Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
H ollow cheers sounded upon their return.
Caked in blood and dirt, with the bodies of their fallen in tow, the Thezmarrian forces felt anything but victorious.
They entered the courtyard, a heavy sombreness cloaking them as they went about returning their horses to the stables, many of them dazed.
The horror they’d witnessed was unequalled in scale and violence, and of the two hundred Thezmarrians who fought amidst the ruins of Delmira, six had lost their lives. Including Lachin.
None, however, had been claimed by the dark curse the rheguld reapers bore. None had been turned into monsters of shadow. That was a small comfort.
A deep sense of unease still permeated throughout the cohort.
‘They kept the hearts…’ Kipp ventured slowly as they entered the Great Hall.
Cal rubbed his temples, looking as weary as Thea felt. ‘What are they going to do with them? They hold dark magic… There’s a reason they didn’t burn them and cast them into the seas.’
‘They bloody should have,’ an older warrior muttered behind them. ‘Bad luck to keep cursed things like that.’
Cal and Kipp murmured their agreement.
But Thea stayed silent. As the shieldbearers trudged numbly to their quarters and bathing chambers, she peeled away from the group.
Ignoring the exhaustion screaming in her bones, and the filth that covered her, she shouldered Wren’s near-empty satchel and trekked up the endless stairs, to the only place that might hold answers for her.
A crackling fire blazed in the hearth and a familiar form took up the entirety of one of the armchairs, a furry mass at his feet.
‘Malik,’ Thea sighed. She was glad he was there.
Slowly, he turned in his seat, for once not transfixed by the flickering flames. Upon seeing her, he was on his feet faster than Thea had ever seen him move. Dax let out a bark for being disturbed.
But Malik’s grey eyes were filled with alarm and at the sight of his concern, Thea was suddenly raw, fragile even, something she hadn’t felt or allowed herself to feel in a long time.
Malik froze in place.
‘I’m alright,’ she croaked. ‘I’m not hurt.’
But her voice broke as she spoke the words.
All at once, it was too much. She didn’t even know what she was looking for; she didn’t know where to start.
The thought of searching the shelves for a clue to something she was well beyond understanding was overwhelming in the face of all that had happened at the Ruins of Delmira, and soon, her gasps were coming in hard and fast. She couldn’t get enough air —
A large, gentle hand closed over her arm.
Disorientated, she allowed Malik to lead her to the spare armchair, which he carefully pushed her down into.
Thea couldn’t remember the last time she’d sat in something other than a saddle. Her chest caught with emotion as she leaned back into the cushions.
‘I’m alright,’ she told him, told herself . ‘I’m alright.’
He clearly didn’t believe it, and Thea couldn’t blame him for that. She could only imagine what she looked like; the chaotic, bloody state of her.
But Malik didn’t step away. He waited.
She rested her hands on her knees and leaned forward, trying to quell that restless sensation shooting through her veins.
Malik took up his usual place once more, leaning back in the tattered armchair and stretching his long legs out before him. He patted her hand in comfort and Dax resumed his position at his master’s feet in front of the fire, huffing, as though being interrupted had been a big inconvenience to him.
‘Thank you, my friends,’ she said quietly.
They stayed like that in companionable silence for a time, both Malik and Dax giving her the space she needed, but waiting to offer support should she need it.
Dax’s ears pricked up and Thea leapt to her feet as Hawthorne entered the library. While he no longer wore his armour, there was still blood coating his skin from the battle.
‘You,’ he said, taking a step towards her. ‘What are you doing here?’ His gaze travelled from her filthy appearance to Malik and Dax, who didn’t rise in his presence.
‘Reading,’ Thea replied finally, reaching for the nearest book.
Hawthorne’s gaze lingered on the former Warsword in the armchair. ‘Leave,’ Hawthorne commanded her.
‘I —’
‘It wasn’t a request, Alchemist.’
But then Thea noticed a wound, still bleeding, just beneath his collarbone. ‘You’re hurt.’
‘Hardly.’
‘I can help.’
‘I don’t want your help.’
That was the final straw for Thea. She stormed right up to him, her rage as fair a match as any for his towering frame and battle experience. ‘I don’t care what you want,’ she snapped. ‘Sit down. Shut up. And let me treat that wound before it worsens.’
She hadn’t realised her hands were on her hips, but they were. With fury in her veins, she let it blaze in her eyes as she stared the Warsword down.
Stunned, he took a step back.
‘Now,’ she practically growled.
Surprisingly, after a moment’s pause, the Warsword did as she bid, seating himself in the armchair she’d vacated.
‘Shirt,’ she ordered, picking up Wren’s satchel and digging through the remaining supplies.
A loud rip sounded, and Thea looked up to see Hawthorne tearing through the fabric.
‘Was that necessary?’ She swiped the last clean bandages from the bag.
‘It was ruined anyway.’
Shaking her head, Thea went to him.
Even seated before her, he was enormous. It was a funny sight – a mighty warrior squeezed into a green velvet armchair. She kept that thought to herself as she studied the gash.
It was deep and ragged, the surrounding skin hot and irritated. She couldn’t help but click her tongue in annoyance. ‘You should have let me tend to this in the field.’
‘You’d done enough.’
‘That’s not really your call to make,’ Thea replied, cleaning the wound with the last of Wren’s paste.
He gave a hiss of pain.
‘I don’t have a gentle healer’s touch, I’m afraid,’ she said as she worked. ‘The creature’s talons pierced your armour?’
The Warsword made a noise of confirmation. ‘My breastplate is a piece of shit.’
‘Isn’t it supposed to be impenetrable? You get special armour from Delmira, don’t you?’
‘Every Warsword before me did,’ he supplied with a grimace. ‘By the time I completed the Great Rite, Delmira had fallen and its supplies had been exhausted. I got stuck with a poor imitation from Harenth.’
‘Oh.’
Hawthorne gave Malik a pointed look. ‘If he wasn’t such a great hulking giant, I could have borrowed his.’
Malik seemed pleased by the jab.
‘What of your vial from Aveum? It has healing properties, doesn’t it? That could have cured this…’ Thea ventured.
‘I’m saving it.’
‘For what?’
‘Something worse than a scratch, Alchemist.’
‘Gods, you’re stubborn.’ Thea wiped her hands on her own filthy shirt and returned the tin to her satchel. ‘But this should help stave off that looming infection before you go to the infirmary.’
‘The infirmary is full. I don’t need —’
‘Yes, you do.’ Thea didn’t know where all this command in her voice had come from, but she liked it. She especially liked it when he didn’t argue back.
Slowly, she placed a patch of gauze over the wound and started bandaging him. All the while, she could feel Malik’s eyes on her, on them …
‘So you took my advice…’ Wilder ventured.
‘What advice?’
‘The bit about knowing how to treat wounds.’
‘Perhaps you should have taken it yourself.’
‘I know plenty.’
‘This wound begs to differ…’ Thea scoffed.
‘But yes. I asked Farissa to teach us, me and the other alchemists. Figured it wasn’t an entirely useless suggestion.
Besides,’ she added, stepping back and surveying her handiwork, while also trying to ignore the sculpted grooves of his torso. ‘Now we’re even.’
Hawthorne drew his lower lip between his teeth as his gaze travelled over her. ‘I suppose we are.’
Suddenly self-conscious, Thea packed away Wren’s dwindling supplies, fiddling unnecessarily with the cork of one of the vials to distract herself from the weighted silence between them.
Hawthorne was the first to break it, clearing his throat. ‘Now you can leave.’
Thea’s brows shot up. ‘That’s not much of a thank you.’
The Warsword shrugged. ‘Like you said, now we’re even.’
‘Glad to see you’re back to your usual self,’ Thea snapped. But then she eyed Malik, who seemed a little unsettled.
Hawthorne noted her hesitation. ‘I’ll keep him company. I like that he doesn’t talk.’
Thea could have sworn she saw amusement in Malik's eyes.
The Warsword motioned to the door. ‘Go on, get out. For once, I need some peace without you.’
‘Bastard,’ she muttered and went to the exit. Gods, she was done with his moods. But something made her linger in the doorway, a strange tingling at the base of her neck, and she glanced over her shoulder.
The Warsword sighed heavily, resting his head against the back of the armchair before giving Malik, who was grinning , a long look. ‘Oh, shut up,’ he muttered, and then reached down to scratch Dax behind the ears.
With her brow furrowed, Thea tiptoed out the door into the corridor beyond and ran straight into Audra.
The librarian took one look at her filthy clothes and said: ‘You'd best not be bleeding on my books.’
After assuring Audra that she had done no such thing, Thea threw caution to the wind and headed for the master bathing chambers. Though she suspected that no amount of time in a tub would erase the filthy feeling from her skin or fill the gaping chasm in her chest.