CHAPTER 23 Torj
Torj
‘Traditionally, upon his death, the life of a Warsword is honoured upon the Plains of Orax at Thezmarr’
– The Warsword’s Way
CALLAHAN THE FLAMING Arrow did not miss, and the Warswords, alchemists, bannermen and crew gathered to watch Vernich and Graves’s raft catch alight. The fire burned bright on the horizon, the plume of smoke catching in the briny wind as they bid the Bloodletter a final farewell.
Torj found himself with Wilder and Talemir as night gathered and the last of the rite’s flames flickered out. ‘Where are Thea and Cal?’ he asked, glancing around for his fellow Warswords.
Wilder gestured vaguely below deck. ‘We asked them to stay, but Thea said if we were going to toast the end of our kind, she wanted no part in it. I told her it was simply the end of another era, but she wasn’t interested.
I don’t think she’s accepted his death yet.
She was oddly fond of him, after the war. ’
‘Understandable.’ Torj remembered the Bloodletter in all his gruesome glory, the most vicious of them all. ‘I can’t believe the mean old bastard is gone.’
‘Nor I.’ Talemir raised a flask. ‘To Vernich, the grumpiest prick who ever lived.’ He took a generous swig and poured a splash overboard.
Wilder reached for the liquor next. ‘To Vernich . . . I’ll never forgive you for that stunt you pulled when Thea was a shieldbearer. But you took every hit from me like a legend.’
Torj accepted the flask last and raised it to the sky. ‘To the Bloodletter. For being there when it counted most, in the end.’
The burn of the fire extract down his throat was a welcome momentary distraction.
Afterwards, Torj pressed the flask back into Talemir’s waiting hand and made his excuses.
Leaving his brothers in arms behind, he tried not to rush as he made his way below deck to the hold, praying to the Furies that besides the horses and cargo, it would be empty.
A tremor that had started in his fingers and toyed with his knees was taking hold in a much bigger way, and he needed to be out of sight, needed to face it without the concerned stares of his friends.
The weight of his war hammer across his back was suddenly almost too much to bear, as though it wanted to drag him through the keel of the ship and into the depths of the sea below.
Heart pounding, Torj staggered towards the narrow stairs past the cabins that still felt so far away. He had always been strong, even before his Furies-given power. This weakness was not who he was – he wouldn’t allow it.
But as he stumbled into the first stall in the hold and his vision swam with black spots, the armour he wore against his regrets cracked.
‘Embers,’ he heard himself mutter. How could they have been given such a gift, only to lose it so soon? There was not enough time. But then, he supposed there would never be enough time, not when it came to her.
A blurred but familiar face came into view.
‘Don’t tell Wren,’ Torj managed, before he lost consciousness.
The air was crisper when Torj awoke in the same stall, and the guttering light from the lanterns told him he’d been out for a while. Hay straws poked into him at sharp angles, and his mouth felt dry.
With a groan, he sat up, distantly wondering if he’d hit his head.
‘Needed a little cat nap in your old age, I see,’ Darian observed from where he sat a few feet away on a hay bale, toying with something between his fingers that Torj couldn’t see.
‘If you keep scowling like that you’ll get wrinkles,’ the nobleman added, his voice smooth. ‘Or more wrinkles, I should say.’
Darian’s smile was as smug as ever. He’d perfected it from the age of sixteen and had been wielding it against men and women alike ever since.
Torj rolled his eyes and sat up with a groan. ‘Don’t you ever get sick of yourself?’
‘Why would I when I’m such excellent company?’ Darian quipped.
‘You haven’t changed.’
The nobleman laughed. ‘You don’t mess with perfection, brother.’
‘That’s not what I’d call it,’ Torj grunted in reply as he tried to dust himself off. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Well, someone had to break your fall. I can only imagine the damage I’d be billed for if your thick skull cracked the ship floor,’ Darian replied with a smirk.
‘Do you ever stop?’ Torj muttered.
The smirk widened into a grin. ‘Not if I can help it. So, what’s with you collapsing?’
Torj ground his teeth. ‘I didn’t collapse.’
‘Then you swooned in my presence? I’m touched.’ But there was an edge to Darian’s voice now. ‘What’s going on? What happened to you?’
‘Nothing—’
‘Don’t insult my intelligence, Bear Slayer,’ Darian snapped. ‘Tell me what’s going on – or do I need to get my betrothed involved?’
Torj stared daggers at him. He knew the prick was just using the term to aggravate him; the problem was . . . it worked. Every. Fucking. Time.
Darian pocketed whatever he was fidgeting with and got to his feet. ‘So be it. I’ll call my wife-to-be and she can deal with you—’
‘She’s not your wife.’ Torj hated the bastard. Hated him. ‘You know what the problem is, anyway. I’ve been poisoned, remember?’
‘But that shouldn’t be affecting you this badly yet.’ Darian surged for the stall door. ‘I’ll get Wren—’
‘There’s nothing to be done right now.’
‘Then why did you ask me not to tell her?’ Darian demanded.
‘I just don’t want her to see me like this.’
‘If she’s ever woken up next to you in the morning, I assure you, the states are almost identical—’
The Bear Slayer growled. ‘Devereux.’
‘Elderbrock.’
Torj wanted to get up, wanted to show Darian that there was nothing wrong with him, but his limbs felt heavy, and his mind was full of fog. He needed a moment, just a moment, to get his bearings.
Darian returned to the hay bale and sat down with a sigh. ‘I thought things were good between us, brother . . .’
Torj glanced up. ‘Just because I found out you helped my grandmother doesn’t mean I have to like your highborn bullshit.’
Darian laughed. Actually laughed. ‘Well, I for one could do without the brooding warrior attitude. You really know how to kill a mood, you know that? We used to have fun, Elderbrock. Don’t you remember?
’ The nobleman stretched out his legs, crossing them at the ankles.
‘The drinking games . . . The maidens watching us spar . . . The—’
‘There’s none of that any more,’ Torj muttered, closing his eyes against the ache forming behind them.
‘True,’ Darian said. ‘They weren’t maidens for long—’
‘Darian,’ Torj snapped. ‘What do you want?’
‘Besides the pleasure of your company after all this time?’
A familiar quiet settled between their barbs.
A silence that hung heavy with the echo of beatings and verbal lashings long past. When they had been boys, there had always been a strange sense of calm after such things – a sick sense of relief that the worst had happened, and at last the waiting was over, at least for a little while.
Slowly, they would come back to themselves with a smart-ass quip or a bad joke while they tried to suspend their reality for just a moment longer.
‘When we were boys,’ Torj said quietly, ‘at your father’s estate, training in the yard with wooden swords . . .’
Darian tensed beside him. ‘I remember.’
‘You told me you wanted to study music, not politics.’
‘Look how that turned out, eh?’ Darian said wryly.
‘And he punished you by punishing me,’ Torj ventured as the memory came back to him. While they trained, Darian had disarmed Torj, but Lord Lucian had forced his son to keep attacking, to keep striking while he was down.
‘Well, bruises on the local riff-raff were no concern of his. He couldn’t very well have his blue-blooded son sporting black eyes, now, could he?’ Darian’s words were flat and devoid of emotion, but his gaze was steel.
Torj remembered how Darian’s young face had turned ash-white while Lord Lucian surveyed them from the balcony above. ‘A true noble swordsman shows no mercy, right?’
‘That’s what he said, yes.’
Torj swallowed the lump in his throat. ‘I think that day hurt you more than it did me.’
‘The blood and stitches you needed said otherwise,’ Darian replied. ‘I should have gone against him. Life might have been different.’
‘It might have been. You might have wound up dead. I understood, you know . . . even then. What it meant to disobey a father like yours. I never held it against you.’ Torj’s hand drifted to his throat, where every now and then he could still feel the imprint of his own father’s hands.
‘Do you think we should have told someone about them? Our fathers?’
Darian gave a dark laugh. ‘Told who?’
‘Anyone.’
Shaking his head, the nobleman sighed. ‘They would have killed us.’
Torj nodded. ‘Mine killed my mother instead.’
‘That wasn’t your fault, brother,’ Darian murmured. ‘It never was.’
Torj glanced behind them to make sure he wasn’t going to be overheard. ‘Perhaps it was out of my control then . . . but it’s not now.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Darian looked genuinely puzzled.
‘Wren.’ Torj braced himself against the wall, sucking in a lungful of the musty air, desperation clawing at his insides. ‘You’ll look after her, won’t you? Protect her from Lucian?’
‘I thought we’d discussed this.’ Darian adopted a condescending tone. ‘Unfortunately, my engagement to the love of your life is fake. Though I daresay I’ll miss our repartee.’
‘Don’t play the fool, Darian. It doesn’t suit you.’
‘Did the mighty Bear Slayer just compliment me?’
Torj scoffed. ‘That’s a stretch.’
‘Then tell me, what are you saying, brother?’
Torj forged on. ‘She’ll want a workroom for her alchemy, and a library. A big one. The biggest you can afford, which should be sizable—’
‘You know I’m not actually marrying—’
‘And a garden,’ Torj continued. ‘With the best herbs you can find from all over the realms. She’ll want to tend to it herself and—’
‘Elderbrock. Stop.’
Torj blinked. ‘What?’
‘Stop making plans for when you’re gone. I won’t have it. And most importantly, she won’t have it. Furies save you, have you met her?’
‘I just . . .’
‘Just what?’ Darian demanded.
Torj’s breath rattled in his chest. ‘I want her to have everything.’
Darian turned to him then, incredulous. ‘Everything is nothing without you.’
‘She’ll move on. She’ll—’
Darian cut him off. ‘Would you?’
Torj froze. Gods, he hated that Darian – Darian fucking Devereux – had a point. The point. They were soul bonded. Equals. And yet he was still behaving like a gods-damned child.
‘You’re right,’ he said, hanging his head.
Darian blinked, cupping his ear in disbelief. ‘What was that?’
‘Don’t be a smug bastard. I won’t say it twice.’
‘Should have got it in writing,’ Darian retorted.
‘You should have.’
‘She loves you,’ Darian said more seriously. ‘Anyone with eyes can see it. The way she looks at you – it’s how my aunt used to look at my uncle before they died . . .’ He trailed off. ‘Don’t waste it.’
‘I’m a dying Warsword. She’s to be queen.’
Darian scoffed. ‘And I’m a highborn lord conspiring against his own father.’ He got to his feet again and offered Torj his hand. ‘The old rules are fading, brother. Maybe it’s time we wrote new ones.’
The word ‘brother’ hung between them again – an olive branch, a recognition of what they once were to each other.
Torj considered the outstretched hand, his heart still heavy. ‘Men like me don’t write the rules. We follow them.’
‘What a load of bullshit,’ Darian retorted. ‘Queen. Alchemist. Poisoner. Warsword. Man. One day we’ll live in a world where it doesn’t fucking matter. Now take my damn hand and let me help your pathetic ass up.’
Torj snorted at that. The old Darian was definitely still in there, and so he grasped his friend’s hand.
‘Besides,’ Darian added, lighter now that he’d hauled Torj up, ‘can you imagine anyone telling Wren she can’t have what she wants? I’ve seen her in action. She makes the Bear Slayer look like a stuffed animal. The woman’s terrifying.’
That startled a laugh from Torj. ‘You have no idea.’
As the two men left the hold and stepped out onto the deck, something had shifted.
The air was clearer between them, old wounds beginning to knit closed.
Ever cautious of his father, Darian looked around carefully before he pulled something from his pocket and held it out for Torj to see beneath the moonlight.
‘Your grandmother gave this to me,’ he said quietly, handing it to Torj. ‘It was once hers, then it belonged to your mother.’
Torj stopped walking.
Darian gripped his shoulder, forcing him to take his eyes off the delicate circle of silver and meet his friend’s determined gaze. ‘Don’t let anyone tell you that you’re not worthy of her. Not even yourself.’
Torj speared his fingers through his hair. ‘And what does that matter, given your impending marriage to her?’
The nobleman’s eyes flickered to the distance, his voice dropping low. ‘A lot can happen between now and when we get to an altar . . . and there are many reasons why weddings don’t go ahead. Think on it, brother.’
Darian’s words lingered long after he had left to speak with Kipp. They echoed through Torj like a chord struck over and over.
He hadn’t moved on from Elwren Embervale in nearly thirteen years, and he never would. They were fucking soul bonded. Perhaps, at long last, it was time he stopped fighting it, fighting himself, and started fighting for her instead.
And suddenly, the answer was clear.
Torj reached for her through the bond. Embers, I need to talk to you.