Chapter Four
WILDER
W ilder was hunched over a table in the library opposite Malik, a sea of open books between them. His brother stared intently at a page of footwork diagrams, his fingers braiding leather strings absentmindedly, his dog Dax curled up at his feet.
Wilder watched them for a moment with a pang of regret. Malik had been the first person who had faced his wrath when he’d discovered the truth about Thea.
‘ You knew all along … You knew when you gave her that dagger six fucking years ago, ’ he had yelled.
‘Gods, you even fucking told her, didn’t you?
What was it you said to her when Enovius nearly had you in his clutches?
“Beware the fury of a patient Delmirian” ?
Then you gave me that damn book. For fuck’s sake, Mal. ’
All the while, Malik had smiled, and Wilder had had no choice but to move past it. He would never know how Malik had come by the information about the Zoltaire sisters. He could only trust that, like him, Mal always had Thea’s best interests at heart.
Now, sensing Wilder’s attention, his brother looked up, recognition passing over his face. As though making up his mind, the gentle giant reached into his pocket and held out a squashed scroll.
Wilder sat back and sighed. ‘You opening my mail now, too?’
Malik didn’t look bothered in the slightest.
Wilder took the parchment and unravelled it, scanning its contents, realising now that it was probably best that Malik had indeed been on the receiving end of the message, rather than anyone else in the guild.
The missive was from his contact in Naarva – Dratos the Dawnless , as he called himself – who reported his findings of monsters across the fallen kingdom.
Keep them away from the southern isle, it read.
He waved the parchment at Malik. ‘You read it?’
Mal didn’t answer, but inclined his head slightly, which told Wilder that he had.
‘Dratos overestimates my influence.’
Malik made a noise of agreement, before tapping one of the books in front of Wilder.
‘I know, I know,’ he said, balling up the message and tossing it atop the glowing embers in the hearth, watching it catch alight.
He scanned the overwhelming spread of books on the table.
They had been putting together a training program for Thea.
So far, they had combined the best of the official Guardian curriculum and their own apprenticeship lessons into a gruelling schedule, but one that would give her the best shot if the Great Rite were to open and challenge her.
The hour was late now. Wilder gathered the sheets of parchment they’d worked on and left his brother and Dax by the fire, dreading the council meeting that was due to start shortly.
He had always hated them, usually making excuses to be elsewhere whenever he was asked to attend one.
The missive delivered to his cabin, however, had stated that this meeting was mandatory .
He was so caught up in thoughts of the report he was supposed to deliver that he slammed straight into someone as he rounded a corner.
Thea.
‘What are you doing?’ he said, tucking the papers into his jerkin. But when he stared down at her, he realised there was something wrong. Where she’d usually tilt her chin up and meet his eyes in challenge, her gaze darted away.
His attention snagged on the splints at her fingers. Was this why she was upset? Had a healer told her she couldn’t spar until she was healed? ‘Did you have your ribs seen to as well?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
A lie. Wilder saw it instantly, folding his arms across his chest. ‘Let’s try that again. Have you had your ribs seen to?’
He could practically hear her grinding her teeth. ‘No.’
Gripping her arm, he pulled her into the nearest room. An unused workshop space. Closing the door behind them, he turned to her. ‘Show me.’
‘You can’t be serious.’
‘Have you ever known me to joke about your wellbeing?’
After a brief glaring standoff, Thea gave a muffled cry of frustration, her hands shooting to her shirt, yanking the fabric from her waistband to reveal her bare side. ‘There. Happy?’
Tilting his head, Wilder surveyed the mottled bruising there, wincing on her behalf. He leant in, biting his bottom lip as he slid his hand ever so gently across her skin.
She took a trembling breath beneath his touch.
Carefully, he applied pressure across her ribs, his eyes flicking to her to gauge her reaction.
‘It’s fine,’ Thea muttered.
‘You’re hardly a good judge of that.’ He continued his examination. There was no swelling, but he watched her face for signs of wheezing and pain. ‘Nor have you got a reputation for honesty.’
Thea’s cheeks flushed, even more so as his hand travelled north, pushing her chest band up and exploring the ribs closest to her breast.
Blood roared in his ears, but he tried to maintain a dispassionate tone. ‘Have you been coughing? Suffering shortness of breath?’
‘No,’ she replied, despite the fact that they were both keenly aware she sounded breathless.
‘You need to look after yourself. To keep yourself healthy so that when I train you, I don’t break you.’
Her pupils dilated. ‘Nothing can break me, Warsword. Least of all you.’
‘Is that so?’ Her skin was warm beneath his fingers, goosebumps breaking out across her side.
‘Have you finished groping me?’ she said sharply.
Hawthorne dropped his hands and stepped back, refusing to blush and hoping she didn’t notice the effect she was having on him. ‘Have you finished lying to me?’
Thea didn’t answer.
Wilder sighed and gestured to her ribs. ‘They’re bruised, not broken.’
‘See? Fine.’
He couldn’t help himself. He caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger, forcing her eyes to meet his. ‘Not fine, Alchemist. You’re far from fine.’
‘Don’t tell me what I am.’
‘Then don’t lie to me.’
They stared at one another, neither one of them willing to yield. It was Thea who broke away, adjusting her chest band and tucking her shirt back in.
But Wilder couldn’t stand it. ‘Tell me what’s wrong. Besides —’
Thea’s brows shot up. ‘Besides everything with you?’
‘Yes,’ he said, resigned. ‘There’s something more. I can tell.’
Thea looked torn between storming off and arguing with him, but in the end, she threw her hands up in defeat. ‘I don’t have time to argue or pretend this doesn’t matter to me,’ she snapped. ‘Two and a half years, that’s all I get. And now I have to choose.’
Wilder frowned, ignoring the reference to the fate stone he knew rested between her breasts. ‘Choose?’
Thea broke into frantic pacing across the room. ‘Audra says that I can’t be both a magic wielder and a Warsword. That I have to choose. She says the laws are ironclad —’
‘Since when do you give a shit about laws?’ Wilder said.
‘Since I discovered I’m a fucking heir of a kingdom,’ Thea bit back, still pacing.
‘Since I became an apprentice to a Warsword who won’t fucking train me.
Since I found out that yet again, the laws of men can determine who and what I am in the limited time I have left in these realms.’ The words came pouring out of her, and it was only then that she met his eyes again, and he saw the truth behind her outburst: fear, hopelessness.
He didn’t go to her. He didn’t touch her. Instead, he reached into his jerkin and pulled out the training program he’d created, offering it to her.
‘You’ve never let the laws hold you back before,’ he said quietly. ‘If you master your storm magic alongside your warrior training, who the fuck is going to stop you?’
He pushed the pages into Thea’s hand, her expression stunned.
‘Get your things,’ he told her. ‘And be ready. Tomorrow we have work to do.’
* * *
Walking away from Thea took more willpower than Wilder cared to admit, but he was already late for the council meeting.
He strode into the dimly lit room and surveyed the figures seated in high-backed chairs around the mahogany table.
Osiris, the Guild Master, sat at the head of the table as usual; Vernich was to his right, and to Wilder’s surprise, Audra, the librarian, was to his left.
Nodding in greeting, Wilder removed the swords from his back and took up his place opposite the Bear Slayer further down the table.
Torj gave him a shit-eating grin that made Wilder want to throttle him.
He’d asked his friend – though he used the term loosely now – to look out for Thea in his absence, which apparently had amused his fellow Warsword to no end.
But to Wilder’s relief, there was no time for innuendo or ribbing as Osiris called the meeting to a start.
‘We have much to discuss this evening,’ he said, his face grave.
‘We are all familiar with the words that changed the course of Thezmarr’s history over twenty years ago…
’ The Guild Master waited for a moment before he recited: ‘ A daughter of darkness will wield a blade in one hand, and rule death with the other…’
He looked to them expectantly.
‘We know the damn prophecy,’ Wilder told him, cracking his knuckles on the table.
‘Tell me how it ends, then, Hawthorne,’ Osiris challenged.
Wilder had to leash his temper. ‘ A dawn of fire and blood ,’ he answered.
Osiris threw him a dirty look before addressing the room once more. ‘That dawn is here. It is official. As the prophecy foretold, the Daughter of Darkness has risen,’ he announced. ‘Our spies tell me that she seeks vengeance for what was done to her at Thezmarr, and that she is building an army.’
Wilder remained still in his seat. He had heard whispers along the Veil, but none so damning as the words spilling from the Guild Master’s mouth, none that took him back to the moments in his life he longed to forget: those on the brink of war, those in the heart of it.
The battles that had nearly seen the end of the two Warswords he cared about the most.
‘And what was done to her, exactly, Osiris?’ Audra asked, her voice devoid of emotion.
The Guild Master’s eyes narrowed. ‘You know damn well what happened here, Audra.’