Chapter Thirty-seven
WILDER
C omplete and utter silence descended on the tavern and Wilder watched Thea’s face change as the piece of the puzzle fell into place.
‘The Great Rite,’ she murmured, a note of disbelief lingering in her voice.
‘Yes,’ he told her, fighting to keep his own voice steady, to keep his terror at bay.
Wide-eyed, she looked to the table of rebels behind him. ‘This can’t be happening now. The war, the —’
‘It’s happening.’ Wilder remembered the feeling vividly, noting the shock, the fear and, slowly, the determination wash over his apprentice. ‘A storm-wielding Warsword is exactly what this fight needs.’
He looked to Anya in challenge, expecting her to object, to argue that a storm-wielding Guardian was better than a dead would-be Warsword. But to his surprise, she dipped her head in agreement.
‘Thea’s path is clear.’ The Daughter of Darkness touched three fingers to her left shoulder, as many did to show respect to a Warsword.
‘Then so is mine,’ Wilder said.
Thea’s attention snapped back to him. ‘You can’t —’
‘I’ll escort you there, wherever it opens for you. As my mentor did for me,’ he told her, no ounce of compromise in his voice, which he was still struggling to keep calm and even. But she need not know that.
‘Fuck…’ Kipp managed as he got to his feet, shaking his head in shock before squeezing between Wilder and Thea, wrapping his long arms around his friend. ‘Always knew you’d be first.’
‘Did you?’ Thea murmured.
Kipp looked pale to Wilder, and for that, Wilder couldn’t blame him, but the Guardian made a good show of plastering on his usual grin. ‘Course I did. You’re basically a Warsword already, Shadow of Death.’
Thea broke away from Kipp and Cal swooped in next.
‘You’ve got this, Thea,’ he told her.
‘Thanks,’ she said, a flush blossoming across her cheeks.
Wilder watched as Adrienne stood up and approached Thea, her expression hard, determined.
She grasped Thea’s hand in hers, holding onto it as she spoke.
‘My friend and I have parted many times over the years to face unimaginable perils… and we always survive, always find our way back to each other. So, I’ll say to you now, Althea Embervale, luck be with you, but you don’t need it.
You’re the warrior I knew was coming all along. ’
Wilder watched in awe as Thea’s face transformed into a wicked grin. ‘Thank you.’
It was Audra who came next, placing a firm hand on Thea’s shoulder. ‘Go get your things. Weapons, armour and such. You won’t need much else.’
Clearly numb, Thea nodded and disappeared up the stairs.
Wilder made to follow her, but the Bear Slayer blocked his path, pulling him aside. Wilder wished for nothing more than to make sure she was alright, that she had everything she could possibly need.
‘Another dose of wisdom to share, is it, Elderbrock?’ he said flatly, making to push past his fellow Warsword. ‘Been in this position before, have you?’
Torj wore a pained expression. ‘Not exactly.’
‘Then why are you blocking my way?’
‘Just listen to me for a second.’
Agitation vibrated in Wilder’s chest. ‘I’ve given you more than a second.’
Torj pinned him with a stare. ‘The closer you get to true happiness, the more you fear it,’ he said.
‘It’s a fear that slips quietly through the cracks, that lies in wait for those weaker moments before it pounces.
It’s the what if s while you wait in the dark…
What if it all goes wrong? What if you lose it all? ’
Wilder went rigid where he stood, his worst fears coming to life in Torj’s words.
The Bear Slayer gripped his shoulder, hard, bringing him back to the present. ‘But my brother, those are not the questions you need to ask. Not today, not now. Instead, ask yourself: what if you got everything you ever wanted? ’
‘She’s about to partake in the Great Rite, Torj,’ he heard himself say, his voice on the verge of cracking.
‘As she has wanted to do since she could walk,’ Torj reminded him. ‘Be strong for her.’
Wilder swallowed the rock in his throat. ‘I am not as fearless as I once was,’ he admitted. ‘Not now I have something to lose.’
‘Is that not what it means to be a Warsword? To face the fear anyway?’
Torj’s words hit Wilder like an axe to the chest, and he was momentarily rooted to the spot as the truth of what his friend had said sank deep into his being. And by the time he’d gathered himself and turned towards the stairs, Thea was descending them.
The sight of her took his breath away.
Clad in the armour he’d had altered for her, her bronze hair rebraided in the style of the foreign warrior women from beyond the Veil.
Her sword was strapped to her back, both Malik and Audra’s daggers belted at her waist. She wore a heavy fur cloak around her shoulders, and her eyes, once wide and worried, were now clear and fierce.
Torj had been right to stop him. She had needed that moment alone.
Steeling himself, he left Thea to her farewells so he could gather his own things from their room. He made it quick, knowing that the call of the Rite would only be growing stronger for Thea, as it had for him, and those who came before.
He strapped his scabbards to his back. Sheathed every dagger he owned on his person.
Scanned the room for anything she might need on the journey to wherever they were going.
He looked for practical tasks to quieten the raging fear coursing through him, but nothing could stop the force of it.
Wilder wanted to protect her from everything she was about to face, but that was not who she was and he knew it.
Thea would face the Great Rite alone, as she had always intended, as she was always meant to.
Wilder splashed water on his face, and when he rejoined the group downstairs, Thea was waiting for him in the doorway, the wind and snow howling outside like a cyren’s song luring her across the ancient deep.
He took his place at her side, marvelling in the strength of her, the determined set of her jaw as she surveyed their companions who’d gathered around.
Wren rushed forward, flinging her arms around her sister before whispering something only Thea and Wilder could catch.
‘Remember what you are, Althea Nine Lives.’
‘Let’s hope that name serves me well,’ Thea replied, attempting to release her sister.
But Wren held on a moment longer. ‘ What you are, Thea…’ she repeated.
Thea pulled back, meeting her gaze. Something Wilder didn’t understand passed between them.
‘I am the storm…’ Thea murmured.
Wren smiled and let go. ‘That you are.’
Out of the corner of his eye, Wilder caught Anya lingered on the outskirts, shifting from foot to foot, discomfort written all over her face, as though she didn’t know her place.
Thea spotted her and drew her into a firm hug. ‘I’ll be seeing you, sister.’
Wilder felt a stab of empathy as relief washed over Anya’s expression, quickly hidden by a mask of calm sliding into place. ‘I’m counting on it.’
Thea nodded, drawing herself up, pushing her shoulders back before she addressed the whole group. ‘Furies give you strength for the battles ahead,’ she told them, resting her hands on the grips of her daggers. ‘But by gods, don’t start the war without me.’
Each and every one of them held three fingers to their shoulder in salute, tears lining several pairs of eyes.
And the remaining Embervale sisters stood shoulder-to-shoulder, united.
Wilder motioned for Thea to start walking, and together, they left the Singing Hare, trudging out into the blistering cold to retrieve their horses. ‘It’s just you and me, apprentice,’ he said.
‘Not your apprentice much longer, Warsword.’
‘No, you won’t be.’
The journey through the Aveum hinterlands was both excruciatingly slow and terrifyingly fast. The daylight hours were fleeting, the climate was brutal, and the snow showed no sign of relenting, carrying with it the biting cold that gnawed at Wilder’s bones.
His dread mounted with each step Biscuit took.
It was more than knowing the fate that awaited Thea, more than knowing that the trials she would face were perilous at best, fatal at worst…
It wasn’t long before he realised why a different terror had him so firmly in its clutches.
The Great Rite was calling Thea to the same place he had entered it all those years ago, at the foot of one of the Aveum Ranges’ looming mountains.
As they trekked through the thick snow and braced themselves against the stinging winds, Wilder tried to recall what Talemir, the Prince of Hearts, had shared with him on the way to his own Great Rite.
But that time was a blur to him. He merely remembered the single-minded focus that had seen him cross a kingdom to meet the Furies, the same focus that drove Thea through the frozen lands now.
He was glad for that focus, that her determination eclipsed any shadow of doubt that threatened to consume them both. He believed in her, with every fibre of his being, but the thought of what she was about to endure was a burden almost too much to bear. His heart was already aching for her.
Wilder told her none of this as they rode through the icy expanse of the outer reaches of Aveum.
He could tell by her grip on the reins and the set of her shoulders beneath her furs that she was already mentally preparing herself, that she had been doing so from the moment she’d slain that first rheguld reaper in the Bloodwoods.
As they ventured deeper into the forests, towards the dark, jagged mountains in the distance, the dread Wilder tasted on his tongue thickened in the air around him too, a palpable force that threatened to swallow him whole.
The land itself seemed to conspire against their progress.
Every step the horses took was battered back by howling winds, the terrain uneven and rife with hidden perils beneath their hooves.
But they pushed on, as they always had in the face of danger and challenge.