Chapter Fifteen
THEA
T he Aveum dungeons were made of ice.
Of course they were.
The first few levels were easy enough to navigate and talk her way into, but the deeper she delved, the harder it became.
It wasn’t long before she opted to use her remaining stash of the soot root powder Wren had gifted her, creating the perfect cover of darkness for her to slip past the more dedicated guards.
By the time she got to the last level, she was shivering, despite her cloak and hood.
Here, even the bars to the cells themselves were made of thick blocks of ice.
She passed several unconscious prisoners, strung up in chains within.
Around her, the quiet festered like a disease, pulsating with a keen wrongness that set her teeth on edge.
For all the pristine glass halls and awe-inspiring views of Aveum above, this horrific place existed beneath the surface.
Then, she saw him.
Through bars of ice, there was no missing Wilder Hawthorne’s powerful body pulled taut between thick chains that came from the ceiling and floor. They’d stripped him of everything but his undershorts. His breath clouded before his face, and the chains rattled with his shivering.
He’d been beaten.
Nothing could have quelled the guilt that lanced through Thea as she surveyed his bloodied and bruised appearance. They had hurt him. Hurt him because of her. She gripped the bars of the cell without thinking, and Hawthorne looked up, strands of dark hair hanging loose in his eyes.
Her horror must have been written all over her face.
‘The cold is worse than the scratches, Princess,’ he muttered, his voice hoarse.
‘I…’ But what could she say? He had explained it all to her, the reason for his betrayal, how not all was as it seemed in the midrealms. He’d even told her who was responsible.
And she hadn’t believed him. Hadn’t wanted to believe him.
She had clung to her own anger so desperately it had blinded her.
He watched her, as though he could sense every thought that passed through her.
The gaze she met was no verdant stare of evil, but one of soft silver. The Warsword before her wasn’t the betrayer of whom Queen Reyna’s vision spoke.
‘I need you to do something for me,’ he rasped. ‘I’m in no position to bargain, but… go to the end of the cell row.’
Thea’s heart stuttered. ‘What?’
‘The end of the row.’
Her feet moved of their own accord, though she was shaking uncontrollably and her chest tugged painfully as she moved away from Hawthorne, further into the dungeon. She was numb as she put one boot in front of the other and found herself closer and closer to the cell at the end of the corridor.
She nearly choked on her gasp.
Inside the icy cell were several children . They were all huddled together, barely conscious.
At their backs were membranous wings.
Some of them had darkened fingertips, some had black veins around their eyes, but there were no wisps of shadow around them, no scent of burnt hair, no malice in their stares.
They were… children. Just children.
None of them looked up at her. They averted their gazes as though they had learnt the hard way not to make eye contact with whomever approached from the other side of the bars. They trembled beneath her gaze, huddling closer together, tugging what little clothing they had tighter around themselves.
Thea backed away in horror, finding herself back at Hawthorne’s cell.
‘You saw them,’ Hawthorne managed, struggling now to lift his head.
‘But…’
He met her gaze then. ‘I tried to tell you.’
Thea’s words were lodged in her throat and she scoured her mind for some sense of logic. She knew that often in times of war, hard decisions needed to be made, that there might be explanations… but this?
She tried to reason with herself, with him, that her actions, the very ones that had led them to this point, had been justified. ‘You led me on a wild goose chase…’ she forced herself to say. ‘You did everything in your power to avoid capture, to hand us over to every monster imaginable.’
Hawthorne shook his head, his battered body heaving in the chains. ‘You should have kept your name day gift.’
Thea blinked, glancing back down the end of the prison row. ‘What does that have to do with anything?’
‘Everything,’ he told her. ‘It’s time to open your eyes, Thea.’
‘I —’
‘I’ll wager Artos didn’t want you down here? I wonder why.’
Someone shouted from the stairs above, startling her.
‘Go,’ Hawthorne said roughly.
Thea’s boots were frozen to the spot.
‘Get out of here,’ he growled. ‘Lest you end up in the cell beside me.’
Heart hammering, Thea withdrew. She had disobeyed a direct order from the king to be here; there would be no talking her way out if she were discovered.
With the images of Hawthorne and the imprisoned shadow-touched children seared into her mind, she ducked away, slipping past the guards.
She made her way to the floating glass dome once more, her skin crawling as enchanted heat enveloped her, the brightness of the winter’s day an eerie contrast to the darkness that rotted below.
‘Althea!’ someone called. ‘Althea, wait!’
Princess Jasira was lifting her skirts and hurrying towards her.
‘I’ve had someone looking for you!’
Numb, Thea mustered what little strength she had left to school her face into an apologetic expression. ‘I’m sorry, Your Highness. I think I got lost after we left the throne room. With the events of the day, I’m afraid I got turned around.’
The princess’ brow crinkled before she nodded in understanding and linked her arm through Thea’s, not caring that her pristine, freshly pressed gown was in contact with Thea’s filthy armour. ‘I can only imagine how exhausted you are,’ she said kindly.
‘I’ll be fine, Highness,’ Thea assured her.
‘Of that I have no doubt.’ Jasira smiled. ‘My father told you of my invitation?’
‘He did, Your Highness —’
‘Please, Thea, as I’ve told you before, call me Jasi. Surely we are past the formalities now?’
Thea gave a tired smile. ‘I suppose if anything strikes out the need for titles, it’s surviving a wraith attack on the road.’
‘My thoughts exactly.’ Jasira started walking, her arm still linked through Thea’s. ‘You once told me that you’d never been to a ball. Now I get to accompany you to your first, of hopefully many.’
The palace halls were buzzing with activity, banners and floral arrangements being raised to the ceilings, silverware being rushed every which way. It was dizzying.
Jasira patted her arm. ‘Let me show you to your quarters.’
‘I’m sure one of your attendants could do that —’
‘But I want to.’
‘If you insist.’ Thea didn’t have the energy to argue. ‘I told your father I was honoured by your invitation,’ she said.
‘So you’ll attend?’
‘Of course.’ What was it Hawthorne had once told her? If the king invites you to sit at his table, you sit at his table… She imagined the same could be said for princesses.
‘Are you alright, Thea?’ Princess Jasira asked, peering into Thea’s face with concern.
‘A little sore, a little tired, that’s all, Your – Jasi.’
The princess gave her a knowing look as they continued down the glass corridor, passing more of the frantic preparations for the masquerade ball. ‘I can’t imagine how difficult this past year has been for you.’
‘I have certainly missed hot baths,’ Thea joked weakly, desperate to get to her rooms and think.
‘That’s not what I meant,’ Princess Jasira said. ‘Do you want to talk about him?’
‘Who?’
‘Wilder Hawthorne.’ The princess gave a sigh. ‘I know the pain of losing someone as you did…’
‘Your Highness —’
‘Jasi,’ the princess corrected firmly. ‘There was a man, after my mother passed away,’ she offered quietly. ‘He helped me through my grief, shared it with me. We… we fell in love.’
Thea trained her gaze ahead, realising that the princess might never have uttered those words aloud to anyone.
Judging from her tone, the tale did not end happily, which likely meant the man in question hadn’t been an appropriate match for a princess.
The irony of these thoughts was not lost on Thea, given the secret heritage she harboured herself.
‘But a few months after we’d told each other how we felt, he…’ The princess faltered for a moment. ‘He confessed there was someone else, that what he’d felt for me had been fleeting.’
Thea baulked. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Princess Jasira gave a grim smile. ‘Mother always told me I was too open with my heart. That I would learn the hard way before long to guard it closely.’ She sniffed.
‘There was something similar between you and the fallen Warsword, wasn’t there?
There were rumours last spring in Harenth.
People saw you together at the Laughing Fox. ’
The image of Hawthorne chained up in that freezing cell hit her like a fist to the gut. ‘He wasn’t who I thought he was.’
Jasira squeezed her arm in solidarity. The princess’ kindness struck a nerve in Thea.
In the past year, she hadn’t shared her struggles with a single soul.
Cal and Kipp were her friends, her best friends, but…
she hadn’t shared her heart with them. They weren’t Wren, they weren’t Sam and Ida from the fortress.
Stunned, she realised that it had been over six years since she’d cried with Wren on the clifftops of Thezmarr about Evander, the stable master’s apprentice – and that she hadn’t shed a single tear for Wilder Hawthorne.
Princess Jasira drew to a stop outside a door covered in gold filigree. She leant in and gave Thea a hug. Thea winced as the fine gown made contact with her grimy clothes.
Jasira pulled back and looked at her. ‘You just captured a fallen Warsword,’ she said, a note of reproach in her voice.
‘You need rest. And then, you’re allowed to enjoy yourself.
The ball will do you good. Drink sparkling wine.
Dance with a handsome stranger… Watch the miracle of the eclipse.
Know that you were part of our triumph over the dark. ’