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Hawthorne shrugged. ‘I guess we’ll see how you feel about it once you start training.’

‘I started training long ago.’

‘Not like this,’ he warned.

‘I can handle it,’ Thea told him, reaching for the delicate flowers she’d noticed rooted at her side. Suddenly needing to busy her hands, she plucked several from the earth, keeping the stems long. Slowly, she started braiding them together. It was something she had a blurred memory of doing with Wren when they were little, but where she couldn't say. There were certainly no flower fields in Thezmarr.

‘Where have you been all this time, anyway?’ Thea asked Hawthorne while she crafted a necklace.

‘It’s not something I like to talk about…’

Thea continued to plait the little flowers together. It surprised her when Hawthorne spoke again.

‘You heard everything Audra said about the threats to the midrealms?’

‘Of course. The world out there is chaotic, like it’s waiting for something. The storms are brewing, the clouds are gathering. I’ve seen as much from the cliffs myself.’

‘Ah yes, another rule you’ve been breaking.’ Amusement laced his voice.

‘It’s best not to keep count,’ she advised.

‘I’ll remember that.’ He turned the meat over the fire, seeming to mull over his next words. ‘I’ve been travelling the midrealms, chasing whispers up and down the coasts, following the Veil along the seas… There are forces at work we do not understand,’ he told her quietly. ‘Things that threaten the peace the three kingdoms have fought so hard for.’

‘Like what? The shadow wraiths?’

Hawthorne stared into the heart of the flames, and for a moment, he spoke to himself. ‘Not just wraiths. I have seen things, many things… So much suffering, so much fear thatbrings out the worst in humanity. It creeps across the lands like a poison.’

Goosebumps rushed over Thea’s arms. There were always threats to the kingdoms, but this felt different. Bigger, darker… ‘What are people scared of?’

‘A scourge of sorts, breaking through the Veil.’

‘How —’

‘I’ve already said too much, Alchemist,’ his words were firm but not unkind, and Thea knew the time for questions was over.

‘I only mention it because you are a shieldbearer now. And I feel that the era of peace is once more at an end. Thezmarrians need to be ready.’

Thea nodded, the sombre mood settling over her like a heavy blanket. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘For telling me.’

There was a brief pause.

‘You need all the help you can get.’

The seriousness vanished.

And Thea threw her necklace of flowers at him.

Hawthorne looped it around his neck with a roguish smile. The man who shared her campfire was different to the one she’d started her journey with. As the night wore on, and he sharpened his blades on a whetstone, he spoke softly and thoughtfully. Thea got the sense that he hadn’t done so for some time.

They talked quietly of fortress life, and for someone who had travelled so vastly and for so long, it still sounded as though Thezmarr had Hawthorne’s heart. The Warsword’s voice was a song, one that Thea didn’t want to end.

To her delight, the warrior had offered her a pouch of dried tea leaves from his own saddlebag and she now cupped a steaming tin of peppermint tea between her hands.

‘Peppermint’s my favourite,’ she told him, giving a hum of satisfaction.

‘Is that so?’

‘Mmm hmm…’ She inhaled the rich scent, content. ‘We could have talked like this all the way to Hailford, you know,’ she ventured, looking up at him from across the fire.