CHAPTER 37 Wren
CHAPTER 37
Wren
‘The seeds of the common valley apple contain substantial amounts of the poison cyanide’
– The Poisoner’s Handbook
‘W REN ! T AKE COVER !’ Torj yelled, brandishing his war hammer and throwing himself between her and their attacker. There was a pleading note to his order, but Warsword or not, Wren wasn’t going to let him weather the storm of violence alone.
She scrambled to her feet, her hands flying to the vials at her belt. She wrenched them free as she would any weapon. Knowledge is the victor over fate. The mind is a blade.
Wren let her potions fly.
A loud bang sounded, and smoke filled the air, disorientating a handful of masked men who were surging not just for Torj, but for her.
Though the shadow war had left its scars on Wren, freezing in the face of danger was not one of them. She threw another bottle, a concentrated dose of Widow’s Ash blanketing a pair of assailants heading right for her. They collapsed in seconds, shrieking in pain as boils formed across their exposed skin, bursting with the slightest contact.
Her magic sang in her veins, begging to be unleashed, but she hesitated. It had been so long since she’d wielded it, so long since she’d had complete control—
‘Who are these people?’ she cried, ducking as a small blade hurtled for her.
‘No idea. Get back inside!’ Torj swung his hammer into the face of another attacker. The man’s skull caved instantly, his blood spraying the cobbles.
There were a dozen or so, but they moved too fast for Wren to count. Within moments, three were already mangled heaps of bloody pulp, courtesy of the hammer-wielding Bear Slayer in the heart of the fray. He moved like a war god, cutting down men as though they were nothing.
At the sight of him, Wren’s lightning crackled again, deep in her chest, and her hands fell away from the potions at her belt. The current surged through her, a living force to be reckoned with as it gathered at her fingertips. It had been five years since she’d wielded storm magic from the deepest, darkest part of herself. The memory threatened to consume her: the roar of thunder, the searing pain—
But Torj was here, and he was whole, battling by her side once more. She wouldn’t leave him to fight alone.
Wren’s jaw set in grim determination as, at long last, she let the storm build within her like a vortex. Vibrant power arced across her fingertips, tendrils of blue-white energy coiling around her forearms.
When she released the first bolt, it exploded from her palm in a blinding flash. The air crackled as the blazing lightning struck her charging attacker in the chest, not in the arm as she had intended. Nevertheless, his body went rigid, limbs flailing, before he crashed to the cobblestones, a smouldering husk of what he’d been moments before. The man’s scream died on his lips as her lightning burned him from the inside out.
Wren had only meant to hinder him, not strike him down. She’d thought they might take him alive for questioning – but that didn’t matter now.
The scent of burnt hair and charred flesh filled the air once more and she staggered as it filled her nostrils, trying to drag her into another round of nightmarish flashbacks. But she clung to her magic, like a tether to this world, to Torj, who was fighting three more of the assailants.
He was a vision, wielding his war hammer like an extension of himself. For someone so big, he moved with a predatory grace that struck fear into the hearts of all who faced him. It was a dance of death, a whirlwind of Furies-given power, and he held nothing back.
Thunder clapped overhead. Gathering herself once again, Wren channelled the storm in a rush of wind that swept up around them, the sky opening up above.
She drew the chaos up from within, holding her unruly power in the palm of her hand, ready to unleash it upon the remaining attackers. She struck one so hard his mask was burned right off his face, and another went flying onto the road, a bolt hitting him square in the chest.
In front of the hospice was bedlam. Common folk fled the scene, screaming, while healers and fellow alchemists had emerged to see what the commotion was about, finding themselves in the heart of the battle that had spilled out across the street.
Wren threw another crackling ball of power, narrowly missing an onlooker and knocking one of Torj’s attackers from where he’d raised his blade at the Warsword’s back. She surged forwards, ready to end more of them, ready to release her wrath upon them all—
Wren staggered suddenly, feeling something cold and hard clamp around her wrists.
Manacles.
Nausea hit her like a blow, and she had to inhale long and hard to keep from vomiting on the cobbles. Her feet were slipping out from under her as someone dragged her by the manacles’ chains, hauling her away from the fighting. Vision blurring, she reached for her storm magic – only to find it completely snuffed out. There was not a spark of lightning to call into being, no taste of rain on her tongue; only a sickening emptiness in her gut, and the cold lick of panic up her spine.
If she couldn’t use magic...Wren reached for her belt, only for her hands to be jerked forwards in the painful irons, causing her to stumble over the stone—
‘I don’t think so,’ her captor snarled.
Vision still blurred, Wren lashed out as best she could, shoving, kicking, twisting her body, thrashing like a wild animal. But the manacles around her wrists...They were not made of iron alone. Something was sinking into her skin, not only suppressing her storm magic, but clouding her senses as well.
The sounds of the fighting grew softer as she was dragged away. Where were they taking her? She had to escape, had to get back to Torj—
The world around her was a haze of bleeding colours and muffled sounds, indistinct shapes surging across her field of vision, the terror now thick in her throat. And yet, she still fought, hitting out blindly until her fists connected with something soft.
Her captor grunted, then struck her across the face.
The blow was like fire over her cheek, and she thought her eyes might pop out of her skull as she staggered, falling to her knees on the cobbles, face throbbing.
Her chains jerked again—
Something wet and hot hit her like a slap, then ran down her neck, seeping into her gown.
She knew from the metallic scent that it was blood.
And that it was not her own.
‘ Wren. ’ Torj was suddenly there, his voice like a balm over her panic. She felt his hands on the manacles, heard the sound of a key being fitted to a lock.
A ragged gasp escaped her as the irons fell away from her wrists. Power rushed back through her and her hands shot out.
Torj clasped them in his own. ‘Easy, Embers...’
His fingers threaded through hers and squeezed, grounding her as her senses came back to her in an overwhelming wave. The air was thick with the scent of blood, and as Torj came into focus, she realized the Bear Slayer was covered in it, just as she was. Around them, all their masked attackers were dead, pulverized by Torj’s hammer and her lightning.
‘Gods...’ Wren muttered as she watched the rivers of crimson running between the cobbles. She spotted a body that seemed untouched, but for the white spittle that had foamed at the edge of the man’s mouth, his eyes wide. He’d poisoned himself, she realized, rather than be taken alive for questioning.
‘What the fuck just happened?’ she asked, searching the Bear Slayer’s face for answers. ‘Who are these men?’
‘Later,’ Torj said quietly, helping her to her feet. ‘Let’s get you out of here first.’
‘Wait.’ She reached for the manacles, an eerie sensation crawling across her skin. Taking them in her hands, she felt their strangeness instantly, along with something more concerning: familiarity .
‘We need to leave,’ Torj urged, surveying the gathered crowd, his mouth set in a hard line. He put an arm around her and guided her between the corpses to his horse, who was waiting loyally, abandoned by the stable hand.
Wren’s mind was racing, the fresh memory of her own helplessness leaving a bitter taste on her tongue as she ran her fingers along the rough chains.
She glanced up at Torj. ‘Alright,’ she said.
‘Alright what?’
‘I’ll learn self-defence.’
A beat later, Torj’s expression softened. ‘I’m sorry it took something like this for you to—’
But Wren shook her head. ‘It wasn’t the men,’ she told him, raising the irons. ‘It’s these.’
‘What about them?’ he asked, brows furrowed.
‘It was me,’ she murmured. ‘I made them.’