CHAPTER 40 Wren
Wren
‘Certain combinations of elements create resonance – amplifying properties that remain dormant when separated. The same can be said for the company alchemists keep’
– Drevenor Academy Handbook
‘THERE IS NO “always” for people like us . . .’ Torj had said it to her in the gardens of Drevenor, right after tearing their bond apart. Heading to the cottage now, Wren refused to believe it. She would not, could not, give up.
‘How did it go?’ Dessa looked up from where she was de-thorning a silvertide rose. She had the bloom upright on its stem and was dragging her harvesting knife down through the foliage and thorns, just as Wren had shown her earlier.
Wren pulled on a pair of gloves herself and began to gather the severed thorns.
‘Torj is putting on a brave face, but he’s struggling.
Badly. The poison is taking hold much faster than we anticipated.
And I don’t know how to help him. I’m no closer to obtaining the information Lucian promised me, and I have no idea how to counter what’s sapping his strength. ’
Dessa must have heard the note of desperation in her voice. She set down her rose and walked around the bench to Wren. Without another word, the alchemist embraced her.
For a moment, Wren stood rigid in her friend’s arms. But when Dessa didn’t let go, Wren’s whole body sagged, and a quiet sob broke from her lips. Dessa rubbed soothing circles across her back and said nothing, allowing her the space to talk through her feelings.
‘I don’t know what to do,’ Wren whispered, finally allowing her tears to flow freely.
‘There isn’t enough time. Between the war, the countermeasure against the shadow alchemy and Torj’s poisoning, I don’t know how to do it all.
I can’t . . .’ She drew a trembling breath and clung to Dessa.
‘I keep thinking . . . I shouldn’t be queen. ’
‘Why not?’ Dessa asked softly.
Wren pulled back from her friend and palmed the tears from her eyes. For the first time since she’d agreed to take the Delmirian throne, she spoke her truest fear aloud. ‘Because I’d let the midrealms burn to save him.’
The weight of her words settled in her chest, along with her soul bond and the heaviness of her impending crown. She couldn’t bring herself to be ashamed, not with the bond still thrumming between her and the Bear Slayer.
‘I think it’s time I accepted my fate,’ she told her friend. ‘I think I need to marry Darian.’
Dessa shook her head, her expression taut with horror. ‘You can’t, Wren—’
‘It’s the lesser of any of the other evils. I’d do anything to save him, and we’re out of time.’
Wren knew the magnitude of her confession; she could feel the weight of it like a block of lead around her heart.
She had been strong for the Bear Slayer in the safe bubble of his tent, but as she crept from his bed in the hours before dawn, leaving him sleeping soundly, she had nearly gone straight to Lucian to beg the nobleman, to pledge herself to Darian right then and there.
‘Time?’ Dessa said, squeezing her hands. ‘That’s what you need?’
Wren blinked at her in surprise. She wasn’t sure what she had expected Dessa’s response to be, but this hadn’t been it. ‘Among other things,’ she said slowly.
Dessa was nodding, more to herself than to Wren. ‘If time is what you need, then time is what I’ll get you.’
Wren gave her a sad smile. ‘But Dess . . . how?’
Dessa gave her fingers a final squeeze of encouragement before she released them and headed to the door. ‘Leave it with me, alright?’
Wren didn’t see that she had a choice. ‘Alright.’
As the hours passed in strange waves, Wren spent them hunched over the workbench in her cottage, working on the cure.
Her fingers were bleeding even through her gloves as she de-thorned the roses and ground ingredients, her nostrils filled with the scent of dried herbs and simmering potions.
When her vision started to blur and her growling stomach forced her away from her work, she stood in the doorway, eating an apple from a nearby tree and surveying the preparations for the war ahead.
Outside, Darian was overseeing the management of the supplies and logistics, calling out orders to quartermasters who were frantically organizing wagons of preserved foods and grain for the horses, all brought in from Thezmarr.
In the distance, Wren could see Cal inspecting weapons at the field forge, where the clang of metal rang out across the camp.
‘Walk with me,’ Kipp said, appearing at her side and thrusting his chin towards the surrounding forest.
Wren fell into step with her friend easily, and together they wove through the trees in the direction of the silvertide roses she’d found there months before.
‘I’ve dispatched scouts to gauge any enemy movements ahead, and to assess the terrain between here and Dorinth,’ Kipp told her thoughtfully. ‘I’ve had an idea for something . . . A decoy camp. Which I’ll need your help with, by the way.’
‘My help?’ Wren didn’t hide her surprise.
Kipp made a noise of amusement. ‘Rumour has it that you’re good with poisons, Your Queenliness . . .’
‘I’ve been known to dabble,’ she replied as she moved through the underbrush. ‘Aren’t we meeting with the council soon? Why are you telling me now?’
‘Because for the moment, only you, myself and Cal know. And that’s how I’d like to keep it.’
‘Any particular reason?’ she prompted.
Kipp shrugged. ‘I like the element of surprise.’
‘So I’ve heard.’ Wren parted the bushes before her, the grasses brushing against her skirts as they moved through the flourishing forest. ‘Do you think we’re ready for this?’ she asked her friend.
‘Ready? I’m not sure anyone’s ever ready for war,’ Kipp said. ‘But we’re doing everything we can to be prepared. You did well to keep stockpiling the healers’ supplies while we were on the road.’
‘I would have done better were the masters with us,’ she replied. ‘Have you heard from Farissa and the others? I had hoped they’d join us at Thezmarr after what happened at Drevenor.’
Kipp sighed. ‘I’ve heard nothing through my usual channels, but with the exception of your former mentor, the other masters weren’t here for the shadow war. I see no reason they would stay in the midrealms for the next.’
‘Because it’s a war of alchemy. Because their home was destroyed. Because—’
‘I’m not saying there aren’t valid reasons,’ Kipp interrupted. ‘I’m only saying I wouldn’t count on their support.’
Wren’s reply died on her lips as they reached the small crop of roses. The silvery petals shivered in the breeze, glimmering like pearls against the deep greenery and thorns.
‘There’s even less than I remember,’ she murmured.
‘We took a lot with us last time . . .’ Kipp crouched down and surveyed the blooms. ‘It’s not enough, is it?’
Wren unsheathed her harvesting knife and severed a single rose from the bush, twirling it between her tender fingers, the silvery white petals seeming to taunt her now. ‘Not even close.’
‘Wren,’ Kipp said, his tone serious, ‘I can plan as many battles as you need, I can come up with all the strategies under the sun, but . . . without the counter-alchemy, it will all be for nothing. This is where I need you to tell me what to do.’
Wren swallowed the hard lump that had been forming in her throat. ‘I need you to get a map,’ she heard herself say. ‘I’m going to mark some locations, and then you’re going to send the Bear Slayer, along with your most trusted men among us, right to them.’