Chapter 26 #2
Cal snorted. ‘You hardly gave her a choice in the matter.’
Thea blinked. ‘I didn’t realise King Artos held that title. I mean, I knew he was an empath, but… The most powerful?’
Kipp nodded enthusiastically. ‘Oh definitely. Much of the lasting peace in the midrealms is attributed to him.’
‘Truly?’
‘Cross my heart.’
‘And I saved his life…’ Thea said in wonder.
Kipp clapped her on the back, her mead sloshing onto the table. ‘That’s what I’m told!’
Cal was shaking his head at their friend, looking around at the tavern, bewildered. ‘Now we’ve got that out of the way. Are you going to tell us how in the realms you’ve been able to frequent this place so often?’
‘Are you forgetting that I’ve been a shieldbearer for… Well, a while… Who do you think the commanders use to deliver messages when the rest of the cohort can’t possibly be dragged away from training?’
Thea chimed in. ‘How long’s a while?’
‘Long enough to know all the toasts, all the staff and all the beautiful women,’ he replied with a wink.
Thea took her tankard back and took a deep draught. The liquor was cold and crisp on her tongue. ‘Tell us a toast then.’
‘I need another drink to toast, or it’s bad luck.’
‘You’ve hardly made a dent in that one!’ Cal argued incredulously.
Kipp seemed offended by the accusation and promptly drained his tankard, a good portion of it slopping down his front.
With a roll of her eyes, Thea went to the bar and refreshed both her friends’ drinks, vowing that her next would be her last. She wanted to actually remember her time here, after all.
Sliding the fresh tankards in front of Cal and Kipp, she waited.
Looking suddenly very serious, Kipp got to his feet, swaying slightly as he took up his drink using two hands. His eyes met Thea’s and then moved to Cal as he bumped his tankard against each of theirs.
‘May you walk amidst the gardens of the afterlife a whole half hour, before Enovius reads your ledger of deeds.’
Then, with utter seriousness, he tipped his head back and downed the entire tankard again, mead sloshing down his front and onto the table, before he dropped into the booth dramatically.
Thea and Cal locked eyes and roared with laughter.
‘What?’ Kipp shouted.
Thea’s face was aching from smiling so much. ‘Well, that was a toast alright.’
A moment later, several servers emerged from the crowd, their arms laden with trays of food.
Thea gaped at the sight of it. ‘Kipp, you can’t be serious. We can’t eat all of this!’
Kipp had a pork knuckle in his hands before the plates had even touched the table. ‘Watch me.’
The food was some of the best Thea had ever eaten. The roast boar was succulent and rich in flavour, the potatoes were delectably crisp on the outside and fluffy on the inside, while the sticky toffee pudding was made by the gods themselves.
When at last Thea couldn’t eat another bite, she rested her hand on her now swollen belly with a contented sigh. She turned to Kipp, who was miraculously pouring another pot of gravy over his plate.
‘You’re going to make yourself sick,’ she told him.
Kipp merely laughed and replied between mouthfuls. ‘Thea, my friend, it’s not my first time at the Fox.’
Cal rubbed his gut with a grimace before surveying the tavern again. ‘So, the Laughing Fox is real, the food is real… What about these so-called beautiful —’
As the words left his lips, a stunning raven-haired woman carved through the crowd and made a beeline for Kipp. She closed the gap between them and planted her hands on the table either side of the shieldbearer as Thea and Cal watched on in amazement.
‘Kristopher Snowden, you told me you would write,’ she declared, her face close to his.
Thea whirled round to face Cal. ‘Kristopher?’ she mouthed, eyes wide with disbelief.
But Cal was too busy half shoving his fist in his mouth to keep from laughing.
Kipp’s hands went to hers smoothly. ‘I’m so sorry, Milla. You know how unpredictable the life of a Thezmarrian shieldbearer can be. I was injured in combat —’
‘You were injured?’ her lovely face softened at once. ‘What happened?’
‘Oh, it was nothing,’ he replied. ‘And it’s no excuse for not writing. How can I make it up to you?’
Milla was already dragging Kipp away from their booth. ‘I can think of a few things,’ she told him, her voice sultry.
‘I’m at your disposal.’ Kipp gave a wolfish grin.
Thea watched them go, Kipp’s long arms snaking around the woman’s waist and ample curves.
‘I don’t believe it,’ Cal said as the pair disappeared up a spiral staircase. ‘He was telling the truth… About everything.’
Thea was shaking her head. ‘Did you know his name was Kristopher?’
‘Apparently, I knew nothing about him at all.’ Cal took a long drink.
While Kipp was occupied with his friend, Thea and Cal drank their mead and listened to the musicians. She told him about her meeting with the king, while he filled her in on how Nobleman Briar threatened to cut off his balls for looking in his daughter’s direction.
‘I mean, you would have looked at her, too. She had a giant wart on her nose,’ he explained helplessly.
Thea laughed so hard that her drink came out her nostrils.
Wiping the tears from her eyes, she noticed Cal’s arm rested on the back of the booth behind her, his sleeve brushing her neck.
They’d been moving closer together as the music had grown louder and louder, but now his leg was pressed against hers and he was looking at her… differently , his gaze hooded.
‘Cal…’ she said slowly. He was close enough that his warm breath tickled her face, and she could faintly smell the mead they’d been drinking all night.
‘Thea…’ he replied, his voice playful, but her name slightly slurred. Brazenly, he put his arm around her fully now, giving her a gentle squeeze. ‘Don’t you want to see what’s upstairs? I could be at your disposal, if you wished it…’
Cal was a handsome man, there was no denying that, and for a brief moment, she let her gaze fall to his mouth, wondering what it would be like to kiss him, to have the stubble of his beard graze her skin.
But all the free mead in the midrealms couldn’t get her to risk the friendship they had built over the last few months.
And it wasn’t just that… She felt nothing.
Her body didn’t sing in his presence. It wasn’t Cal she wanted to kiss; it wasn’t Cal’s hands she wanted exploring beneath her clothes.
Slowly, Thea pushed him back. ‘Bad idea, Cal,’ she said as gently as she could. She braced herself for anger, that was her general experience with men when they didn’t get what they wanted.
But with a sheepish grin on his face, Cal let her push him away. ‘Ah, it was worth a shot, wasn’t it?’
‘You’re an idiot,’ she told him, instantly relieved that things weren’t strained between them.
‘True.’
‘Do we leave Kipp to his own devices? Will he find the inn alright?’
Cal laughed. ‘I don’t think he’ll be joining us.’ He got to his feet clumsily and steadied himself against the table. ‘Let’s go sleep this off and pray we’re not hungover for the journey back. He’ll find us in the morning.’
Arm in arm, Thea and Cal stumbled to the nearby inn, falling into their separate beds, Cal snoring a moment later.
The morning was not Thea’s friend. Her head felt swollen, her mouth tasted like sawdust and the thought of being jolted around in a saddle all day had her grimacing before she’d even tugged on her boots.
Much to her and Cal’s annoyance, Kipp was waiting for them, fresh and bright-eyed in the stables.
‘Didn’t know when to stop, did you?’ he said. ‘You probably didn’t eat enough. Rookie mistake.’
‘Didn’t eat enough? You must be joking,’ Cal groaned.
‘Do you have to be so loud, Kristopher? ’ Thea added, adjusting the length of her stirrups.
Kipp gave her a maddening grin. ‘I’m speaking at a normal volume.’
‘Horseshit,’ Cal muttered as he led his horse from its stall. ‘You’re louder than a bloody mountain drake. And must you be so bloody cheerful? You of all people know that a hangover likes miserable company.’
‘Don’t know what you’re talking about. And how can you be miserable? It’s going to be a glorious day.’
As the sun inched its way into the pink and purple sky, with Thea and Cal a little worse for wear, and Kipp in incredibly high spirits, the trio left the city of Hailford behind them.
Throughout the journey back to Thezmarr, Thea and Cal questioned Kipp relentlessly about his relationship with the dark-haired beauty Milla, and Kipp turned the questioning on Cal, insisting that he had a woman somewhere he wasn’t telling them about.
‘Remember that morning you were in that foul mood? I was sure something was going on then,’ Kipp insisted. ‘But then Thea and I got beaten to pulps, and I was so concussed I forgot to ask.’
But Cal refused to divulge any information, claiming that Kipp had only recently deigned to share his real name, so the details of Cal’s love life, or lack thereof, were none of his business.
‘What about you, Thea?’ Kipp asked good-naturedly. ‘We know you were seeing that stable boy —’
‘Apprentice,’ Thea corrected with a groan. ‘He was the stable master’s apprentice .’
‘Right. Apprentice… I got the impression that was over? Is there anyone else —’
Thea shook her head. ‘No,’ she told him firmly. ‘There’s no one.’
Just as they had on the outward journey, the days passed quickly as they headed home to the fortress. They saw no one but the odd merchant on the road and, while the nights had grown cold, the impending winter storms were somehow held at bay.
The trip had been good for Thea. She hadn’t once dreamt of her fate stone or the seer who’d given it to her, she hadn’t obsessed over the handful of years she had until her death came to pass, or how many months or weeks were left until the initiation test. She’d lived in the moment with her friends, something that she’d never allowed herself to do before.
But her feeling of contentment did not last long.
As the edge of Thezmarrian territory came into view in the fading afternoon light, a sound echoed across the land.
Bells.
Warning bells tolling from watchtowers.
Thea’s skin crawled, her stomach roiling with dread.
A lifetime at the fortress had ingrained the meaning of those particular bells – a threat had breached the Veil.
And the Thezmarrians had been called to greet it.