Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
A s the days passed and Thea started down the road to recovery, she found herself in Wren’s healing lesson. It was one of the few areas that the guild continued classes in well after the students came of age and specialised in their own fields.
Wren explained that this was because there were always new techniques, new treatments being discovered all the time and that Thezmarr, particularly its alchemists, needed to be at the forefront of these advancements for the sake of its warriors.
So when Farissa ran them through the ingredients for various tinctures and remedies, Thea took out a quill and parchments and made notes. She ignored the ripple of shock across the room and wrote in a hurried scrawl, only pausing to ask Wren about particular spellings.
When Farissa finished demonstrating how to strip Elvan Bark in a way that preserved its healing properties, Thea raised her hand.
Farissa did a double take. ‘What is it, Althea?’
‘I have a request,’ Thea said boldly.
‘Oh?’
‘I wondered if you might teach us about battlefield healing. You know… the sort of things one might need to know should they need to treat a wound under pressure or with limited supplies. The sort of things that might save a life in the heart of a skirmish.’
The whole room went tense and Ida flashed Thea a worried look from the next table over.
While Farissa had said that there was always a place in their ranks for Thea, it was another thing to disrupt her lesson and make requests with her own agenda.
There was no official war in the midrealms and no conflict that would see the alchemists of Thezmarr caught in the middle of a fray, and yet…
Farissa smiled slowly. ‘I thought you’d never ask, Althea.’ She pressed her fingers together and started to pace, her brow furrowed as she considered her next words carefully. After a few moments, she looked up, her eyes bright and eager.
‘Battlefield healing is an art like no other…’ she began.
For the first time in her twenty-four years, Thea listened to her sister.
As much as it destroyed her not to train and spar with the other shieldbearers, she knew her body was not ready.
Her abdomen was still tender, her stab wound threatened to tear open with any sudden movements and she was still experiencing fatigue and shortness of breath.
Though she desperately wanted to get back to her drills and was increasingly anxious about losing the strength and endurance she’d worked so hard to gain, she knew that to push too soon would see her straight to the infirmary.
Instead, she resumed her old alchemy shifts with a renewed enthusiasm, all the while the Hand of Death’s words echoed in her mind.
‘ If you’re going to be a warrior of Thezmarr… You need to learn more than fighting, Alchemist… Every discipline this fortress offers has a vital part to play. You should respect them all. You should master them all. There is more to this guild than blades and fists.’
She took these words to heart, and shared them with anyone who would listen, mainly Kipp and Cal when she sat with them during the midday meal.
Kipp was back on his feet sooner than expected.
He was restricted to light duties for the meantime and that meant he was all too eager to hear what she’d learned throughout her days, insisting that every aspect of the battlefield, even the clean-up and tending to the wounded could be used in strategy planning.
Thea returned to the shieldbearer dormitories, Dax was there waiting at the foot of her bed on her first night back and ever since. She split her evenings between the library with Malik and the evening meal with her friends and her sister.
As her strength slowly returned, Thea went down to the training arena to watch the combat drills and classes.
There, she sat on the outskirts with her crumpled piece of parchment, taking notes on different techniques.
She watched the Warswords with an unrelenting intensity, drinking in everything they did, even the sadist Vernich.
Nothing more powerful than knowledge and the ability to wield it…
It wasn’t long until Seb spotted her. He strode towards her, swinging his practice sword arrogantly.
‘Scribbling away like some school boy won’t make you a warrior.’
‘Nor will sticking your big nose in other people’s business,’ Thea snapped as she finished her note on the best stance for shield walls.
‘It’s my business when they allow a stray into Thezmarrian ranks. You’re —’
Thea sighed, irritated. ‘Do I threaten you so much, Barlowe? That you have to stop your own training, your own progress, just to try and belittle me?’
‘You? Threaten me?’ he barked a nasty laugh.
‘Yes,’ Thea said simply, trying to peer past him to watch Torj take on one of the older shieldbearers, dual wielding a pair of longswords. ‘You’re in my way,’ she said sharply when Seb insisted on blocking her view.
‘I beat you,’ he blurted. ‘Why didn’t you leave?’
‘I belong here as much as you,’ she replied. ‘And you didn’t beat me. Far from it. I withstood two unhindered blows and an underhanded stabbing from you and still I stood, still you couldn’t keep me down. I am more warrior than you’ll ever be.’
Nearby, some of the shieldbearers paused to listen. But their expressions were no longer those of amusement, but of impatience. They too, it seemed, were fed up with Seb’s antics.
Heat flushed his cheeks. ‘What do you hope to gain? You’ll never be one of us.’
‘Wrong, Barlowe. You’re wrong. I already am one of you. And I promise you this. When we face each other again, I’ll have you on the ground. And unlike me, you won’t get back up.’
‘Bullshit, you —’
‘Shut up, Seb,’ Lachin called loudly from a few feet away.
‘What did you say?’
‘I said shut up. You’re boring us all to tears with your whinging.’
At Lachin’s words, Seb took a step back from Thea, suddenly speechless. His expression soured, and with a final, narrow-eyed glare in her direction, he stalked off.
Thea gave Lachin a nod of thanks. The older shieldbearer merely shrugged and continued his sparring.
Thea trained her gaze on the heart of the arena, where Hawthorne had appeared.
As usual, he wore all black, his sleeves rolled up above the elbow, revealing the corded muscle and inked skin there.
Like Torj, he gripped two longswords and paced the training ground, every movement thrumming with power and strength.
Thea’s whole body responded, tense and tingling.
She hadn’t seen him since he’d tended to her wound in that cramped broom closet, since he’d saved her life and delivered her to Wren.
She’d thought about him though, Furies had she thought about him.
.. and that conflicted expression on his face as Wren had shut him out.
Thea had replayed every moment they’d had together in her mind, each time the fire within her burning hotter.
The only thing that dampened that fire was the fact that he hadn’t sought her out…
Hadn’t checked on her afterwards. And she didn’t know what that meant, or how she should feel.
She told herself she should feel nothing but gratitude, but a deeper, darker part of her craved something more from him.
Now, Hawthorne faced his fellow Warsword, challenge gleaming in those silver eyes.
Quill and parchment forgotten, Thea watched, utterly transfixed by the deadly dance unfolding before her.
Hawthorne took a long step to the outside of the ring with his leading foot, creating momentum with his hips as he brought his blades down on Torj.
The golden-haired warrior took the attack on his own blades, but buckled beneath the impact of Hawthorne’s blow.
‘It takes great strength to fight in such a way,’ a voice sounded from behind Thea.
She twisted to find none other than Audra the librarian at her back. Thea had seen her in passing or from a distance in the Great Hall, but she hadn’t spoken to her warden since that day they’d ridden the Mourner’s Trail together.
But Audra wasn’t looking at her. The older woman was still staring at the duelling Warswords. ‘It takes great strength to fight in such a way,’ she repeated, sounding distant. ‘But sometimes it takes more strength to know when to sit out.’
The bench shifted beneath Thea as Audra took up a place beside her. ‘You will come back stronger for it, Althea, I promise you that.’
Together, they watched the legends of Thezmarr train.
Later that evening, confident in her progressing recovery, Thea decided that she’d already waited far too long to run a particular errand, and so after the evening meal, she went to Wren’s rooms and, in her absence, helped herself to her sister’s mirror and comb.
For once, Thea left her bronze tresses unbound and spent a good while untangling the ragged ends.
She studied her reflection, grimacing at the sharp lines of her face, wishing there was something else she could do to make herself more… feminine.
The door swung open and Wren didn’t look remotely surprised to see her. ‘Glad you’ve made yourself comfortable —’ She cut herself off, pausing as she gave Thea the once-over. ‘You look nice…’
‘Do I?’
Wren nodded. ‘Suspiciously so.’
‘Thanks… I think?’
Wren laughed. ‘Dare I ask?’
‘Probably best you don’t.’
‘You’re still taking the tonic I make?’ Wren asked, suddenly serious. ‘The one to prevent —’
‘Gods.’ Thea flushed. ‘Yes. I am.’
‘Then say no more, sister. But one moment.’ Wren reached out and fiddled with her hair, arranging it so that it cascaded down her shoulders in a more elegant wave. ‘There.’
‘Thanks.’
Wren shooed her to the door. ‘As you were.’
Thea wandered the corridors of the commanders’ residences, a large clean shirt and cloak tucked under her arm.
It was Esyllt who found her.
‘What are you doing loitering around here?’ His signature bark was only a few degrees quieter indoors.