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Thea nodded, her eyes lined with tears. ‘I didn’t want you to pity me… I didn’t want you to think it was a waste to train me.’

Wilder flinched, dropping the stone. It fell back to Thea, landing between her breasts, hanging from its leather string, taunting him. She truly thought he was so cold?

His eyes burned, and his throat constricted. He wasn’t sure he could muster the courage to ask what needed to be asked.

Twenty-seven,the number echoed in his mind.

Thea answered anyway, her voice soft. ‘It’s the age I’ll be when I die.’

Suddenly, the broom closet was too fucking small, and Wilder couldn’t breathe. His chest heaved, his heart heavy. Thea would die at the age oftwenty-seven. Three years from now… The future he hadn’t even realised he’d been imagining flashed before him cruelly, a beautiful unfolding of events that would never come to pass.

Thea,hisThea, wanted something more from the little life she had left. And Wilder knew he could not give that to her if he was both lover and mentor. Their brief time together had branded him in a way that terrified him. Already he could think of nothing else and he knew that there was no way he could teach her, could train her if they were together… If they were together, he knew he wouldn’t push her the way she would need to be, because what she wanted was to become a Warsword of Thezmarr, and a Warsword needed to be pushed to breaking point.

‘Please, Wilder,’ Thea choked. ‘I need this. More than anything.’

More than anything… More than you.

‘So you insist on honouring the Guild Master’s decision?’ he asked. He wanted to scream, he wanted to rage at the Furies themselves for a gift that was all too fleeting.

Thea met his stare, her eyes red-rimmed but determined. ‘I do.’

He and Thea… They had started something in the Bloodwoods, and long before that, but this… This changed everything. This was her life, her choice. And he would always put her first. If she was to attempt the Great Rite, then he was going to give her the best fucking chance he could. That meant being Warsword Hawthorne, her mentor and master, not Wilder, her lover. There could be no room for confusion, no room for interpretation. He had to end it. Despite what he felt for her, he couldn’t save her by being with her. He could onlydo that by being the hardest, fiercest mentor to ever walk the midrealms.

Shoving his trembling hands into his pockets, he fixed her with a cold, hard stare. ‘You lied to me.’

She reached for him. ‘I’m sorry, I —’

‘Don’t bother. It makes things simple,’ he said, words harsh as he pushed her hands away, something within fracturing.

‘Wilder —’

‘If you insist on this stupid arrangement, then so be it. We will be mentor and apprentice, nothing more.’

Thea’s eyes went wide. ‘But what about —’

He drew himself up to full height and reached for the door, his expression pure wrath. ‘What happened in the Bloodwoods was a mistake. It won’t ever happen again, Alchemist.’

He couldn’t stand the pressure building in his chest any longer.

Wilder fled the broom closet, leaving the fortress and his new apprentice behind.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

When he was gone, a ragged gasp escaped Thea, and she doubled over, clutching her middle. The pain had struck at her heart first, but now… Now she hurt all over. In the privacy of the shitty broom closet, she allowed herself a minute, just one, to absorb the ache in her chest, the punch to the gut, to exhale through the agony.

For a brief moment, the events of the past twenty-four hours threatened to overwhelm her, hitting her hard and fast, but she clung to one feeling in particular, one that numbed her and fuelled the fire within: rage.

Thea was no longer an alchemist, no longer a shieldbearer: she was aGuardian of the midrealmsand apprentice to the most infamous Warsword in history. She would not break, not over this.

Who the fuck was Hawthorne to be angry ather?Shewas the one who was dying.Shewas the one who raced against the hourglass of fate.

Her fingertips tingled, answering the terror tempest that whirled in her chest. The part of her that had slept dormant within for so long now had both eyes open and it wanted to be unleashed.

And she knew exactly where to direct it.

Wren was alone in the alchemy workshop and she took one look at Thea’s blood-streaked, ragged appearance and burst into tears, throwing herself at Thea despite her apparent injuries, hugging her tight. While Wilder’s vial had taken care of the worst of her injuries, Thea still felt tender.

‘Gods, Thee… What happened to you?’ Wren asked, her voice breaking, her tears wetting Thea’s neck. ‘I tried to get word of you, but they said you hadn’t returned.’