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‘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. ‘Whatyou 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 beendoing so from the moment she’d slain that firstrheguld reaperin 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.

Wilder was the one to insist they stop to rest every few hours, which was a constant war with Thea’s single-minded focus and the power of the Furies themselves.

‘You need to be rested when you reach the starting point, Thea,’ he told her gently. ‘There’s no point in running yourself ragged to get there. You need to be strong, energised.’

She grumbled, but acquiesced eventually. However stubborn she was, his apprentice knew there was no arguing with that logic.

It was during one of those brief respites, where the silence around them seemed deafening, that Wilder felt the weight of another presence. The hair stood up on the nape of his neck, a prickle running down the length of his spine.

‘We’re not alone,’ he murmured, sliding his swords from their sheaths with expert quiet.

Thea did the same with a wary glance at him. ‘Is this it? Has it started?’

Wilder scanned the horizon, shadows dancing in the periphery of his vision, darting in and out of view like phantoms in the night. ‘No,’ he told Thea. ‘This is something else entirely.’

But to his surprise, Thea gave a wicked grin. ‘Good. I need something to take the edge off.’

‘Well, in that case…’ Wilder raised his blades as movement blurred beyond the trees again.