CHAPTER 76 Torj
CHAPTER 76
Torj
‘Over time, a bodyguard’s dedication endures as an eternal vigil, an unyielding presence in the ever-shifting sands of fate’
– The Guardian’s Handbook: Principles and Practices of Personal Protection
T ORJ PACED THE dining hall like a caged animal, stalking up and down the rows between the tables, fists clenched at his sides, his body wound tight with tension. He should never have let her go. Or at the very least, he should have followed. But now, as dusk began to blanket the grounds outside, he was beyond panicked. And there was nothing he could do.
If he wasn’t going mad already, this was sure to do the job.
Throughout the day, he had felt spikes of terror in his chest that did not belong to him. They belonged to Wren . He knew it in his bones, could feel it in the lingering storm in his scars. He had gone straight to the High Chancellor, demanding to know where she was and what the tests for the day entailed. But the bastard wouldn’t say a word. It took all of Torj’s self-control not to start inflicting pain for answers.
The other masters gave away nothing, not as he yelled in their faces and threatened their lives. It was all he could do not to tear them limb from limb. The tension in the air was palpable, as though the masters themselves were at odds with one another. Farissa refused to tell him, citing academy law, but he didn’t miss that she watched him closely, monitoring him as the hours passed.
‘Sit down, Elderbrock,’ she said at last. ‘You’re making me seasick with all that pacing.’
‘I don’t give a fuck.’ He continued the same path, up and down, likely wearing the stone down beneath his boots. ‘Where is she, Farissa?’
‘She’ll be here.’
She was lying, he knew it in his bones. ‘You’ve said that all fucking day. And I know this wasn’t some simple mission to get ingredients. I can feel it.’
She fixed him with an intense stare. ‘What is it that you feel?’
He narrowed his eyes. ‘Fuck. Off.’
‘You feel her , don’t you?’
‘I don’t want to talk about the damn curse now,’ he ground out.
‘But is it a curse?’ Farissa ventured.
‘I don’t have the patience for your cryptic horseshit. Where. Is. Wren?’
Brisk footsteps sounded, and Torj turned to see both Audra and the High Chancellor approaching. It was Audra who spoke first.
‘She’s partaking in the Gauntlet.’
‘ What? ’
Audra didn’t balk at his thunderous expression. ‘She is doing what she came here to do, Elderbrock.’
‘Why wasn’t I told?’
‘Because no one was told. Thus is the nature of the Gauntlet,’ the High Chancellor supplied. ‘I suggest you retire for the evening—’
‘When is it over?’ Torj growled.
Belcourt gave an infuriating answer. ‘When it’s finished.’
Torj had half a mind to throw him through the nearest wall.
Audra’s bony hand closed around his arm. As though she had read his mind, she said, ‘I suggest you leave, Elderbrock. Drevenor can’t afford to lose its High Chancellor just yet.’
Torj stormed from the hall, but as soon as he was alone and the fury abated, fear coiled like icy tendrils in the pit of his stomach, every beat of his heart echoing with dread.
How many hours had passed since Wren had been in his bed? Since she’d coaxed tiny lightning bolts from his skin and tilted his world for ever? Even now, he could feel that soft storm current within, heightening his pulse and amplifying his fear for her.
You’re what has been missing all my life. And I intend to keep you... He should have said more, should have been clearer. But in the face of the Gauntlet, that didn’t matter.
Elwren Embervale might have been his, but she also belonged wholly to herself. Though his whole body was tense, suppressing the urge to scour the kingdom for her, to intervene, to shield her from whatever harm she was facing in that trial, he remained bound by another vow: that he would never stand in her way.
Torj burst into his room, all but kicking the door in to face the deafening silence.
But he wasn’t alone.
A familiar figure sat in his chair, twirling a dagger between his fingers.
‘What are you doing here, Hawthorne?’ Torj eyed his brother in arms wearily, hazarding a guess that Cal had let their fellow Warsword into his chambers.
‘Traditionally, the rulers of the midrealms have always attended the graduation ceremony of the novices after the Gauntlet,’ Wilder told him, still toying with his blade. ‘Though I suspect they’re also heavily invested in the development of our alchemists, given the threats they’ve faced recently...In any case, I’m here in an official capacity.’
‘And who, exactly, are you meant to be guarding?’
‘Thea’s got it covered.’
‘She didn’t want to see her sister before?’ Torj asked.
‘She said Wren would want to be alone, and that she’ll see her when she’s won the damn thing.’
Torj gave a dark laugh. That sounded like Thea, alright.
Wilder gave him a knowing look. ‘She also said it might be my turn to repay the favour...’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘When Thea went to undertake the Great Rite, you gave me some advice.’
Torj raked his hands through his hair with a noise of frustration. ‘What the fuck did I know? Save it, Hawthorne—’
But his fellow Warsword stood, placing himself between Torj and the door, as though he knew Torj was mere seconds away from throwing it open and going to Wren.
‘You told me this: the closer you get to true happiness, the more you fear it. You said it’s the what-ifs that eat you alive... What if it all goes wrong? What if you lose it all? ’
‘I can feel her terror!’ Torj roared, clenching his fists as his anger surged. ‘And that was just the start. She’s been gone for hours—’
His friend simply stared at him. ‘You think it was easy for me to watch Thea walk into the Great Rite? You think I didn’t want to go tearing after her and rip apart everything that tried to hurt her?’
Torj looked at the floor. He knew the love between Wilder Hawthorne and Althea Embervale was nothing short of legendary; he knew the lengths they would go to for one another, what they had endured together and apart. Theirs was a love that had torn down the Scarlet Tower, that had spanned kingdoms, battles and the entire shadow war.
Understanding flashed in Wilder’s gaze as Torj met it once more. He gripped Torj by the shoulder, as Torj had once done to him in the Singing Hare in Aveum. ‘You told me I was asking all the wrong questions...That the one to ask instead was this: what if you got everything you ever wanted? ’
Shrugging off Wilder’s grip, Torj paced the room furiously. ‘I did. And now...’
‘Now your woman is fighting to achieve something she has wanted her whole life. Your role, your only fucking role here, is to support her. Fail to do that, and your fears of losing her will come true. Succeed, and it will be better than you ever dreamed.’
Torj braced himself against his desk, knocking over a pile of books, watching them spill across the surface. ‘I don’t like this wise version of you.’
‘I can return to my old ways of using my fists, if you like. Your nose was always too straight for my liking.’
‘No one could ever land a hit. Yours, on the other hand...’
‘Fuck off,’ his friend muttered. ‘Can I trust you won’t do something stupid?’
‘I’m not making any promises,’ Torj grunted.
There was a gleam of amusement in Wilder’s silver eyes. ‘Not so easy, is it, when it’s you on the other side of that fear? But you can’t be her shield in this, brother.’
Torj forced himself to take a steadying breath. At last, he nodded. He pictured the determined gleam in Wren’s stormy eyes and knew: the Gauntlet was hers for the taking, and by the Furies, she would take it.