Chapter Nineteen #2
‘Wren was trying to protect you,’ Wilder said quietly.
‘She lied to me,’ Thea replied, the hurt thick in her voice.
‘And you’ve said your piece about that.’ The Warsword surveyed the broken castle.
‘Do you know what I’d give to argue with Malik again?
To have one more conversation where he was himself, free of pain?
The man I knew before?’ He faltered. ‘Life is too short – yours, in particular – to hold grudges against the people you love.’
Thea flinched as that last part hit a nerve. It was the first time someone had ever directly referenced her death, and used it in an argument against her, as though it were a mere fact to be thrown around. And she hadn’t expected it, not from him.
‘That’s rich, coming from you.’ The words flew out of her mouth before she could stop them.
‘What did you just say?’ His voice was low.
Anger flashed in those silver eyes, but Thea could feel the storm in her heart and for once, it steadied her. ‘You heard me,’ she said boldly. ‘You talk of forgiveness, but what of you? What of Talemir? You’ve held on to that anger for how long? Six years, was it?’
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Then what of me?’
He was in front of her in a single stride. His words came out deathly quiet. ‘What about you?’
‘You won’t forgive me. For lying about my fate stone. For getting us into this mess.’ Thea hated the waver in her voice, the note of vulnerability.
‘It’s forgotten.’
‘But not forgiven . You carry it around on that heavily chipped shoulder of yours.’ She hadn’t realised how close he was until she was staring up at his handsome face, his breath tickling her skin.
‘ That is not the burden I carry with me.’
‘No?’ Thea pressed. ‘Then what is?’
He seemed to study her, to take in her features as though committing them to memory, doing so with a pained expression. ‘We said no lies.’
‘We did.’
‘Without lying, and without muddying the waters of our pact, I can’t tell you this. It’s too hard. Leave it be, Thea.’
Thea swallowed the burning desire to demand exactly what plagued him and took a step back. ‘Alright,’ she said at last. ‘I’ll respect that.’
‘Thank you.’ The Warsword’s voice was rough. ‘It’s not because I don’t —’
But Thea didn’t hear the rest. Her gaze caught on something amid the rubble, and she took one, two steps towards it.
It would have been easy to miss, beneath the piles of broken stone and timber, but once she’d spotted it, there was no mistaking it for what it was.
The remains of a throne.
It was the back part of the chair, elaborate carvings of crowns and lightning bolts all along the arch. Thea kicked more debris out of the way, clearing away the dirt and wreckage.
The throne had been ruined, splintered into pieces, almost beyond recognition. But Thea knew in her bones what it was. Her father, or her mother, had sat upon it once, ordering the downfalls of the other kingdoms, only to have darkness sweep in and take their own.
‘Thea?’ Wilder’s voice jerked her out of her trance.
Her hand shot out, grabbing his muscled forearm. ‘Look…’ she breathed, pointing with her other hand to where a second throne lay upturned in the mess.
Wrapped around its legs was a vine blight.
‘Fuck.’ Wilder’s hands went to his swords in an instant.
But Thea took the sight in. It looked similar to the one they’d disposed of in Thezmarr: dark vines creeping across the broken stones, curling around whatever they could latch onto.
In its grip, Thea spotted the remains of an animal skeleton – but surely that wasn’t enough to sustain the monster?
‘Can you tell what the original host was?’ she asked, unsheathing her own blade and approaching the outer tendrils of the creature cautiously.
‘Not from a safe distance,’ Wilder murmured, not taking his eyes off the thing as he dug through his pocket for that same glass vial he’d used on the cliffs. He handed it to Thea. ‘A few drops are all you need.’
Thea wrapped her fingers around the vial, hiding her surprise.
‘Get as close to the main body as you can, but remember —’
‘Don’t let it touch me, I know,’ Thea finished for him as she inched towards the monster.
Sensing her approach, several of its arm-like limbs unfurled, ready to wrap around her and inflict the unimaginable pain Wilder had described to her.
But Thea wasn’t afraid; she was liberated.
Her mentor hadn’t hesitated to give her this opportunity.
Somewhere along the way, Wilder had understood that she needed to learn for herself – and that to do that, she would need to walk beside danger, and into it, in order to grow stronger.
Ever so carefully, she uncorked the vial with her teeth, her sword in her other hand. She was light on her feet as she avoided the creeping tendrils of vine and reached a clearing of rubble beside the main mass of the blight.
Taking a breath, she poured several drops of liquid onto it.
Steam hissed from the vines and the creature made a strange whistling noise, a burning smell singeing the air —
Thea expected to feel relief, but her nose tickled as she scented something beyond the monster turning to stone before her. She whirled around, tossing aside the vial and unsheathing her dagger.
Burnt hair . That was what she could smell, and it usually only meant one thing.
Wilder was close, poised for violence as well: his mighty swords at the ready, his body coiled to spring into action at any moment, his eyes bright and alert.
Thea scanned the ruins. There was no sign of anything untoward, but the crawling sensation across her skin, the acrid scent in the air, told her that they were out there… Wraiths. Reapers.
‘Can you tell how many?’ she murmured to Wilder.
‘Not from the smell alone.’ He twirled a blade, a muscle twitching in his jaw. ‘The blight was fucking bait.’
Thea’s blood went cold. ‘Surely they —’
An ear-piercing shriek cut through her words and the air around them.
Darkness swept through the ruins. A gale of wind caused by a pair of membranous wings followed.
A shadow wraith.
It landed before Warsword and apprentice, stretching its wings menacingly, flashing its talons as threads of obsidian leaked from its strange, sinewy frame. Snarling, the monster took a step towards them, its leathery skin gleaming in the watery rays of sun that filtered through its power.
Thea dug her heels into the ground, fear clenching around her heart.
It’s a wraith, not a reaper. You’ve faced worse than this , she told herself.
She expected Wilder to launch himself at the creature.
The Warsword didn’t move. For a second she thought he might be enthralled by the darkness and all the horrors it could drag from one’s mind, but Wilder was completely lucid, just still.
His gaze slid to Thea, and he raised a single brow, as if to say, Now’s your chance, Apprentice.
A slow smile spread across his face. That was all it took for Thea to hurl herself at the wraith, her blades blurs of silver as she ducked the slash of its talons and delivered deep cuts to the backs of its legs.
She was already facing it again, stepping carefully amid the rubble, trying to read its next move.
The wraith struck out once more, this time with a thick lash of onyx power.
She carved clean through it and the creature screamed, thrashing as though the tendrils were an extension of its body.
Incensed, it clawed at her with its ragged talons.
Thea was fast, but not fast enough.
Piercing agony lanced through her left arm, snatching the breath from her lungs, the air whistling between her teeth as she hissed in pain.
But she did not stop.
Whips of magic lashed out of the wraith, aiming not only for her, but for Wilder, who was still standing on the outskirts of the skirmish, swords in hands, watching. But he made no move to defend himself, no move to interfere as those coils of darkness came for them both.
She wouldn’t allow it. Thea wielded sword and dagger against every vicious attack of power, pausing only to hold her dagger between her teeth as she flung the throwing stars from her boot right at the monster’s heart.
The small blades weren’t big enough to do serious damage, but they created a window of opportunity, of distraction, so that Thea could duck and weave through the ribbons of darkness and leap upon the wraith with all her might.
For a brief moment, she wondered abstractly what it might be like to have the Furies-given strength of a Warsword behind her blows. But that was neither here nor there – not yet, anyway.
Thea thrust her sword through the tender flesh between the creature’s shoulder and clavicle. The force of her strike was enough to send the monster staggering back with a scream. The sound set Thea’s teeth on edge, but she wasn’t done, not by a long shot.
The wraith landed on its back in the ruins and Thea pinned it to the ground, tearing her sword free from its leathery skin, black blood spurting.
She speared her blade through its wings next.
It hissed and clawed at her, but she swiped her sword across its flesh again and, with a boot to the monster’s throat, palmed her dagger.
Thea didn’t hesitate as she carved through its chest with her blade of Naarvian steel. Skin, muscle, tissue and bone all caved beneath its sharp edge.
All the while, the wraith screamed, the sound echoing around the ruins of Delmira.
It seemed fitting to gut it here, amid the graveyard of what had once been the land of her kin. How many screams had its ilk dragged from her people? The thought came to her distantly, like a question from another person, another time.
As the shadow wraith’s chest opened up beneath her, Thea didn’t hesitate to carve her blade through the rest of its insides, and cut out its heart.
With a cry of triumph, she tore the hot mass from its chest cavity, its warm, thick blood pouring down her arm as she turned to Wilder, an unstoppable grin on her face.
But Wilder’s attention wasn’t on her or the wraith heart in her grasp.
It was fixed on the ledge of a nearby stone wall.
On the rheguld reaper watching them.