Chapter Four
THEA
L ivid wasn’t a strong enough word to describe the feeling surging through Thea as she tracked the traitor across the icy terrain.
With every step of her horse, with every fresh bite of cold into her bones, she raged on.
Her fury only intensified as she followed the trail across the woodlands and a half-frozen river, only to see the tracks stop before a blank cliff face.
She bit back an enraged scream.
There was no sign of him. The trail ended at the foot of the rock. As though he had vanished.
‘Where the fuck are we?’ she asked, whirling around to face Cal and Kipp.
Cal grimaced as he fished the map out of his saddlebag and consulted the landmarks around them.
‘By the looks of things, we’re still in this forest.’ He pointed to the parchment.
‘But a fair way further north than we were before. If I had to take a guess, I’d say we’re parallel to the halfway point of the lake. Vios is to the north-west.’
Thea pinched the bridge of her nose. ‘I can’t believe this. Yesterday we were so close —’
Kipp motioned for quiet. Not tearing his eyes away from the cliff base, he jumped down from his horse and traced his gloved fingers across the rock. ‘The tracks just end,’ he said, more to himself than to Thea and Cal. ‘It’s like… like he walked straight through it. Fascinating.’
‘Impossible, you mean,’ Cal corrected from his saddle, still frowning over the map.
‘He’s working with dark forces,’ Thea ventured, fury crackling in her veins. ‘Back in Notos I saw him vanish into shadow myself. Nothing is impossible.’
She didn’t miss the way Kipp’s gaze darted up to Cal as they shared a non-verbal exchange. They were doing that more and more lately, which only served to aggravate her further.
‘We’ll have to go around,’ Cal said. ‘If we travel close to the base of this cliff, we’ll come upon a road by the lake. It’ll take us north, which seems to be where Hawthorne’s heading —’
‘And how long will that take?’ Thea sounded sharper than she’d intended, but time was of the essence. Why did no one understand that?
‘As long as it takes,’ Cal replied with an equal edge to his voice. ‘He can’t have gone through solid rock, Thea.’
She didn’t miss the strange, fleeting expression that crossed Kipp’s face at that, but her friend schooled his features into neutrality and shrugged. ‘We’ll find him.’
Thea bit back a retort about his failures as a sentry guard, about how, if it weren’t for him, Hawthorne might already be in chains. No, assigning blame would do no good here, and she had been hard enough on Kipp earlier.
Strong of mind, strong of body, strong of heart, she chanted to herself.
‘There’s a fishing village not far from here.’ Cal pocketed the map and gave Thea a hard look. ‘We’ll stop there to rest and get dry.’
Thea opened her mouth —
Cal raised a hand. ‘No arguments. You might be the Shadow of Death, Thea, you might be a lost princess of Delmira, but Kipp and I are spent. We’re no good to you this tired. Especially if we need to subdue a fucking Warsword.’
Kipp cleared his throat and mounted his horse before meeting Thea’s gaze. ‘In case it wasn’t obvious, I’m with the Flaming Arrow on this one.’
Thea’s chest tightened. ‘You don’t understand.’
‘Don’t we?’ Kipp countered. ‘We’ve been on the road with you for a year, Thea. We do understand. It’s not just about Warsword treason and the enemy in the shadows. It’s personal. Trust me, we get it.’
‘He —’
‘We know ,’ Cal said gently as he guided his horse through the trees. ‘He betrayed you. Which means he betrayed us. But us freezing and starving to death in the woods isn’t revenge, it’s stupid.’
Begrudgingly, Thea urged her mare after her friends. ‘I never claimed to be smart,’ she muttered.
‘Luckily I’m smart enough for all of us,’ Kipp replied, offering a grin.
The midday sun offered little warmth throughout the forest, but the light itself seemed to lift their spirits. Though Thea would never admit it, the thought of a hot meal and a cosy armchair by the fire had her listening to her friends with amusement for the first time in weeks.
‘Should have seen the way she was looking at me in Notos,’ Kipp was saying to Cal, his expression earnest. ‘I really think she’s starting to warm to me.’
Cal snorted. ‘Horseshit.’
Kipp put a hand to his heart. ‘I swear it. There’s something between Wren and me, you can’t deny it.’
A rough laugh bubbled from Thea’s lips, some of the tension ebbing away from her shoulders. ‘Wren? As in my sister?’
‘Is there another Wren we know of?’ Kipp asked. ‘Intelligent, beautiful? Has a knack for potions and powders? Tell me, Thea, I’m in with a chance, aren’t I? She appreciates a strong mind, no doubt.’
‘ I was the one who saved her from the Daughter of Darkness,’ Cal said, puffing his chest out. ‘ I was the one who took out that winged commander —’
‘One flaming arrow through a half-wraith doesn’t make you a hero,’ Kipp replied.
‘It might in Wren’s eyes.’
Thea shook her head in disbelief and addressed Kipp. ‘Safe to say that you’re not still mooning over Milla, then?’
Kipp blinked slowly. ‘Who?’
‘Milla!’ Cal exclaimed. ‘The raven-haired beauty from the Laughing Fox? The one you wouldn’t shut up about for the first four months we were travelling? The one we saw kissing that other man…’
Kipp scratched his chin before shrugging. ‘No idea who you mean.’
Thea found herself smiling. It was moments like these she missed out on when she was lost in her fury. She had to appreciate them while she could.
‘You’re ridiculous,’ Cal said.
Kipp reached across and attempted to pat his shoulder. ‘It’s alright to be jealous, Callahan.’
‘I’m hardly —’
‘You can’t teach it,’ Kipp continued, sitting up straight in his saddle. ‘Some of us are just born this way.’
‘And what way is that?’
‘Oh, you know, gifted .’
Cal’s face reddened. ‘You’re such a —’
‘Wren will never have him,’ Thea interjected, sharing a pitying look with Cal. ‘He’s too annoying.’
‘That’s a nice word for it,’ Cal muttered.
The banter made for a quicker ride, and sooner than expected, Thea found herself at the edge of the forest, looking out onto a road that was bustling despite the harsh conditions.
Carriages and horse-drawn carts groaned along the worn, icy path, wheels creaking beneath the weight of wares and weary travellers.
There were people on foot as well, bundled in cloaks and blankets, shuffling along with packs strapped high on their backs, their breath visible in the frigid air.
‘The fuck is this?’ Cal blurted, watching the rumbling carts leaving deep ruts in the increasingly muddied slush.
‘Maybe they’re all here to celebrate Thea’s name day,’ Kipp declared.
‘My name day is well and truly over, Kipp,’ Thea said drily, her hand drifting to her fate stone.
‘We’re here to watch the eclipse in Vios, boy,’ an elderly man croaked from the side of the road, cupping his hands before his mouth, attempting to warm himself.
Cal shot Thea an apprehensive look.
‘You’ve been before?’ she asked the man.
He shook his head. ‘First time going to Vios for it,’ he replied. ‘But if there was ever a time for it, it’s now, eh?’
‘You think it’ll save the midrealms?’ Thea pressed, brows knitted together in scepticism.
‘Me? No. I think we’re all fucked.’
‘That’s the spirit,’ Kipp retorted from his horse.
The old man shrugged. ‘My wife was a spiritual woman. She was always on about how the alignment of the sun, moon and world was a reminder of the interconnectedness of all things. How an eclipse is the lifting of the veil between our world and what’s next – how it gives us access to the gods, to the Furies themselves. ’
‘Right…’ Kipp scratched his head awkwardly. ‘She somewhere in this chaos, then?’ He nodded to the bustling activity on the road.
‘She’s dead,’ the man said.
Kipp baulked. ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’
‘Wraiths got her. Not five months ago.’
‘Our condolences,’ Thea offered.
The man gave a stiff nod. ‘I don’t know about all that stuff she said,’ he told them. ‘But it was either freeze my arse off in my empty village or go to Vios for her. To see something she cared about, something that symbolises triumph over darkness.’
Cal cleared his throat, looking misty-eyed.
‘Does it sound stupid to you, boy?’ the man asked.
Thea expected Cal to flinch or shift back from the traveller. Instead, her friend reached down and grasped the stranger’s shoulder. ‘Not at all, sir. It sounds right.’
The man stared for a moment, taken aback, before he gave a gruff nod. ‘You’ll want to get ahead of this lot if you want a room in the village tonight.’ He nodded to the crowd winding around the bend in the road. ‘You’re a long way from home, Guardians of Thezmarr.’
Kipp tugged his cloak tighter around his neck, his lips a deep shade of blue. ‘You’re right about that, sir.’
The trio bid the man farewell and rode ahead of the travellers. The path before them had been trodden by countless hooves and footsteps and was now a thick layer of brown slush.
‘The chances of a warm bed are looking slimmer by the minute,’ Kipp groused.
‘We’ll find you something,’ Thea told him, suddenly feeling sorry for her friend. ‘Come on – if we pick up the pace, you’ll have a pint in your hand by sundown.’
‘What sun?’ Cal grunted.
But Kipp’s expression brightened instantly, and he urged his horse forward. Thea followed suit, eager to put distance between their company and the travellers before someone realised who she was, and who she was hunting.
The icy wind whipped at her face as they cantered, a fresh flurry of snow dancing in the frigid air, veiling much of the road before them in a hazy mist. Thea glanced to her right, where the vast and ancient Great Lake of Aveum stretched, frozen as far as the eye could see.
It was like frosted glass, cloaked in an eerie stillness and a haunting silence broken only by the creaks and groans of the ice.
It made her all the more eager to reach the village.
She urged her mare into a gallop up the crest in the terrain.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had full feeling in her fingers, or had arisen well-rested.
Perhaps she’d made a mistake. Perhaps she should have allowed them to stop for respite in the previous village.
Rest or no, Hawthorne had eluded her again regardless.
Thea drew her mare closer to Cal and Kipp, a twinge of guilt sharp in her gut as they slowed, turning to her with open expressions.
‘I’m sorry,’ she told them breathlessly. ‘I’m sorry I’ve been so —’
Thea stopped short. For over the ridge, along the curve of the shore, was a scene carved from nightmares.
A pile of bodies was burning on the banks of the fishing village, and trails of black and red blood led to the frozen lake’s edge.