Chapter Sixteen #2
But it became clear that Audra was right.
Thea was struggling. And it hurt him to see her hurt.
He wished there was something he could do to help her, even if it was just to listen to her fears.
For he saw the fear in her, clear as day…
The struggle between who she had been born, and who she wanted to be.
But he hadn’t created a safe environment for her to express those thoughts to him.
He’d left her out in the cold, alone with it all. That was something he’d have to change.
A gust of wind caught in Wilder’s hair and he glanced to his right to see Terrence the hawk closing in on the rock beside him.
Wilder almost didn’t reach for the scroll tied around the bird’s leg. There was no good news to be had of late, and he knew this message would be no different. He knew it was Dratos’ response from Naarva, about the half-wraith he and Thea had found in the clutches of the vine blight.
‘Whose eagle is that?’ Thea asked quietly, her lesson forgotten as she approached, staring at Terrence curiously.
‘He’s a hawk, not an eagle,’ Wilder replied, untying the scroll.
‘Whose hawk is he?’
Terrence ruffled his feathers and gave an impatient cry.
‘Go back to your training, Thea,’ he told her, tucking the parchment into his pocket.
Audra wasn’t nearly as patient. ‘Althea!’ she barked. ‘Try again . You need to hone that anger you’re clinging to. Once you do that, you’ll —’
Wilder saw something in Thea snap. ‘And how long do you think that will take?’ she cut in, turning back to her warden and wrenching her fate stone from the folds of her shirt.
Wilder nearly shuddered at the sight of it, but a tempest still brewed behind her eyes, and he felt her magic simmer.
Sensing the discord, Terrence flapped his wings and flew off.
‘Calm yourself,’ Wilder commanded softly.
But Thea’s gaze was trained on Audra, who stood before her, daring her.
‘You’re a danger to yourself and to others,’ Audra pressed. ‘You already proved that with Wren the other day —’
Wilder stiffened. What is she talking about?
Wren grimaced. ‘Audra, it was nothing —’
‘Don’t make excuses for her. You were lucky, likely because you share the same magic,’ Audra snapped, rounding on Thea again. ‘What if you did the same thing in a training session with your friends?’
Bolts of lightning flickered at Thea’s fingertips. White and brilliant, full of challenge and power.
‘They’ve already nearly died once because of you, haven’t they?’ Audra’s words were poised to cut and cut deep. She didn’t stop. ‘Yet you hardly try to train it. You refuse to master your magic, and for what?’
Thea’s mouth fell open. ‘I —’
‘Are you going to throw a storm tantrum every time you don’t get what you want? Because life will be full of disappointments, Althea.’
‘Stop it.’ Thea’s voice was low.
‘You could hurt them, just like you hurt Wren,’ Audra baited, closing in on her ward with predatory grace. ‘You could kill them , even.’
Both Wilder and Wren eyed the magic sparking at Thea’s trembling hands, and the heavy clouds suddenly rolling in overhead. Dread bloomed in the pit of Wilder’s stomach.
‘Audra…’ he cautioned.
But the librarian didn’t heed his warning. Instead, she sneered at his apprentice. ‘And if you’re not concerned about your sister or your friends… What about him? ’ She thrust a finger at Wilder. ‘What if one of those bolts found its way to his heart?’
Thea cursed viciously, flinging her hands towards the sea. Two forks of lightning soared outward, hitting the dark waters in the distance, and thunder clapped above them, rattling the ground.
Audra shook her head in disgust, her lip still curled. ‘Just a few words and you’re losing your temper like a child? What if that hit —’
The looming storm crackled above them. Thea was shaking with rage, with the promise of violence – or was it terror? Wilder took a step towards her.
Audra didn’t yield. ‘Imagine if you failed to control yourself in front of the Guild Master. Or the rulers of the remaining kingdoms. They’d know…
They’d know what you and your sister are.
They would blame you for the storms amid the darkness and the monsters crawling forth from the Veil.
Just like the rest of your family, they’d say.
And who knows what new pandemonium would be wrought upon the midrealms —’
In a blur, Wilder forced himself between the older woman and Thea. ‘That’s enough ,’ he cut in. ‘You’ve said enough , Audra.’
Audra froze, before turning her glare on him. ‘You forget yourself, Warsword. I’m doing your job for you, it seems.’
More lightning sparked in the distance.
‘You’re putting her at risk this way,’ he argued. Couldn’t she see how hurt and fragile Thea was in this moment? How she’d tapped into some of Thea’s worst fears? He couldn’t stand by and watch —
‘You’re out of your depth, Hawthorne,’ Audra told him, surveying his face coldly.
‘I’ve known that for a long while now.’ The words slipped from his mouth without a thought. ‘Whatever you’re doing up here, it isn’t working.’
The flinty librarian crossed her arms. ‘Yes, you’re an expert on what doesn’t work.’ She looked from Thea back to him, shaking her head again. ‘This is on you, Warsword.’
Then she left, tugging a wide-eyed Wren after her.
Apprentice and master were alone, the clouds closing in around them.
‘Does it scare you?’ Thea asked softly, staring into the darkening sky. ‘That I could split the world in two?’
Wilder went to her, matching the intensity of her gaze. ‘Nothing about you scares me.’
A fork of lightning flashed, and below, the waves surged violently. ‘I don’t believe that for a second.’
Her words were loaded, and hit him like a bolt to the chest. Gods, he wanted to touch her, to hold her, to close his hands around her lightning-tipped fingers and —
‘This has taught me something,’ Thea ventured, glancing at him and then back to her now retreating storm.
‘Tell me.’
‘That if you and I are… together… I’ll never be a Warsword.’
Wilder’s stomach bottomed out.
‘You interfered just now,’ Thea continued. ‘And it was only Audra, only words…’
‘And you were losing it.’
‘I’ll lose it many times over between now and when I die, Wilder. I won’t become the best, won’t become worthy of the Great Rite without getting hurt – without withstanding pain, whatever form it takes. And yet you won’t let me. You won’t allow me to face those things, not if… Not if I’m yours.’
‘I —’
‘You care for me,’ she continued. ‘Despite the mess we’re in…
I see it in the little things, more than anything else.
Leaving tea for me in the cabin, sewing up my torn clothes…
’ The sparks at Thea’s fingertips died and she sat down on the cliff edge, dangling her legs carelessly over the side, her gaze scanning the Chained Islands before them.
‘It’s sooner than I wanted, but we need to have that conversation. ’
‘I know,’ Wilder said, sitting beside her, resisting the urge to reach for her hand.
‘You as the cold, unflinching master doesn’t work. Do you agree?’ Thea asked, turning to him.
‘Yes.’
‘Nor does you as the lover and mentor. As the situation with Audra just now proved. Do you agree?’
Wilder loosed a trembling breath. ‘I agree.’
‘So we need to find some common ground in between.’
‘I take it you have a suggestion?’ Wilder could feel her body heat and her magic rippling from her, soaking into his side.
Thea nodded. ‘Friends. Mutual respect. Honesty.’
‘Friends…’ Wilder tasted the word.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘We’d have to make a pact, though. We must vow to one another… We cannot have a repeat of yesterday, or the other times we’ve… been together.’
‘No sex?’ Wilder clarified.
Pink tipped Thea’s cheeks and the sight made Wilder’s heart ache anew.
But his apprentice gathered herself. ‘Yes. No sex, of any kind. None of that sort of intimacy. Friendship only. And trust. If it’s going to work, Wilder – if we have any hope of making this dynamic work – there has to be complete honesty between us.’
‘No lies.’
‘No lies,’ Thea echoed. ‘No omissions. Everything out in the open.’
‘That’s a tall order, Alchemist,’ Wilder said, pushing his hair from his face, trying to master the pounding in his chest.
‘It’s the only way.’
Wilder allowed himself a moment to study her, the young woman he’d fallen for: capable of slaying monsters and wielding storms, his apprentice who warred against fate itself. How could he deny her this?
He offered her his callused hand. ‘So be it.’
Thea eyed his palm. ‘You have nothing you wish to tell me? No truths you need to disclose?’
Wilder didn’t look away, didn’t falter, even as everything he hadn’t told her surged to the forefront of his mind. The hunt for the lost heirs, the truth about the half-wraiths, the way he really felt… No, he kept those close, but compromised on another.
‘In the spirit of honesty, I have a thought,’ he said, having come to the conclusion during Audra’s disastrous lesson. He had wanted to keep her safe, but the truth was, nowhere was safe for her now.
‘Just the one?’
Wilder elbowed her gently. ‘I don’t think you will find the key to reaching your potential at Thezmarr.’
Thea’s brow shot up. ‘You don’t?’
Wilder shook his head. ‘Not to mention that Audra has her own agenda.’
‘Which is?’
‘I can’t be sure…’
‘So guess,’ Thea prompted.
He mulled over his next words carefully. ‘If I had to… I’d say she plans to make you a figurehead for women warriors. To bring them all together, out from hiding, united under the first woman Warsword in centuries.’
Thea waited a beat, but her expression betrayed nothing. ‘What’s wrong with that?’
Wilder looked down, tracing the tattoos on his fingers. ‘Nothing. So long as you don’t become collateral in the process.’
‘Audra would never wish me harm.’
‘Perhaps not,’ he allowed. ‘But she has waited over twenty years already…’ He cleared his throat. ‘In any case, whether it’s mastering your warrior abilities or your magic, you won’t find what you’re looking for here.’
‘Where, then?’
‘Where all Warswords find their power,’ he told her. ‘On the road.’
‘The road to where?’ Thea blinked at him, realisation dawning slowly on her face. ‘You want to go to Delmira…’
‘I do.’ Wilder offered his hand again. ‘Do we have a deal, Apprentice?’
For a moment, he watched the thoughts flit across Thea’s beautiful face, watched her war with herself before she made up her mind.
She grasped his hand firmly and a bolt of power surged between them.
‘We have a deal, Warsword,’ she said.