained once they had reached safety.
But Roland rarely put his trust in reason alone.
Elodie would know what to do, what to say to these people. She would charm them, or astound them with her abilities and her intellect. She would set the sky alight and they would beg to follow her.
Instead, there was just him. And he needed their help.
Led by the party from the College, the Paladins reached a ravine in the hillside and from there entered a tunnel. At least they were protected from the driving snow in here, though it didn’t seem to be any warmer than outside. The blindfolds wereremoved. The witches held up their hands and flames formed above their palms, lighting the way. Whether they were captives or guests was a moot point, Roland thought. They had no choice but to follow.
The College of Winter was a fortress embedded in the mountains and from the moment they stepped within its walls, Roland felt the itch of unchecked magic worrying at the back of his neck. It was everywhere, in everything. They used magic like breathing here.
That sense of wrongness persisted. It was in the way the witchkind looked at him as he passed. From every wall, from the corners of the courtyard where the horses were stabled, from windows and walkways overhead, they studied him.
