Winter Glass (Spindle Fire #2)(60)

Never mind finding the prince. She dashes past a cart full of unclaimed armor and manages to pull a breastplate and helmet from the stack. She doesn’t slow down to think long about where this armor came from—it is not fresh. It was, perhaps, worn by another soldier, now dead.

Hastily, she stows away into her rooms to prepare—tucking her hair beneath the helmet and adding padding beneath the armor to better secure it, testing to make sure she can still move with ease.

A horn sounds from somewhere beyond the wall, and then another. Fear trills through her—and something else, something she doesn’t want to name. She thinks of Malfleur, wiping blood from her mouth.

She grabs a sword.

Then she heaves a deep breath, swings open her door, and takes the stairs two at a time, flying downward in a swirl of angry metal and the burning need for action. This is the effect of Malfleur’s dark magic still in her veins, she knows. She cannot help but need to move, to do something. Her blood is like a fire ravaging a field of dry weeds.

But before she reaches the next landing, a hooded figure slips from the shadows and reaches out to grip Aurora’s wrist, startling her into losing her balance. The sword slips from her hand. The intruder quickly and expertly twists Aurora’s arm, causing her to stumble to her knees. In the unlit stairwell she cannot see the person’s face—a teen, not much older than her, judging by the figure’s build, and he moves awkwardly, as though inexperienced in a fight. Whoever her attacker is, he has underestimated the princess’s strength.

Anger laced with magic surges up in her blood, and Aurora manages to flip her opponent onto his stomach on the stairs. The figure pushes upward and back, bucking her off, and Aurora grabs one of his legs so that he cannot kick, then stiffens her other hand to swing at his neck. But he rears his covered head, causing both of them to lose their balance on the stairs and tumble, over and over each other, down to the next landing. Aurora fumbles for the extra blade hidden in her boot, but the figure—not very heavy at all, perhaps only a child?—is lying on top of her. She can feel his weight, feel bruises forming from the fall.

As she wriggles free, she yanks the hood off the figure.

Not a child. A woman.

Wren.

Aurora gasps, scrambling backward to the wall. “No,” she murmurs. Then, realizing her voice is back, it comes more confidently. “No, Wren. I won’t fight with you. Not again. I can’t.”

She sees now that Wren is heaving ragged breaths. Their tussle wore her out, and in the darkness, Aurora thinks she can see how flushed Wren’s cheeks are from the exertion.

Her pulse leaps, no longer roused to defend herself but because of Wren’s nearness, the heat of her body where it clashed with hers. She can feel everything now. The pain in her back and knees. The tension in her shoulders, the twisting apprehension in her gut. The prickling along her skin. Wren’s eyes look shocked and scared, but suddenly a smile tears across her face, in a flash of white teeth. “I’m not here to fight with you. I’m here to stop you from fighting.”

“What?” Excitement, relief, and confusion battle for space in Aurora’s head. “Why?”

“The kingdom needs you, Princess.”

Aurora huffs. “Deluce needs every bit of muscle and blade it can get.”

She doesn’t know what Wren is doing here, how she made it back, or why the change of heart. She longs to reconnect with her, and even seeing her has caused some of that sinister magic pulsing within her to subside, and soften. But as the clamor outside only grows, Aurora’s more certain than ever that she is needed, not here with Wren, but out there, where flaming arrows have begun to breech the parapets, where the foot soldiers have gathered behind the drawbridge, at the ready.

She stands up and attempts to push past Wren.

But Wren places her hands on Aurora’s shoulders to stop her.

“You can’t keep me from helping.”

“Yes, I can,” she says, with that quiet confidence Aurora has always found unnerving—and thrilling.

“I’m stronger than you are.” The statement comes out like a dare. The return of her voice has gone to her head, and quickly.

“That may be so, but I know something you don’t know. You may be the only person who can stop Malfleur.”

Aurora stares at her, uncomprehending. “What do you mean?”

Wren swallows, and for the first time since accosting her in the stairwell, looks nervous. “I believe . . . I believe it is very possible that Queen Amélie was the Hart Slayer, and I have discovered that the Hart Slayer was a descendant of Belcoeur. If these things are true, it would mean that you are now the last living descendant of Belcoeur. As such, it must be your hand that deals the fatal blow to Malfleur. We have to protect you for that act, and that act alone. And besides . . .” She hesitates. “There are others who would see you dead before then. You must be careful.”

“But . . .” Aurora squints at her, trying to take in this information. A shaft of light from a high window on the landing cuts across Wren’s face, and Aurora can see the urgency written there. “But I already tried to kill her. I failed.”

“I have a lot to tell you,” Wren says simply.

“Does this mean . . .” Aurora’s voice catches in her throat, and she struggles for a moment to speak. “Does this mean that you forgive me?”