Chapter Sixteen
THEA
I n a daze, Thea paced the quarters she’d been given.
The last time she’d been in rooms this grand had been in Harenth, with Wilder…
The opulence of it all was similar to the palace in Hailford – an enormous four-poster bed with elegant drapes, a sitting area before a fireplace and a view of the kingdom to die for.
‘Use your words, Princess… What do you want?’
His voice came to her in a whisper, tickling the shell of her ear. She felt his phantom caress along her neck, her collarbone, her sternum… Her mind became a tangled web of their moments together; intimate touches and softly spoken promises.
‘Because I fucking love you .’
Thea barely registered her movements as she entered the bathing chamber, removing her soiled armour and clothing in a trance, recalling how Wilder had washed her hair when she was injured, those long fingers massaging soap into her scalp and tending to her wound.
Wilder. When had he become Wilder again? Rather than Hawthorne?
The water in the tub was tepid after her delay, but she didn’t care. Her skin was hot from the memory of their kiss in the stables. She had been drunk on the taste of him.
‘I’ll never stop being yours.’
An unexpected sob escaped Thea and she smacked her palms into the water. How had this happened? How had things got so twisted? And how could she bear the thought of him chained up like an animal in the cold?
He had been someone to her. He had been everything to her.
Panic inched its way into her body, gripping every muscle painfully, making her head tight with tension.
She scrubbed at her skin until it was pink and raw, until the water was cold enough to drive her from it.
With her mind still churning through the past year, the last few days in particular, she dressed in a plain pair of pants and a linen shirt.
Towelling her hair dry, her stomach roiling with unease, she emerged from the bathing room to find Cal and Kipp waiting for her on the settee by the window.
‘You saw him?’ Kipp said instantly.
Wordlessly, she nodded.
‘It’s bad?’ he pressed, getting to his feet.
Again, she nodded.
Kipp pushed his auburn hair from his brow and started to pace. ‘Am I right in thinking we’re all on the same page at last?’
‘What do you mean?’ Thea asked.
‘That we’re doubting the nature of Hawthorne’s fall… and anything we might have been told regarding the state of the midrealms?’
Thea cast her damp towel aside and sat on the end of her bed, resting her elbows on her knees and hanging her head. ‘I think so.’
She looked up in time to see Kipp exchange a look with Cal, who grimaced before he asked, ‘What did Hawthorne say?’
Thea wet her cracked lips, trying to summon strength from her bruised body and battered heart. ‘He said I should have kept my name day gift.’
Kipp frowned. ‘He what?’
‘Said —’
‘No, I heard you, it’s just… You know, a weird thing to say when you’re half frozen to death in an ice dungeon.’
His words hit Thea like a blow. Wilder was in there because of her.
‘Maybe that’s why he said it… Maybe he wasn’t quite lucid…’ Even as the words left her tongue, she didn’t believe them. ‘What do you think it was? The gift?’ she asked them, not bothering to mask her pained expression.
‘Why don’t you find out?’ Cal replied.
Thea sighed, running her fingers through her damp hair. ‘I can’t. You saw me throw it away.’
‘I did,’ Cal allowed. ‘But…’ He surged for the door and left abruptly.
Thea turned to Kipp in question. But her friend shrugged.
‘Don’t look at me.’
Moments later, Cal came rushing back, closing the door behind him and approaching Thea with an outstretched hand. ‘I saw you throw it away, but you didn’t see me go and fish it out of the bushes…’
In his hand was the small box wrapped in brown paper. The lightning bolt drawn across its surface had faded, as had the words Happy name day .
Thea’s mouth fell open as she stared at Cal in disbelief. ‘You…’
Cal was still holding the box out to her. ‘Kept it, yep. Uh… don’t be angry, I guess?’
Thea threw her arms around him, hugging him hard. ‘Thank you,’ she croaked, tears stinging her eyes. ‘Thank you for knowing me better than I knew myself.’
After a moment of shock, Cal returned her embrace. ‘What are friends for, eh?’
A pointed cough sounded from the other side of the room. ‘This is all very touching, but can we open the fucking box now? I feel like it might be a tad important…’ Kipp said, arms crossed over his chest, foot tapping impatiently on the marble floor.
Palming a tear from her cheek, Thea took the box from Cal and went to the settee. Cal followed, sitting to her left, and Kipp took his place to her right.
‘I’m scared…’ she whispered, turning the small parcel over in her fingers.
‘I don’t think you have anything to fear from him,’ Kipp said quietly.
‘That’s not what I’m scared of.’
‘What then?’ Cal asked.
‘I’m scared that if I open this…’ She swallowed. She couldn’t finish the sentence.
‘If you open it, you’ll know the truth. At least about him,’ Kipp told her, gently nudging her with his elbow.
Biting her lower lip, Thea nodded. With trembling fingers, she began to peel away the brown paper.
When the wrappings fell to the floor, she was left with a dainty wooden box.
It was plain in design, with a simple sliding lid that she removed easily.
Reaching inside, she found a small silver ball within, and slowly, she drew it out to hold it in her palm.
It was covered in a flourish of engravings, a language Thea recognised but didn’t understand.
The same language that graced the length of Wilder’s spine in ink, the same language carved into the blade of her dagger.
Glory in death, immortality in legend. She knew those words like the back of her hand. And she could just make them out across the ball’s surface, amid a web of others.
‘What is it?’ Cal asked, brow furrowed.
Thea turned the object over, tracing the engravings. ‘I don’t know…’
But Kipp was staring in awe. ‘I didn’t think those things were real.
If it’s what I think it is… it’s from realms far beyond the Veil, from other races that have mastered magical objects in a way that we can’t even fathom.
The name is in a language I can’t pronounce, but it’s a memory orb.
There should be a small divot at the top… ’
There was. Kipp’s eyes widened as Thea tilted the object to him in confirmation.
‘I think Cal and I should go,’ he said. ‘And then you should press it.’
‘But what —’
‘Just trust me, Thea,’ Kipp said, tugging on Cal’s sleeve and pulling him towards the door. ‘Trust him ,’ he told her, before he pushed Cal from the room and followed, closing the door with a click behind them.
Alone, Thea gazed at the silver sphere, heart pounding, eyes burning with unshed tears. Whatever magic it held, she knew a reckoning was coming, one she wasn’t sure she was ready for.
But Thea had never run from a fight before.
She wasn’t going to start now.
Taking a deep breath, she brought her finger to the divot and pressed it. Time stilled for a moment.
And then the room was awash with golden light.