Chapter 39
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
W hen he was gone, a ragged gasp escaped Thea, and she doubled over, clutching her middle.
The pain had struck at her heart first, but now…
Now she hurt all over. In the privacy of the shitty broom closet, she allowed herself a minute, just one, to absorb the ache in her chest, the punch to the gut, to exhale through the agony.
For a brief moment, the events of the past twenty-four hours threatened to overwhelm her, hitting her hard and fast, but she clung to one feeling in particular, one that numbed her and fuelled the fire within: rage.
Thea was no longer an alchemist, no longer a shieldbearer: she was a Guardian of the midrealms and apprentice to the most infamous Warsword in history. She would not break, not over this.
Who the fuck was Hawthorne to be angry at her ? She was the one who was dying. She was the one who raced against the hourglass of fate.
Her fingertips tingled, answering the terror tempest that whirled in her chest. The part of her that had slept dormant within for so long now had both eyes open and it wanted to be unleashed.
And she knew exactly where to direct it.
Wren was alone in the alchemy workshop and she took one look at Thea’s blood-streaked, ragged appearance and burst into tears, throwing herself at Thea despite her apparent injuries, hugging her tight. While Wilder’s vial had taken care of the worst of her injuries, Thea still felt tender.
‘Gods, Thee… What happened to you?’ Wren asked, her voice breaking, her tears wetting Thea’s neck. ‘I tried to get word of you, but they said you hadn’t returned.’
A flood of memories and emotions came rushing back to Thea, so intense she had to steady herself on the edge of the table.
‘I need to talk to you,’ Thea said quietly.
Wren stepped back, suddenly silent.
Is that realisation dawning there? Thea wondered, staring at her sister, numbness spreading from her chest outwards.
Wren had always been her first confidant, she knew everything there was to know about Thea, the good, the bad, the death looming over her.
And yet… She suddenly felt as though she didn’t know Wren at all.
‘Is there something you want to tell me?’ Thea asked softly.
Wren turned to busy herself again with her tinctures, her hands flitting about the range of glass vials. ‘That I’m glad you’re alive? That I’m wondering what in the realms went on out there?!’
But Thea’s mind was spinning. ‘You have no idea… No idea what I have done for us,’ her sister had yelled not all that long ago. And Thea had never thought to ask what exactly Wren had done for them. Until now.
‘No… None of that,’ she replied.
‘Then what?’
‘You know what…’ It was taking all of Thea’s strength to remain upright, exhaustion and pain threatening to sweep her away. But she would not have this conversation from a sickbed. ‘You lied to me.’
It wasn’t lost on her that her words echoed those Wilder had spoken to her mere moments ago.
But Wren didn’t flinch. ‘I did? About what?’
‘Magic.’
Thea stared at her sister, waiting for the cries of denial, waiting for the show of shock and the claims of ignorance.
But none came.
When her sister turned to face her, her stare was as defiant as ever. ‘Yes,’ Wren said at last, with not a trace of regret. ‘I lied.’
Thea’s legs did buckle then and she caught herself on the edge of the table, her sister making no move to assist her.
‘Why…’ she managed, ears ringing. ‘Why would you lie about that?’
Wren crossed the small space between them and standing right in front of Thea, reached for the fate stone at her breast. The cause of so much pain and suffering already. It was stained with blood and muck, but the jade colour gleamed through.
‘I did more than lie about it,’ Wren said slowly, turning the stone over in her fingers. ‘I suppressed it.’
‘ What? ’ Thea couldn’t believe what she was hearing from her own sister’s mouth.
Wren tapped the fate stone with her dirt-lined fingernail. ‘When was the last time you took this off?’
‘I… What does that…’ but Thea trailed off, the weight on her chest threatening to crush her.
Gently, Wren pushed her down to sit on a nearby stool. ‘I’ve been coating that stone with a powerful suppressant for years.’
Thea could only gape at her, her stomach knotted.
Wren watched her sadly. ‘I felt mine when I was much younger —’
Thea’s head snapped to hers. ‘Yours?’
‘Yes. I have the same magic as you. I suspect you managed to keep yours at bay with all your physical activity. You were always running off somewhere, always trying to scrap with the fortress boys, always demanding that we play Dancing Alchemists… I was more sedentary. I think that meant it settled in me sooner.’
‘This… It’s impossible, Wren.’
‘Tell that to the lightning coursing through our veins.’
Thea’s hands were shaking. ‘Wren.’
But her sister wasn’t done. ‘I created the suppressant when I was fourteen and felt the first crackle of power at my fingertips. You showed no signs, but I knew it was only a matter of time. Then, six years ago, when you were crying on the clifftops about that stupid stablehand, I felt it ripple in you as well. So I stole your fate stone and treated it with the same suppressant I had been using for years. You’ve been none the wiser all this time. ’
‘But I asked you, that night Cal and Kipp were hurt. I asked you and you laughed in my face. You made me sound insane —’
‘You weren’t ready. And you were so easily deterred, even though you’d felt the power yourself. You dismissed it. You let a few words deny the fabric of your very being.’
Thea stared at her hands, for the first time noticing the blackened marks at her fingertips. ‘Until today,’ she croaked. ‘When I used lightning against a rheguld reaper .’
Wren jolted, failing to hide her shock. ‘Yes, well… Magic can overpower even the strongest of alchemies in the most desperate of situations.’
‘How… How do you know so much? Does anyone else know?’
‘I’m a scholar,’ Wren replied matter-of-factly. ‘As soon as I started showing… symptoms of magic, I started my research. But no, no one else knows, though I think that Warsword of yours suspects.’
‘He’s not my Warsword.’ Thea felt sick. ‘But if we have magic, that means… This can’t be, Wren. We’re just orphans abandoned to Thezmarr, nobodies.’
Wren was watching her carefully, monitoring her response. ‘Nobodies don’t have magic, Thea.’
Suddenly, it was all too much. Thea felt none of her lingering pain, none of her exhaustion as she lurched to her feet, heart hammering wildly, breaths coming in short and shallow.
‘Thea, I did it to protect us, to protect you.’
‘No.’ Thea backed away from her sister.
Wren reached for her. ‘How many lives do you think you have left, Thee?’
But Thea could take no more. That pit of power inside her yawned wider, a chasm of magic within sending a blazing current through her veins, demanding to be freed.
Pushing aside her injuries, the bloodshed and the black marks at her fingertips, she left the fortress, and for the first time in their lives, Wren did not follow.
Althea Zoltaire found herself atop the jagged black mountain cliffs of Thezmarr, looking out onto the darkening horizon. The sun was long gone and the swollen clouds loomed heavy over the churning seas below.
‘You have magic,’ Hawthorne had declared on his porch, what felt like a lifetime ago.
And her sister had laughed when she’d repeated those words. ‘Can you imagine?’
All her life, that crackling in her veins, that strange sensation creeping across her skin, that restlessness… Pieces of a long unsolved puzzle started to fit into place.
And then there had been the reaper, struck by the lightning at her hand, its shriek still ringing in Thea’s ears, its blood still coating her skin.
Thea’s fingers went to her fate stone, her curse.
Wren had used her obsession with it against her so cunningly.
Liar , the voice in her head hissed. Her sister had betrayed her.
With a strangled sob, Thea ripped the leather string from her neck and, with all her remaining strength, threw the piece of jade over the edge of the cliff with a scream.
Without its weight, without it suppressing all that came naturally to her, she was knocked back.
Power barrelled into her, lightning crackling at her fingertips, stealing the breath from her lungs. Rasping for air, she staggered forward, something calling to her out on the horizon.
She didn’t know what she was reaching for, but when she did, her arm outstretched, her finger pointing to where the sky met the sea —
Three thick bolts of lightning carved through the realms, brighter and stronger than any she’d ever seen, threatening to split the world apart as if in retribution for her turmoil.
And Thea felt it in her bones, in her heart, in her soul.
The lightning belonged to her, and she, to it.
Magic surged, vibrant bolts dancing at her fingertips. Above, black clouds gathered and thunder clapped, raging with her.
Behind her, a twig snapped, and she whirled around, eyes wide.
Wilder Hawthorne emerged from the jagged rocks. His gaze locked on her, locked on the power radiating from her.
‘I’ve asked you this before and I’ll ask once more,’ he said, his deep voice adding further charge to her magic as he took a step towards her.
‘ Who are you? ’