Chapter Forty-four
THEA
T hea woke to voices outside the tent. It was cold on Wilder’s side of the bedroll.
‘He was the one to change tactics at the last moment. He was the one to tell Farissa to take the young alchemist with her.’ It was Vernich. ‘He knew the elder would go after the younger. He created the fucking opening for them.’
‘He would never —’ That was Torj.
Thea’s scalp prickled and she realised she was clutching her fate stone.
Cal had found it for her in the forest. She propped herself up, letting the stone fall back between her breasts as she listened to the commotion.
Who were they talking about? And where was Wilder?
She scanned the tent in the weak light of dawn.
His armour, his swords – everything was gone.
‘He left a fucking apprentice in charge of the northern perimeter,’ another voice chimed in. Esyllt.
‘She had it handled.’
‘She didn’t, though, did she? She was captured by them ,’ Esyllt replied with a growl. ‘Who the fuck knows what they did to her, to her sister?’
Audra’s voice cut through the deep timbres. ‘Perhaps you should ask the young women before jumping to conclusions.’
Thea was barely breathing. What was she listening to? As quietly as she could, she began to dress, their words filtering through the canvas all the while.
‘There’s more,’ Vernich murmured. ‘One of the commanders is investigating the attack on Sebastos Barlowe —’
Thea baulked. Attack? Surely they didn’t mean the brawl in the camp before the battle? Who cared about some mundane scrapping in the midst of all this?
‘Witnesses say Hawthorne attacked him on the battlefield,’ Vernich continued. ‘Strangled him without provocation. Barlowe still hasn’t regained consciousness.’
‘No. He would never,’ Torj snapped.
But Thea was done listening. No longer able to stand the growing lurch of dread in her gut, she strapped on her armour once more.
Wilder had been right – it fit like a second skin now.
She crept out the back of the tent and slipped through the war camp unnoticed.
Her former life in Thezmarr had made her an expert on remaining invisible when she needed to, and she used that to her advantage now as she wove between the tents, searching for any sign of her Warsword.
She needed to find him, and fast, before the stories about him took on a life of their own.
There was little movement or noise, only the distant moans of the injured still clinging to life in the medic tent.
And the cry of a hawk overhead.
The roiling in Thea’s stomach only intensified at the sight. Snatching a bow and a quiver of arrows from a nearby supply cart, she moved through the rest of the camp like a shadow, following the hawk.
It led her west of the castle, across the blood-stained fields, where crows and scavengers were already feasting on the dead who hadn’t yet been gathered for the pyres. It smelt like death and despair, a far cry from the glory she had once imagined.
She saw no one as she crossed the open land, keeping her gaze trained on the bird of prey as it dipped and soared above. No one stopped her; no guards, no scouts.
Despite the ache of her battle-worn body, it was her chest that felt the heaviest. For she knew in her bones this was the same hawk that had brought Wilder messages from Naarva, where the Veil was supposedly the weakest. It was also the same hawk that had watched as Anya, the Daughter of Darkness, held Wren captive in her onyx binds.
A sour taste filled Thea’s mouth as she spotted the western treeline, a dull throb of pain forming at the back of her throat.
She slowed her approach, her heart rate spiking.
For at the foot of the trees, she could see a handful of midrealms soldiers – all unconscious, tied to the thick trunks, gagged.
Longing for the weight of Wilder’s Naarvian steel in her hands, Thea nocked an arrow to her bow and crept towards the treeline.
When she reached the nearest warrior, she saw a Guardian totem on his arm and prayed he’d know who she was.
Searching the forest floor, she snatched up the weed she was looking for and brought it under the man’s nose, waving it so the bitter aroma would waft from its leaves.
Peppered broadleaf – another neat trick all those years of alchemy had taught her.
At her ministrations, the man jolted and she had to hold him down with all her strength, grateful that at least for this initial meeting, he was sufficiently gagged.
But as soon as the panic settled and he noted the Guardian totem on her own arm, as well as the single finger she raised to her lips, he stilled.
Thea unsheathed her dagger and cut the ropes that bound him to the tree. As soon as his hands were free they flew to the gag, and he tore the scrap of material from his mouth with a grimace of disgust.
‘What happened here?’ she whispered, peering into the woods behind him, unable to see through the densely packed trees.
‘Don’t know exactly,’ he murmured. ‘We were assigned to guard the prisoners. I was stationed out here, with half of them.’ He motioned to the other Guardians bound to the trees. ‘I don’t remember how I wound up here, like this.’
‘What prisoners?’ Thea asked.
‘The monsters.’
‘Where?’
‘Just inside the forest there.’
Thea’s skin was crawling. She turned back to the warrior. ‘I need you to free one of them to help the rest, while you run to the castle. And I mean run. Bring the Warswords and commanders.’
‘What will you do?’ he asked, glancing from her to the shadowy woods beyond.
‘Worry about yourself,’ was all she said before she slipped into the forest.
She didn’t have to go far. Only a few yards into the wooded area, she saw it.
A steel cage.
Only it didn’t contain prisoners, monsters or otherwise. Not anymore.
A ragged gasp escaped her as she spotted dozens of half-wraiths dotted around the trees, newly freed from captivity. They were bruised and bloodied, some using each other as support to stand. But they were no longer contained within the bars of the cage. They had escaped.
Thea’s gaze darted back to the steel box, where the door hung ajar.
They hadn’t escaped.
Someone had freed them.
Thea’s heart hammered, her fingers flexing around her bow as she scanned the scene before her. And then her heart stopped.
Standing together at the heart of it all were Anya, the Daughter of Darkness; the winged man Cal had shot…
And Wilder Hawthorne.
Thea couldn’t breathe as she watched Wilder slice through the binds of a monster, freeing it, his handsome face a mask of cool calm.
This can’t be happening. Thea blinked rapidly, convinced that she was hallucinating, that the next time she opened her eyes, she would see something different.
But it was as plain as day before her.
All this time she had thought Vernich was the fallen Warsword.
But it wasn’t him letting the darkness in. There was no denying who had cut the bonds of the monsters before her.
It was Wilder.
Thea felt as if her chest was caving in.
Wilder Hawthorne was in league with the Daughter of Darkness.
With that realisation, all the other smaller pieces of the puzzle fell into place.
The hawk from Naarva, where the Veil was weakest. Hiding his sources’ updates from her.
Flinching when the others shot the half-wraith from the sky.
Calling the monster on the clifftops of Thezmarr ‘he’ rather than ‘it’.
All this time he’d been aiding them. All this time he’d been lying.
She had been such a fool.
Vernich’s words echoed in her mind: ‘He was the one to change tactics at the last moment. He was the one to tell Farissa to take the young alchemist with her… He created the fucking opening for them.’
Were she not seeing it with her own eyes, Thea wouldn’t have believed it, not after everything they had been through together.
He had told her that he loved her.
He had made her love him back.
And now… now he was with the enemy. He was the enemy.
He had taken everything Thezmarr stood for, everything the Warswords fought for, and broken it so thoroughly it was no more than dust in the wind.
She expected anger, she expected violence, and she knew that would come. What she did not expect was the blow of grief that hit her in the chest, manifesting in waves of physical pain.
Someone had died.
The Wilder she knew was gone. Had he ever existed?
In the distance, an alarm bell sounded.
Thea grimaced, her grip around her bow tightening. The fucking castle fools may as well have just announced their arrival.
‘One of the guards must have escaped,’ the winged general said to Anya and Wilder. ‘We need to leave, now .’
Gone was Cal’s arrow in his chest. He moved as though he’d never been shot at all. Thea’s skin crawled as she wondered what evil shadow magic could seal a wound like that.
‘Dratos, you see to the injured,’ Anya told him, her voice full of command.
Dratos.
‘He often brings me word from a ranger in Naarva called Dratos…’ The words Wilder had spoken were like a punch to the gut. He had been in on all of this since the very beginning.
Thea tasted the bitterness of bile rising up. She had been such a fool.
No more.
There was a flurry of movement as the monsters readied themselves, preparing to depart —
Thea pointed her arrow through the trees, straight at Anya’s heart. It didn’t matter who she might once have been. Anya was the Daughter of Darkness, the enemy who was poisoning the midrealms. No blood ties or storms would stop Thea now.
‘You’re no sister of mine,’ she murmured, taking aim —
‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you,’ sounded a deep, familiar voice, one that wrapped an unforgiving fist around her heart and squeezed.
Thea jolted, training her arrow on Wilder, who stepped in front of her. ‘You…’
She didn’t know what to expect – denial, reassurance, regret? But he offered none of those things as he stood between her and the enemy, blocking her shot, stopping her from bringing down the person responsible for all the rot in their world.
Behind him, shadows were pouring from the monsters, some already vanishing into thin air with their whips of darkness.
‘I won’t let you get away with this,’ she vowed, unable to hide the shake of her hands.
In the distance, she could hear the cavalry coming.
‘You let the guard go,’ Wilder said. ‘You sent him back for aid.’
‘And you? You let those monsters go. You —’
‘Yes,’ he said plainly, taking a step back as the sounds of the incoming forces grew louder.
It was all true. Everything she’d heard was true. She knew it in her bones.
‘How could you?’ The words came out as a whisper. As the fracture settled in her heart, she let that fury in, let the rage fuel her. Only someone who had burrowed deeply inside a heart could shatter it from within.
‘I did what I had to, Thea.’
‘Don’t say my name,’ she hissed. ‘Don’t ever say my name again.’
Behind him, the enemy forces were getting away, the forest filling with shadow magic —
‘Hawthorne,’ Dratos called. ‘We have to go —’
Thea heard figures crashing through the forest undergrowth as the midrealms forces arrived.
She couldn’t read the expression on the Warsword’s face. He took another step back, protecting the monsters behind him even now.
‘Hawthorne?’ Torj’s voice sounded behind her, unsure.
But Wilder’s face was cold, indifferent, as though he hadn’t just betrayed everything he had ever stood for, everything he had ever vowed to protect.
Violent shadows swirled around him, the forest behind empty but for Anya and her winged general. Wilder went to them, letting the shadows whip around him, as though he didn’t fear the darkness, as though it were a part of him.
He met Thea’s gaze.
With that one brutal look, whatever had been between them severed.
Thea’s love for him died an agonising death then and there, shedding their every moment, every touch from her body like a skin until nothing was left.
She surveyed him icily, spying the one spot where he was weak. In the armour that had never been made to Warsword standards.
She let her arrow fly, aiming straight for the ill-fitting joint.
She didn’t see if it found its mark. For the onyx lashes of power intensified, creating a churning mass around the three enemy figures until they were obscured from view, until they were gone.