CHAPTER 3 Wren
CHAPTER 3
Wren
‘For centuries, magic in the midrealms has been contained to those with royal blood. The only exception being the power gifted to Warswords by the Furies’
– The Midrealms Chronicles
F OR HALF A decade, Wren had been playing the long game, doing what the legendary warriors of Thezmarr could not: cutting out the rot left in the wake of the war. The work did not end simply because the final battle had been won, and Wren worked hard .
As she rode through the night back to her ramshackle cottage in Delmira, lightning illuminated the horizon. Wren shuddered. The storm was not of her making. These days, her magic was erratic – fickle. Part of her wondered if she’d somehow broken her power in those first months of wandering the moors of her ruined kingdom. Lost and raw with grief, she had ravaged the lands further with her storms. Delmira had withstood the brutal onslaught, her lightning scorching its earth, her rain flooding its rivers...Part of her had wanted to wash the ashes of war from the kingdom, and part of her had simply lost control.
Now, the storm crackled above her and brought the taste of rain to her lips. With it, a flood of memories came rushing back, threatening to drown her.
A vortex of dark magic tore open within the very core of the conflict, swallowing creatures, warriors and innocents alike. Their screams were mercilessly stifled as they were sucked into the maw of the insatiable abyss.
And then there was him .
The golden-haired Warsword hurtling towards the black void, war hammer raised above his head.
Time stilled, the breath between life and death.
On the nearby parapet, Wren shot out a hand without thinking, power blasting from her fingertips and channelling into the great warrior’s weapon. The iron absorbed her magic, the force of her storm, sparks igniting and racing through the runes on the Warsword’s hammer.
Wren’s heart lodged in her throat, a scream falling silent on her lips as the man drove monster and darkness into the ground, a swirling vortex of shadow surging for them both.
In that moment, she knew fear like nothing else. The bitter taste of it on her tongue, the panic tearing at her chest like a caged animal, the cascading rhythm of terror growing wilder with every heartbeat – until the shadows dissipated, and revealed the sight beyond...
The Warsword had sealed the portal. He knelt on one knee in the ruins, braced over his hammer, sparks flitting along the iron.
When he lifted his head, a whimper escaped Wren.
For the golden-haired warrior was no more. He had been kissed by lightning and thunder, and scorch marks blackened the ground where he knelt. Thrumming with power, he stood. His hair, now silver, caught in the wind as he squared his shoulders.
His gaze, now as dark as the shadows he’d vanquished, went straight to Wren.
Wren came back to herself, shaking and alone. Her grip on the reins was vicelike, her spine slick with sweat in the aftermath of the memory. Dawn was breaking on the horizon at last, though the light did little to comfort her now.
Torj Elderbrock, the Warsword now known across the lands as the silver-haired Bear Slayer, a saviour of the midrealms, had haunted both her dreams and waking hours for half a decade. They hadn’t shared so much as a kiss, but he was the storm beneath her skin that wouldn’t abate.
A familiar unbroken stretch of yellowed grass greeted her, and the fallen kingdom of Delmira welcomed her home with its dark irony. A poisoned land for a poisoner... The kingdom had fallen long before the shadow war and was still in ruins, refusing to grow even the hardiest of crops across its hilly plains. It was no wonder the lands remained uncultivated and uninhabited.
It suited Wren just fine. She preferred solitude, and with her battered residence obscured by the thick, unruly foliage and gnarled trunks of an ancient forest, the rest of the midrealms left her well enough alone.
At long last, her cottage came into view, and her shoulders relaxed at the sight. A moss-covered thatched roof sagged over crooked timber beams, while patches of ivy clung to the worn facade. The glass panes of the windows were fogged with all manner of alchemy Wren had experimented with over the past year. Hopping down from her horse, she unsaddled the beast and led it to the water trough, imagining a simple meal before the fire and some time to work on her latest poisons.
Inside, she took Lord Briar’s signet ring from her pocket and placed it in the small wooden box with the others: a pendant bearing the Riverton family crest, a pocket watch belonging to the late Baron Alderich, a gold-framed monocle from Lord Malvoth, and a silver inkwell encrusted with rubies, engraved with Lord Renard’s initials. Beneath these, there were more. A delicate silver filigree brooch in the shape of a swan. A small, intricately carved ivory figurine of a mountain drake, its eyes inlaid with tiny emeralds. A bronze coin bearing the face of a foreign king.
Closing the lid with a snap, Wren set about lighting the fire. Soon, warm amber light spilled across the room, illuminating the clutter. However dilapidated, this place had always offered her a sense of solace—
A tell-tale creak sounded from beneath the window.
Wren palmed a poison-tipped dagger and whirled around.
Someone was here.