Chapter Thirty-five
THEA
A nya took over from Adrienne and informed them that they were to think on the tasks at hand and reconvene to assign missions come the dawn.
But as heated chatter broke out around the room, a wave of dizziness washed over Thea.
She was glad she was still seated, needing to steady herself against the edge of the table, needing to breathe through her nose as the odd sensation passed.
Perhaps she shouldn’t have called upon her power so suddenly earlier. She needed to get used to it again…
Wilder glanced at her, his brows knitted together in concern.
He didn’t miss a thing, it seemed. But she gave him a reassuring smile.
It wasn’t surprising she was a tad out of sorts, not when she’d had next to no sleep – thanks to him – and her magic was once more flickering in her veins.
She hadn’t had a moment to process its return, nor had she had the time to test its strength or her control over it.
But even the thought of her power had it crackling within.
With magic on her mind, Thea looked to Wren, but her sister’s attention had fallen elsewhere: to scrutinising Anya from across the table, her lip curled slightly.
She leant close to Thea. ‘Am I honestly meant to believe that we’re all on the same side now?’
Thea sighed, that unsettling dizziness tugging at her again. ‘She showed me, Wren… What she went through before she was taken from us for all these years. I’m sure she’ll show you too —’
‘I don’t want to see anything. She held me hostage a year ago, Thee. You know how many nightmares I’ve had where I see her face? Where I feel her shadows pinning me in place?’
Thea rubbed her temples. While she was thrilled to see her sister, she hadn’t had nearly enough sleep to deal with two of them at odds with one another.
It was a strange place to be, for Thea was usually the one causing the trouble…
The thought trailed off in her head as she realised Wren was staring at her.
‘What?’
‘You didn’t tell me it had returned. Your magic…’ Wren ventured.
Thea huffed a laugh. ‘It’s a very new development.’
‘That was quite a display before.’
‘Someone needed to shut them up,’ Thea replied.
Wren scanned her from head to toe, and then paused, as though she were concentrating on the exact thread of power she sensed between them.
‘It’s stronger, Thea,’ she said. ‘At first I thought it was…’ She jutted her chin towards Anya.
‘But no. It’s you, very distinctly you .
I can feel you in the air around me, in my magic too… ’
To Thea’s despair, Anya chose that moment to approach them. ‘If it isn’t my long-lost sisters.’ Her hands were held out as though she were about to embrace them, but she stopped short. ‘Hello, Elwren.’
‘You certainly haven’t acted like a sister,’ Wren replied, not yielding a step, not stepping forward either.
Sorrow lined Anya’s face. ‘I’m sorry for how we met. It was the only way at the time. I regret it —’
‘Your regrets mean nothing to me.’
Thea winced at her harsh words, reminding her of her own recent failings. She had learned the price of making snap judgements and holding the wrong grudges. She didn't want Wren to make the same mistake.
And then, Thea saw it: fear. Wren had been terrified in those moments of shadow amid the battle of Notos, bound with ropes of darkness, not knowing what horrors were to come.
And Anya – her expression warred between desperation and anger, for she had never asked for the hand fate had dealt her.
While Wren and Thea had grown up in the confines of Thezmarr, and had certainly not always been the best of friends, they’d always had each other.
They had braided each other’s hair and shared their secrets.
Anya had grown up in the dark, with monsters for company.
‘Wren,’ Thea heard herself say, placing a gentle hand on her arm.
Wren’s cheeks flushed and her eyes widened in surprise at Thea’s interference.
‘Please,’ Thea said. ‘Give her a chance.’
Anya stilled, and though her expression remained unreadable, Thea guessed she’d taken her by surprise as well.
The Daughter of Darkness softened momentarily as she met Wren’s fiery gaze. ‘Hear me out, please. We can talk somewhere quiet. And then you can keep hating me all you want if you wish.’
Wren sought Thea’s gaze and Thea gave her a nod. As she watched them leave the main room, Anya glanced back, mouthing thank you .
With her sisters – it still felt strange to think it – working out their differences, Thea returned her attention to the bustling room.
Cal and Kipp were in deep discussions with Marise and Everard.
Several maps had been produced and spread across the end of the table, already covered in ringed wine stains, to no one’s surprise.
Dratos and Adrienne were leaning down and talking to a sulking Gus, whose knitting had been confiscated.
Thea wondered what he’d meant when he’d broached the topic of a Warsword trying to kill them as Wilder had killed those prisoners.
Wilder himself had sought out his brother.
The two giant warriors looked out of place standing next to the average-sized hearth and mantle.
Dax was sitting stoically at Malik’s feet as Wilder talked in a hushed voice to his brother, his expression strained.
She could see the pain in his eyes, but Malik’s expression remained distant.
‘You seem well,’ came a familiar voice.
‘Audra,’ Thea said before she’d fully turned around.
The librarian of Thezmarr looked as she always did: stern and rigid, with the piercing eyes of someone who knew a million things she shouldn’t.
‘An interesting year you’ve had, Althea,’ Audra noted, looking around at the strange network that had gathered.
‘That’s one word for it.’
‘And yet here you stand… I trust my words weren’t wasted on you when we rode the Mourner’s Trail together?’
Thea blinked at her, recalling that surreal journey she’d taken with her once-warden. ‘ If you seek power in a world of men and monsters, there is nothing more powerful than knowledge… ’ Thea trailed off.
‘And the ability to wield it,’ Audra finished.
‘Do you have any knowledge for me to wield, then, Audra?’ Thea asked boldly.
‘More than my lifetime’s worth,’ the librarian told her cryptically. ‘But there is only one thing I want you to take from me today…’ She produced one of the daggers from her belt and handed it to Thea. ‘It’s a loan, of course,’ she cautioned.
The dagger was tiny compared to her Naarvian steel blade from Malik, but the significance wasn’t lost on her, not for a second. She tried to pass the weapon back. ‘Audra, I can’t take this —’
Audra refused it. ‘But you will. There will come a time when you will need it, and we will need you.’
‘I…’ Thea didn’t know why she was arguing; her whole life she’d been trying to argue with her warden to no avail.
She nearly staggered back at the sight of Audra smiling .
‘Remember what I told you?’ Audra prompted. ‘That the smallest blade can make the biggest difference.’ Then the older woman slipped away, leaving Thea staring after her, still holding the jewelled dagger.
‘Is she still insisting they’re for show?’ Torj asked, nodding to the weapon gleaming in her grasp as he topped up her wine.
‘I think the days of her holding up that pretence are long gone,’ Thea murmured, still dazed.
Torj chuckled. ‘No one ever believed her anyway.’
‘Not that she cared.’ Thea couldn’t keep the note of admiration from her voice. ‘Do you think she’ll find out where the former women warriors of the guild are?’
‘Find out?’ The Bear Slayer laughed. ‘Thea… Audra’s known exactly where they went since the day they left.’
‘But…’
‘But what? Osiris interrogated her? Threatened her? For years and years? Surely you know Audra’s as tough as they come. She never broke. She never will, if you ask me —’
Torj tensed suddenly at her side, and Thea saw why.
Wren had reappeared in the doorway, her eyes red and puffy. Thea made an instant move towards her sister, but Torj’s gentle hand on her shoulder stopped her.
‘Allow me,’ he said softly. Without waiting for her answer, he went to Wren, his huge frame enveloping her, leading her away from the commotion and out of sight.
Thea smiled to herself. Funny, how things turn out.
As the evening wore on, in the rare moments where she was not engaged in any conversation, Thea took in the scene around her.
She watched the Daughter of Darkness salute the wine merchant, and the general of the Naarvian guerilla forces clap Cal on the back.
She saw Dratos the Dawnless project ribbons of shadow across the room, and she saw Malik smile as Dax tried to catch them.
Thea realised what she was truly seeing – the possibility of a world that she had never dared to imagine…
The start of something fair, equal and unmistakably good.
The wine and talk flowed, and at some point Kipp declared that the great drinkers and thinkers of the midrealms had come together. Were it not for his drunken lean and the slight slur to his words, Thea might have agreed with him.
A warm, towering presence came to her side, wrapping her in the familiar scent of rosewood and leather, of home.
‘Take me to bed,’ Thea murmured to Wilder.
He leant down, close enough that his lips brushed the shell of her ear. ‘The day I say no to that is the day I’ve lost my mind.’
‘Then what are you waiting for, Warsword?’
They made no excuses and said no goodbyes as they slipped away from the raucous night that had unfolded around them.
Thea glanced back, a smile on her lips. There would be several sore heads in the morning when they reconvened to solidify their plans, but…
an ember of hope flared within her. It was certainly not the group of disciplined, ruthless warriors of Thezmarr she’d always imagined fighting alongside.
It was better.
As she and Wilder climbed the stairs to their room, she asked, ‘Is there a particular task that you want to volunteer for tomorrow?’
He fitted the key to the lock on their door and ushered them both inside. As soon as the door was closed behind them, he had her up against it, his mouth hot and insistent on hers before he broke away, peering into her face.
‘I don’t give a fuck where I go, so long as it’s with you.’
Thea loosed a breath.
‘You good with that, Princess?’ His eyes took on that dark smoulder that made her toes curl and his hand dropped from her nape, down to her chest, where he put his hand over her racing heart.
‘I’m good with that,’ she told him, covering his hand with hers. She stared at their fingers lacing through each other’s, his large, calloused palm turning to greet her own small, scar-littered hand.
Then she shifted onto her tip-toes and kissed him, hard and wanting. A noise of pleasure escaped her as he opened his mouth to her and brushed his tongue against hers while his body crowded her against the door.
She wanted him everywhere.
And Wilder Hawthorne obliged her.