Chapter Twenty-seven #2
The boy called Gus calmly placed his knitting on the table and leant back in his chair, giving his cousin a challenging stare as shadows leaked from his torso, forming a threatening mass around him.
‘Make me,’ he said, nostrils flaring.
Dratos was on his feet in an instant. ‘You little shit —’
‘Enough,’ Anya shouted. ‘Fuck’s sake. If you Castemonts want to measure your dicks, go do it elsewhere.’
A minute passed as shadows flickered around the tent, before both men seemed to simmer down.
‘It’s a fucking scarf, you prick,’ Gus muttered, taking up his needles again.
Thea had to bite her knuckles to stop herself from laughing. For all the darkness and evil in the world, this familial spat between cousins wasn’t exactly what she’d imagined when it came to the shadow-touched kind.
Dratos threw himself back down in his chair and took up his pipe again with an irritated noise. ‘Where were we?’
‘Weapons and this prince of shadows you all talk of,’ Thea supplied.
‘Shadow Prince,’ Dratos corrected her. ‘And you’ll find out soon enough, Thezmarrian… We just need to be sure about you first.’
‘I vouch for her,’ Wilder said.
Anya watched the exchange from the head of the table, her brow creasing in apprehension.
‘Thing is, I was never sure about you either, Warsword,’ Dratos quipped. ‘Plus, you’re hardly an unbiased perspective, judging from the noises coming from your —’
‘Finish that sentence.’ Wilder leant forward menacingly, elbows resting on the table. ‘I dare you.’
Anya slammed her cup down on the table again. ‘All the men, out. Now .’
‘Anya,’ Dratos drawled. ‘We’re just —’
‘Wasting my fucking time, as usual,’ she said. ‘Get out.’
Dratos raised his hands in surrender. ‘We’ll behave.’
Cords of shadow unfurled from the Daughter of Darkness herself, coiling around the backs of the men’s chairs and pulling them away from the table.
‘I won’t tell you again,’ Anya told them, no compromise in her voice. ‘You have exactly three seconds before you find out whose shadows are truly the biggest.’
Dratos, Wilder, Gus and a handful of other men scrambled, leaving the war council at once. A beat of silence followed as Anya’s shadows retreated, dissipating into nothing.
Thea couldn’t suppress her grin, nor the confirmation that she truly did like her sister.
Adrienne snorted and put her boots on the table. ‘Thank fuck for that. Shall we get to work, ladies?’
‘Thought you’d never ask,’ Anya replied, shaking her head as the tent flap swung back into place.
For the first little while, Thea remained quiet but alert as the rebel women went over logistics and numbers, spreading a large map of the midrealms across the table, using wooden markers for the forces they had spread throughout the lands.
Thea knew they were putting a great deal of trust in her by allowing her to stay for this, knew there were countless lives on the line should the information fall into the wrong hands.
Pride bloomed in Thea’s chest at the sight of women running the war efforts, women making the hard decisions. Having grown up in Thezmarr, she had been held at length her entire life, relegated to the outskirts, and yet now…
Thea studied the map intensely, her gaze falling to markers in unexpected places. ‘I thought Naarva was lost,’ she heard herself say as Adrienne placed a marker on the second isle, where the university had once been.
Adrienne glanced at Anya, seeking permission.
Thea tried not to be offended. She’d given them every reason not to trust her.
She hadn’t questioned the things she should have; she’d seen one of their greatest champions locked away in an ice cell…
She had saved King Artos’ life not once, but twice, and she’d botched their attempt to obtain valuable information.
But to Thea’s surprise, Anya nodded her approval without hesitation.
Adrienne beckoned Thea closer, and Thea didn’t need telling twice. She came to stand alongside the Naarvian and gazed down at the map.
‘Lost? Or hidden?’ Adrienne asked, shifting the marker to give Thea a clearer look. ‘Besides the Broken Isles, there are three main islands of Naarva. Here’ – she pointed – ‘is where the capital, the citadel of Ciraun and the famous forge of Naarva is located.’
Thea knew as much already, having longed for a Naarvian steel blade her entire life.
Adrienne continued. ‘Then you have the southern island, closest to the Scarlet Tower. You know of it?’
Thea nodded.
‘Good,’ Adrienne said. ‘So you know to stay the fuck away from it. Very close to there is where Hawthorne and his mentor helped us destroy a wraith lair a long time ago.’
Thea was desperate to hear more about it, but she clamped her mouth shut and told herself to listen.
Adrienne moved her finger to the third island.
‘This is where the University of Naarva once was. A fine institution for agriculture and horticulture…’ She took a measured breath.
‘To the rest of the midrealms, Naarva ceased existing when it fell to the darkness years ago. But many of our people went underground. Many survived and kept surviving, despite the wraiths and reapers stalking the lands. It was here that many of our shadow-touched originated. It was here that we first started fighting back.’
‘All this time?’ Thea couldn’t help her gaze lifting to Anya, who was busying herself at the far end of the table, clearly pretending she wasn’t listening. Her sister had told her that she’d rallied the shadow-touched, but from Adrienne’s expression, it meant a great deal more to them than that.
‘We took back the dark bit by bit,’ Adrienne told her.
‘The shadows we live in now are of our own people’s making…
There are still areas of the kingdom that are unsafe; there are still wraiths and reapers, and all manner of the cursed ilk you’ve seen so much of these past months wandering the lands, but Naarva is ours.
And we’ve fought hard to ensure it survives. ’
‘How?’ Thea asked, running her fingers across the lines on the map.
‘When we destroyed that wraith lair all those years ago, we discovered something that could help us. More than steel, more than men. The one we call the Shadow Prince guards it – our most valuable asset against —’
‘That’s enough,’ Anya said quietly.
Adrienne gave Thea a regretful look before countering her leader with: ‘Surely you realise Hawthorne will just tell her everything?’
‘Which is precisely why I didn’t tell him everything.’
Adrienne considered this for a moment before she shrugged. ‘As you wish, then.’
‘I understand,’ Thea said. ‘I haven’t earnt that level of trust yet…’ She squared her shoulders and faced her sister fully. ‘How do I earn it?’ When Anya didn’t respond right away, Thea insisted. ‘What do you need from me?’
She let the implication hang between them. Anya knew she had no magic left, that the power she had once wielded had been snuffed out like a candle.
Anya poured herself some water from a jug and drank deeply before she spoke. ‘Hawthorne has arranged for us to meet with some allies in a rather delicate but important location.’
‘Alright…’
‘We need you and him to go ahead of our party, and secure a discreet entrance for us. Hawthorne assures me that it won’t be a problem, but he’s a wanted man throughout the midrealms. And he hasn’t exactly kept a low profile lately.’
Thea scoffed. ‘And I have? You know there’s some speculation now, given that he and I disappeared at the same time…?’
‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.’
‘We?’ Thea echoed.
A hint of a smile tempted Anya’s lips. ‘That’s what I said.’
Thea cocked her head. ‘I thought you didn’t trust me?’
‘I don’t trust anyone,’ Anya countered. ‘It’s why I’m still alive.’
Adrienne cleared her throat. ‘I’ll pretend I didn’t take offence to that.’
‘Great.’ Anya turned to Thea again. ‘So, will you go ahead for us? Make sure it’s safe for the likes of Dratos and Gus, who can’t keep their shadows in their pants?’
Thea shrugged. ‘Why not?’
‘Good.’ Anya threw her a pack that had been lying on the ground beside her and grinned. ‘You leave now.’