Chapter Thirty-three #2
Kipp, who seemed to know far more than Thea had realised about the midrealms, hummed for a moment. ‘Hard to say exactly, but I’d say three to five days just to cross the border, then there’s a long stretch of Tverrian territory before we’d even be close to Notos.’
‘And now?’ Thea chimed in.
‘Depending on where we dock, and on the weather and the horses?’
‘That’s a lot of variables…’
‘That’s life, Highness.’
Thea smacked his arm. ‘Alright, depending on all those things, how long?’
‘Well, depending on —’
She punched his arm. ‘For fuck’s sake, Kipp!’
‘You’ll make an awful princess. Mouth like a sailor, violent and —’
‘It’s a wonder no one’s thrown you overboard yet,’ Torj commented drily from nearby.
‘I’m about to,’ Thea said.
Torj chuckled. ‘Should be about three days’ ride from the port to Tver.’
Thea groaned. ‘That long? How can there not be an easier way to travel around the midrealms?’
‘That’s where shadow magic would come in handy,’ Wilder muttered, resting against the rail and watching the shore.
‘What do you mean?’ Cal asked, looking up from where he was attaching fletching to the shafts of his arrows.
For a moment, Wilder looked as though he wished he hadn’t spoken, but after rubbing the back of his neck, he told them. ‘The wraiths can fly, as you know. The reapers too, by manipulating shadow. The half-wraiths transport themselves with the cloak of darkness. I’ve seen it.’
‘How?’ Cal pressed, eyes wide.
‘I don’t know exactly. But one minute they’re in one place, the next they’re in another, black swirling all around them.’
‘When did you see this?’ Torj frowned.
‘Years ago.’
Thea noticed his voice going distant, as though he wasn’t still standing there with them but was somewhere else, somewhere far darker.
‘Gods, I’d rather spend a week at the Scarlet Tower than get swept up in their shadow magic,’ Kipp declared.
‘No, you wouldn’t,’ Wilder and Torj said in unison.
Kipp baulked. ‘I was only —’
‘The Scarlet Tower is nothing to joke about,’ Torj warned him. ‘I don’t ever want to hear you say something so stupid again.’
Wilder made a noise of agreement. ‘That place is every imaginable horror incarnate. A sane man would wish for death before he set foot on that island.’ He and Torj exchanged a dark look.
‘I apologise,’ Kipp said, flushing. ‘Has anyone ever returned from there?’
‘No,’ Wilder answered with a note of dismissal.
The group was quiet for a moment, the unexpected tension almost palpable.
‘What was Thezmarr like before you left?’ Thea asked the others, changing tact, hoping to ease the strain between them.
Kipp shrugged, his embarrassment forgotten instantly. ‘The same as it always is.’
‘Any news about Seb or Vernich? They still there?’
Cal groaned, Wilder too.
‘Not this again, Thea,’ Kipp said.
‘I’ve got a bad feeling about them,’ she argued.
And she did. Every time she thought of the two bastards, her skin crawled.
She hated the thought of them in Thezmarr, particularly without Torj and Wilder to hold Vernich accountable.
Who knew what punishments he might inflict upon young, innocent shieldbearers?
But she also hated the idea of them being set loose on the midrealms…
‘Well?’ she pressed.
Cal pinched the bridge of his nose, as though the very thought of Seb caused him physical pain. ‘Seb hasn’t been coming to training. In fact, we’ve barely seen him at all. Makes a damn fine change, if you ask me.’
‘He’s skipped training?’ Thea’s eyes widened. ‘That’s unusual.’
‘It’s not for an apprentice, Thea,’ Torj said gently. ‘He has other duties now. Much like you and Cal. And Vernich’s no doubt on his way to Tver to join our fight. He might be scum, but he’s still a Warsword. When a kingdom of the midrealms calls for aid, he comes.’
Thea felt as though she’d heard that a hundred times before.
But the others hadn’t seen Vernich and Seb conspiring, hadn’t heard their hushed whispers in the corridor.
There was no point denying the grudge she held against them, but her suspicions went deeper than that.
There was something inherently wrong about them.
If her friends didn’t want to believe her, then fine. She’d be on guard for all of them.
She was so caught up in her thoughts of foul play and betrayal that she jumped when something huge landed on the rail beside her, a gust of wind whipping through her braid.
‘What the —’
It was the hawk that Wilder had been using for correspondence.
Terrence – the ill-fitting name came back to her suddenly.
The bird bore a scroll tied to its leg and a tattooed hand was already reaching for it.
Thea watched as Wilder retrieved the missive and stepped back, holding the parchment out of her sight.
Her skin prickled. ‘What does it say?’
Wilder didn’t look up from the message, his eyes scanning down the page once, twice, before he crumpled the parchment in his fist. ‘Nothing good.’
She closed the gap between them, her heart rate suddenly spiking. ‘That’s not an answer.’
‘Thea…’
‘We promised,’ she said slowly, searching his face for that openness she’d glimpsed time and time again, only to have it close up before her eyes. ‘We vowed we would be honest with one another. Always.’
‘We did.’
She steeled herself as she met his silver eyes, noting the shadow behind them. ‘I know a lie when I see one. I just didn’t expect one from you, not now.’
The Warsword didn’t deny it. A mask of indifference seemed to slide over his handsome features.
‘Tell me,’ she said quietly. ‘We can face it together.’
He didn’t so much as reach for her. Only his eyes shifted, to where she had absentmindedly started to toy with the fate stone around her neck. A force of habit, seeking comfort in the one thing she knew to be true.
‘That thing does not make you invincible,’ he told her, voice low.
Thea gave a dark laugh, her mood darkening along with it. ‘No shit,’ she said coldly. ‘I’d say it’s the opposite, wouldn’t you?’
‘Thea —’
‘But it gives me an edge,’ she cut in. ‘It allows me to take risks when others shouldn’t.’
‘It allows you no such thing.’
‘Who are you to tell me what a fate stone does and doesn’t allow?’ she countered, anger lacing her words. She hadn’t mentioned to anyone that the number had grown darker over the past few months, as though signalling the time passing, and the little time remaining…
Her fingers sought what she’d kept hidden in her pocket.
A patch of leather that she’d painstakingly crafted after studying the designs she’d stolen from the Delmirian armoury.
A stupid gift, created by a stupid girl, for a Warsword who’d rather stay surly and silent than share his burdens with her.
She’d made it to help ease the discomfort of his shoddy armour, as a means for added protection where she knew he was vulnerable.
Thea glanced at him again, giving him one final chance to come clean, to tell her what his friend from Naarva had disclosed about the affairs of monsters and men.
Wilder’s face was unreadable.
So Thea shoved the piece of leather down to the depths of her pocket and left it there. ‘If you’re so desperate to keep your secrets, keep them.’
She let her anger burn, for it was easier to feel than the ache that lay beneath it. Turning on her heel, she headed for the bow of the ship, where Cal and Kipp were.
‘Trouble in paradise, Highness?’ Kipp said by way of greeting.
‘Don’t start,’ she muttered, taking a place beside him and looking at the golden land ahead.
While Harenth was verdant and lush with sweeping plains and farmlands, the hills and valleys of Tver appeared gilded and wild, even from the ship as it docked at long last in the quiet port.
Thea’s heart seized as she spotted a cloud of dust drifting along the horizon. ‘What’s that?’ she breathed.
Cal nudged her. ‘That might cheer you up, actually…’
Thea gave him a baffled look.
‘ That is a herd of Tverrian thoroughbreds on the move.’
‘You mean the herd that Warswords pick their stallions from?’
‘The very one.’
Warmth flooded Thea’s chest, her row with Wilder suddenly far from her mind as she imagined herself claiming a stallion from the herd, a Warsword totem strapped to her arm.
Her stallion was out there somewhere, amid the billowing clouds of dust.
She only needed the Great Rite to open.