CHAPTER 12 Torj
Torj
‘The swing of a war hammer speaks volumes more than the silver tongue of a nobleman’
– Bear Slayer, Warsword of Thezmarr
WREN’S HANDS WERE on his face, bringing him back to her as his pounding heart threatened to break through his chest. She forced his gaze to hers. ‘It was how I knew I could trust Darian, Torj,’ she said. ‘He saved her all those years ago. He got her away just in time.’
‘It’s not possible.’ The words spilled from Torj’s lips. For decades he had combed the midrealms for his grandmother before he had given up hope, had mourned her passing as he had his mother’s – in a quiet rage that yearned to set the world ablaze.
Wren drew him to her and pressed a soft kiss against his lips. ‘Talk to Darian.’
Torj lamented the loss of her touch instantly. He’d only just found her again. And there was so much he needed to tell her, so much still to say. As though sensing his turmoil, Wren turned to him when she reached the door.
‘You’ve searched decades for the answers Darian has. You’ve waited long enough. Everything else will still be here when you’re done.’
‘Thea should be waiting for you outside,’ Darian called after her. The sultry, flirty tone he usually used with Wren was completely stripped away. She gave him a nod of acknowledgement before she left.
When they were alone, Torj turned to Darian. ‘Talk fast, Devereux.’
For the first time since he’d returned to Torj’s life, the mask Darian wore so well slid free as he stared into the dying fire, his expression wary.
His shoulders caved inwards, and the brightness in his eyes had dulled.
It was the look of defeat he’d worn as a boy, whenever he’d had dealings with his father.
‘I did separate you from Grandmother Vara,’ Darian told him. ‘I did send her away—’
Torj gripped the back of a chair until the wood started to splinter.
‘But not for the reasons you think,’ Darian continued.
‘She helped my mother escape . . . and that put her in more danger than you can know. My father knew it was Grandmother Vara who helped her, through the women’s shelter.
As soon as my mother was admitted for a broken arm, Vara refused to send her back to Lucian.
After what happened to your mother, she swore she’d never bear witness to that kind of violence again. ’
Torj remained silent, the image of his own mother beaten to a bloody pulp flashing before his eyes, regret churning in his gut.
‘I got your grandmother and my mother out of Tver before they could be caught,’ Darian explained. ‘My father has hunted them ever since. He’s never stopped looking, never stopped cursing Vara’s name for what she did.’
Torj realized he was still holding the scroll Wren had given him. ‘And this?’
‘That’s her last known location, as discovered by your friend the strategist. It was one of his sources who uncovered the connection to me and reported it back to him, and then Wren.’
‘And you used your influence to send me out to deal with those cursed bears, why?’ Torj said slowly, his voice dangerously low.
Darian sighed heavily. ‘I had to get you far away from it all. While I had your grandmother shipped off, while my father destroyed the shelter, while there was all manner of corrupt political dealings in the works. I knew if you got wind of even a fraction of what was going on, you’d never be safe.
Either by his orders, or by your own recklessness.
’ Darian cleared his throat as though to make a point.
‘You would have gone after him and got yourself killed in the process. Or worse, sent to the Scarlet Tower. My father knew guards at that place . . . I couldn’t let you wind up there, Torj. ’
‘I was a Warsword—’
‘But not untouchable. Your friend Wilder Hawthorne proved that during the last war, didn’t he?’ Darian cut in fiercely. ‘I did what I had to do to keep the people I love safe. Haven’t you ever had to keep a secret like that? It’s been the hardest thing I’ve ever done, hiding this from you.’
Torj remained standing by the chair, his knuckles white around the splintered wood.
The scroll crumpled in his other hand. ‘So you decided for me? Just like that? You let me believe for decades that the only family I had left was gone?’ His voice broke on the last word, and the rage that had been simmering beneath the surface threatened to boil over.
The irony wasn’t lost on him that not all that long ago, he had done the same thing to Wren.
‘I did what I thought—’
‘What you thought was best?’ Torj laughed bitterly.
‘We’ve been here before, Devereux. You deciding what’s best for me without my consent.
You’ve always known better, haven’t you?
Even as a boy. Remember when you convinced me we could run away together?
You got a stern lecture from your mother, while I couldn’t leave my bed for days after what my father did. ’
A flash of pain crossed Darian’s face. ‘That’s not fair, Torj. We were children.’
‘And now? What’s your excuse now?’ Torj demanded. ‘Do you have any idea what it was like? Searching for Vara year after year, clinging to some desperate hope that she was alive, only to eventually give her up for dead?’
Darian took a step towards him, but Torj raised a hand to stop him, staring at the scroll.
‘She’s truly alive? After all this time?’
‘She’s alive,’ Darian confirmed. ‘I’ve checked in over the years when I could, helped where I could. Mainly I encouraged her to move around as much as possible. She has only stayed away to protect my mother from my father. If he found her . . .’
Darian didn’t need to finish that sentence. Torj knew exactly what Lucian Devereux was capable of – the same as his own father had been, only with more influence, more resources, more power.
‘I’m truly sorry for all the pain I have caused you, for robbing you of the only family you had left.’ Darian’s polished veneer cracked, revealing the weary, broken person beneath. ‘For what it’s worth, I lost the only brother I’d ever had that same day.’
It was the closest Darian had come to resembling the friend Torj had once known as a boy. Those were words he would have said back then, when they were young and both trying to break free of their fathers’ hold.
Torj stared at him, trying to reconcile the boy he’d once called brother with the man who had kept such a devastating secret from him. The man who had let him grieve needlessly for years.
‘So why now?’ Torj asked roughly. ‘Why tell me now, when you’ve kept this secret for decades?’
‘I want a world without my father. Without men like him. The midrealms festers when they are at the helm, and I am tired of living in the poison they spread. I was born tired of it. But years ago, dear old Lucian started to suspect my wavering loyalty. He put conditions in place for my inheritance. Things that need . . . untangling.’
‘Like what?’ Torj pressed.
‘If you must know, there’s a rather complex succession plan, with legal safeguards that would divert any inheritance from me if he died under suspicious circumstances .
. . Then there’s the required approval of his bannermen before I take over any of his land assets.
The noble houses are all linked. Not to mention that there may be a piece of incriminating evidence or two that dear Lucian holds against me. I need those found and destroyed.’
‘And what does any of this have to do with Wren?’
‘With Wren and her strategist’s help, I’ve been able to consult with legal scholars who understand the intricacies of inheritance law.
With our united visits to Houses Briar and Pendelton, we’ve positioned ourselves favourably with the bannermen.
And the evidence . . . Well, that’s being dealt with separately.
When the time is right, Wren has promised to end Lucian for me. ’
‘She means to poison him?’ Torj guessed.
‘It’s her specialty, isn’t it?’ Darian replied with a hint of his usual smirk. ‘In the meantime, I’m also not opposed to helping her uncover whatever poison ails you, or Furies save us, she might add the lot of us to her ledger.’
Torj tried to swallow the lump that had formed in his throat. ‘This engagement . . . What is it to you?’
‘It’s exactly what she told you it was – a means to an end.’ Darian’s smile widened then. ‘Though watching you squirm has been an unexpected pleasure . . . It’s like I’ve stolen your toys all over again.’
‘Still can’t get your own toys, Devereux?’ Torj said, but there was no bite in it. A ghost of a smile threatened the corner of his mouth.
Silence stretched between them, a reckoning of decades of grief and suppressed childhood memories.
Torj glanced down at the scroll in his hands once more, struggling to comprehend the division between truth and reality, of all that he’d clung to over the years.
‘You did all this to protect our families?’ he said, finally taking a single step towards the hearth. ‘To protect me?’
Darian faced him, tentatively offering his hand. ‘What are brothers for?’
Torj stared at the outstretched hand for a long moment. The boy he once knew and the man before him blurred together.
‘I’m . . . I’m not there yet, Darian,’ he said quietly. ‘But I’m grateful to you, for saving Vara. I want to see her. When it’s safe. For now, we have one thing in common . . . I want to see Lucian Devereux fall.’
He didn’t take Darian’s hand. Not yet. Instead, he moved to stand beside him at the hearth, both men facing the dying embers.
‘Then we start there.’ Darian withdrew his hand. ‘The rest . . . the rest will take time.’
Torj gave a single, curt nod. It wasn’t forgiveness – not yet – but it was a beginning. The faintest glimmer of what once was, and what, perhaps, could be again.