CHAPTER 38 Torj
CHAPTER 38
Torj
‘Even the most skilled wielders of magic are not immune to the unforeseen ripple of consequence’
– A History of Magically Inflicted Injuries
E VEN BACK AT the academy, in the safety of Wren’s rooms, Torj’s heart was still pounding. The glint of a blade, the whoosh of an arrow as it flew past Wren, missing her by a hair’s breadth – it was all too close for comfort.
He hadn’t felt fear like that in five years. Icy terror had gripped his heart as Wren’s life hung in the balance. Nothing else had mattered. Only her.
Torj shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. He was her bodyguard, sworn to protect her. Of course her safety mattered to him. But this feeling, this intensity – it was something else, something he couldn’t quite define. All he knew was that the thought of any harm coming to Wren filled him with a dread more chilling than the winter storms in Aveum.
Wren was tending to a small cut on her arm, the strange manacles she had brought with them on the workbench before her. They hadn’t spoken on the ride back to the academy, both reeling from the encounter with the masked men, but her words echoed in his mind.
I made them...
Torj peered over her shoulder at the offending pair of irons. ‘What do you mean, you made them?’ he said at last.
Wren started wiping the blood from her face with a wet rag. ‘Well, I designed them. Years ago...When we all thought Wilder was a traitor, and Thea needed something to contain him once she captured him.’
Torj ran his fingers through his hair and grimaced, finding it matted with blood, too. In the year leading up to the shadow war, his fellow Warsword, Wilder Hawthorne, had been accused of treason, and Wren’s sister had been ordered to hunt him down and bring him to justice.
‘I treated the chains with a unique form of alchemy,’ Wren continued, dropping the blood-stained rag on the bench, not taking her eyes off the irons. ‘Alchemy I had previously used to suppress Thea’s storm magic.’
‘Why would you do that?’ Torj asked, goosebumps rushing across his skin.
Wren paused a moment before answering. ‘Perhaps it was wrong, but when we were growing up, I discovered my magic long before my sister’s started manifesting. I knew what it meant: that we weren’t just orphans, we were royals – the heirs to Delmira – and that the second someone discovered our heritage, we would be in danger. I also knew that Thea wasn’t ready to face those truths. So...I treated the stone she wore around her neck day and night, with a subtle concoction I’d tested on myself. Enough to suppress her magic, but not make her ill...Then later, when we suspected Wilder wasn’t who he said he was, I revisited the formula. I made it stronger, harsher, added elements to quell a Warsword’s Furies-given strength...’
‘And these are the same chains?’ Torj lifted them from the table, turning them over in his hands.
‘Almost,’ Wren replied hoarsely, taking them from him. ‘Where I amplified the properties that dull strength, whoever created these did so to quell sovereign magic. From what I can tell, they took my design and my methods and tweaked them to suit their own purposes...To capture rulers of the midrealms. It’s the same sort of alchemy that was used on the blade in the attempt on King Leiko’s life.’
Unease coiled in Torj’s gut. ‘You’re sure?’
‘Yes.’
He swore. ‘And now they’ve used your own weapon against you.’
‘So it would seem.’ Wren dropped the soiled rag on her workbench and sighed. ‘Why would they attack me?’
‘Whether you wear a crown or not, you’re the heir to the Delmirian throne,’ Torj said slowly. Why had Audra not told him that there was something larger at play? That his guarding of Wren was no mere precaution, but a response to a larger fear for all royals of the midrealms? He unclenched his jaw, rubbing the aching muscles there.
‘But my kingdom has nothing,’ Wren countered. ‘And I wield no political power. I’m just an alchemist.’
‘You’ve never been just an alchemist, Embers.’ Torj stared at the manacles. ‘You have to hand them over to the academy. And I have to talk to Audra, immediately.’
‘I know.’
Wren was tense, shadows flickering in her eyes as she scanned the irons. She was covered in dried blood the colour of rust, her gown and apron ruined. A bruise was blooming around her right eye where that bastard had struck her. Torj had ended him too quickly.
‘You should get cleaned up,’ he said.
She didn’t look away from the manacles. ‘So should you.’
Torj sighed. ‘I have to report to the High Chancellor and send word to Thezmarr. Cal’s on his way to take over for me.’
He held out his hands for the manacles. Wren reluctantly handed them over.
‘They’ll want to speak to you about the specifics,’ he told her. ‘About what you used to treat these.’
Wren nodded, looking forlorn. ‘I...I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t been there. Thank you.’
‘Are you sure you’re feeling alright? Should I call for a healer? That’s two expressions of gratitude in a single day...’
Wren huffed a dark laugh. ‘Don’t get used to it.’
‘Wouldn’t dream of it, Embervale.’
A faint smile tugged at her lips, just as a knock sounded at the door.
‘That’ll be Cal,’ Torj said, taking in the exhaustion lining her face. ‘Get cleaned up,’ he told her again.
Wren started towards the bathing chamber, but stopped and turned back to him. ‘When do we start self-defence lessons?’
A fresh wave of guilt washed over him, turning his guts to lead. He’d nearly thrown all manner of duty and mission to the wind and kissed her then and there in the prayer room. Holding her like that...It had been both joy and torment, reawakening a yearning he had tried to stamp out long ago. The scent of her, the soft feel of her in his arms – it had fractured whatever walls he’d built around himself in her absence. He’d been so rattled by the experience that he’d been caught off guard with the attack. He should have smelled it coming a mile away, but she’d nearly been taken.
All because he’d been so wrapped up in her.
Then there was the matter of the wound that festered in the scars above his heart. Everything he had read so far spelled doom: an altered reality, an altered self...Was he changing? Was he himself putting Wren in danger?
Torj cleared his throat, trying to force down the memory of her pressed against him. ‘Tomorrow,’ he answered her at last. He’d make sure of it.
Compelled as he felt to be her sole protector, it was time he taught her how to defend herself.