Chapter Seventeen
WILDER
I n all his years of fighting, Wilder had never been taken prisoner.
Injured in battle, yes, but never chained up like an animal, never left to freeze and starve belowground.
He knew Talemir had never faced such a thing either, but Malik…
A long time ago they had suspected that Malik had.
A mission beyond the Veil, wherein he hadn’t returned for three months and when he had, he wouldn’t speak of it.
Until now, that had been Wilder’s only measure for such things.
His body ached from the constant assault of shivering. They had left him in his undershorts and nothing more. He supposed he should be grateful for that small dignity, especially in this cold. But he was finding gratitude hard to come by with his teeth chattering so violently his head hurt.
Instead, when he closed his eyes, he pictured Thea at the bars of his cell, her celadon gaze horror-stricken, her whole being taut with shock.
He hated that it had come to this, that she’d seen him like this, that she’d seen the brutalised innocents who occupied the great ice cells of Aveum. But it had been necessary.
Now he just needed to get out.
Adrienne had known things might go awry, but whether she’d been able to get word to the shadow-touched to call for help was another thing entirely. And Thea… He wasn’t sure what she was going to do, whether being down here and seeing the children had been enough to sway her.
He cursed himself silently for leaving the memory orb for her on her name day like that.
He had gone to great lengths to obtain such an object.
They were nearly unheard of in the midrealms, save for conversations among academics and scholars of the realms beyond the Veil.
He should have known Thea would act in anger, that everything he had gathered to show her would end up buried beneath the snow of the forest floor or at the bottom of a now-frozen river.
Wilder took a shallow breath. He needed to regulate his body temperature, he needed to grit his teeth through the pain, and he needed to figure out how to remove the alchemy-treated chains.
He had no doubt now that they were indeed Wren’s invention – a genius one at that.
He only wished she hadn’t shared the details with the midrealms just yet.
Shifting in his irons to relieve some of the pressure around his wrists, he peered out through the bars of ice.
There was no rotation of guards this far down, for the prisoners were so cold they could barely move.
There was no natural light either, and as such, there was no knowing how long he had been down here already, or how long the shadow-touched had been.
He couldn’t stand the feeling of being helpless, couldn’t stand the press of tainted iron against his skin, muting that Furies-given strength that had seen him through so many tight spots.
He tried to think, but he could feel his mind slowing from exposure to the cold.
His fingers and toes were painful blocks of ice, and the frigid air had latched onto his bones.
Unconsciousness tempted him, an escape from the pain and discomfort, a reprieve from the mess in his head.
He heard Thea, though, heard her call his name. Not ‘Hawthorne’, as she’d used for the better part of their recent time together, but Wilder . His given name, the name she’d whispered against his lips and said with a softness he hadn’t seen from her in a long time. He missed it, missed her.
It was with thoughts of her that he let oblivion lure him under. The ice and pain faded as his eyes closed, and then all he saw was black.
‘Don’t go,’ a much younger Wilder begged, snatching a fistful of his older brother’s cloak, trying to stop him from saddling his horse.
Even as a young teenager, Malik was an immovable force, easily the tallest, strongest boy in their village.
All the girls blushed when he came near, and the boys warred between hating him and wanting to be his best friend.
But Wilder knew he was his brother’s true best friend.
They did everything together. Which was why he didn’t understand why Mal was leaving now, why he was giving Wilder a look of resignation, seeming far older and wiser than he had any right to.
‘I have to,’ Mal said, gently removing Wilder’s grip. Always so gentle, even with hands that had the strength to shatter skulls.
‘You don’t.’ Wilder knew he sounded every bit the child he was, but he was too hot-headed to care.
‘Aye, he does,’ came their father’s voice from the doorway of the barn. ‘I’m too old and broken to fight, but Mal… Mal was born to be a Warsword. You can tell just by looking at him.’
Wilder was mortified to find his eyes stinging with unshed tears. ‘But…’
‘You’ll understand soon enough, son,’ his father said. ‘Delmira’s fall was not the end of things, boys. A reckoning is coming. And the midrealms will need all the help it can get when it arrives.’
‘Then I’ll go too!’ Wilder insisted, surging forward again.
His father’s hand snatched the back of his cloak, pulling him close. ‘You’re too young for Thezmarr —’
‘There are babies there,’ Wilder countered.
‘Not babies with swords in their hands and violence in their hearts.’ He held out a beautiful braided belt. ‘Go on, give Malik his gift. Perhaps if you’re lucky, he’ll outgrow it and give it to you one day.’
Scowling, Wilder approached his big brother with the intricate leather belt his father had crafted. ‘Here,’ he said sullenly.
It only annoyed him more when Malik smiled, accepting the gift with a nod of thanks to their father. ‘It’ll be alright, Wilder.’
‘I don’t want you to go,’ he repeated.
Malik ruffled his hair. ‘I know.’
Their father approached and picked Wilder up, and all that fear and frustration that had been building up since his brother announced his plans spilt over. He buried his face in his father’s neck and cried.
His brother and father spoke softly, and only when he heard the swing of the stall gate opening did Wilder peer through his tears.
Malik was astride the family’s old mare, and he looked so much older, so much fiercer all of a sudden. Wilder realised there was a sword strapped to his back. It was nothing like the great blades he’d heard of in tales and songs, but it was a sword nonetheless, and his brother was to wield it.
Wilder sniffed, his nose running, his hands shaking. He didn’t know much, but he knew that those who went to the fortress at Thezmarr rarely came back.
His father held him tightly as Malik guided his horse past them and out of the barn.
Just before he started towards the road, he looked back and caught Wilder’s gaze; grey eyes meeting silver, a grin spreading across Malik’s young face.
‘Come find me at Thezmarr, little brother,’ he said. ‘We’ll be Warswords together.’
A different moment in time unfolded before Wilder, one he remembered all too well.
On the fragile shores of the Broken Isles, just off the coast of Naarva, he was an eager Guardian awaiting orders.
Their small party was led by two Warswords: Malik the Shieldbreaker and Talemir Starling, the Prince of Hearts.
The two men stood on the sandy bank, overlooking the foaming waves in confusion.
‘The report said there was a sea drake here, injured on the rocks…’ Malik said to Talemir, shielding his eyes from the glare of the sun.
Talemir shrugged. ‘Reports can be wrong.’
‘Big thing to be wrong about,’ Malik replied, still frowning, before glancing at Wilder and the half dozen Guardians that stood around him. ‘You’d have been better off training,’ he told them. ‘Don’t know why Osiris insisted we bring them.’
Wilder had been more than keen to accompany the Warswords on an official mission of the guild. Talemir’s training had been doing his head in and he longed for the opportunity to swing his blade for real.
Talemir snorted. ‘Well, now they’re trained in the art of disappointment. Job well done, Shieldbreaker.’
Malik rolled his eyes.
‘That’s it?’ asked Torj Elderbrock, another Guardian. ‘We’ve come all this way, only to jump back in the boats and go home?’
Wilder bit back a huff of laughter. Torj might have been favoured to be the next to undergo the Great Rite, but he often opened his mouth without thinking first.
‘Had something better planned, did you?’ Talemir asked, brows raised. ‘Missions from the guild getting in the way of your social life?’
‘No, sir. I was just saying —’
Talemir shook his head, and it was enough to shut Torj up, his cheeks aflame.
Malik trudged back across the sand to address them. ‘We’ll head back shortly. But first I want you to scour the shores for any sign of a drake. Scales, tracks, anything that might suggest one was here. They’re powerful creatures. Thezmarr needs to know if there’s one somewhere in our midst.’
‘Do you think it came through the Veil?’ someone asked.
‘Possibly,’ Malik allowed. ‘Though it’s also entirely possible that it’s been beneath our seas all this time. They’re creatures of the ancient deep, after all. Now go.’
There was a flurry of movement. Wilder went to the shore. Resting his hand on his sword pommel, he surveyed the pale sand glistening in the midday sun. Besides the Warswords’ bootprints, it was entirely smooth, not a disturbance in sight —
‘Tal,’ Malik called from nearby. ‘You smell that?’
Wilder whipped around, watching as his brother and his mentor grew suddenly tense.
‘I smell it,’ Talemir replied, unsheathing his two swords at once. ‘Guardians, get in first formation. Now .’
The Guardians burst into action, following their orders, and as Wilder joined them, he smelt what their leaders had been talking about.
Burnt hair.
The scent of the shadow wraiths.
‘Think it was a trap?’ Talemir muttered to Malik, who brandished his sword and heaved his shield in place.