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‘The honour is ours,’ Valdara said.

The trio of goddesses watched her intensely and silence pulsed in the gulf that opened up between her and the Furies. Thea’s fingertips tingled, with her magic or theirs, she didn’t know.

At long last, she turned to leave, to put the Great Rite behind her.

‘Althea,’ Morwynn called her back. ‘Regarding the other question you had.’

Iseldra gave Thea a knowing look. ‘Immortality.’

‘We are glad you didn’t ask it,’ Valdara said, clasping her hands in front of her. ‘For we would not have granted it to you.’

Stunned, Thea could only stare at the goddesses before her. She didn’t know how much more her heart could take.

‘You will do more than enough in the time you have left,’ Valdara continued, her voice laced with kindness.

But Iseldra gave Thea a far sterner look. ‘There is too much love in your heart for you to be an immortal.’

Thea’s stomach bottomed out. ‘I —’

Morwynn raised a hand, silencing her. ‘You cannot live forever without love…’

Valdara came forward again, fitting her palm over the fate stone that rested beneath Thea’s shirt. ‘And you will love no other.’

The piece of jade warmed against Thea’s skin under the Fury’s touch, and she stared at the gods. There was more to the words leaving their lips, she was sure of it, but…

‘Go now, Althea Embervale, Warsword and storm wielder of the midrealms. There is much to do.’

Thea’s grip on her Naarvian steel sword tightened, and despite the ache in her heart, she knew there was no convincing them.

You will love no other.

‘Thank you,’ she told them, bowing her head. ‘I will aim to be worthy of the honours you have bestowed here.’

As the words left her lips, thick white mist swept in, obscuring the Furies from her view, lifting her into the air in a whirl of snow and light. Moments from the trials flashed before her as her body was pulled through time and space, the frost-kissed wind tangling her hair, stinging her cheeks.

Then she felt the ground beneath her boots.

Not the slippery glass surface of the lake, but real, solid earth packed with snow. When she moved, she felt it – the Furies-given strength, speed and agility – click into place. It was surreal, to suddenly have such power behind every movement, as though her body were too fast and strong for her surroundings all of a sudden. She marvelled at it for a moment. She had been strong before, fitter and faster than she had ever been in her life. But now? Now she was unstoppable.

As she took another step forward, she felt something close around her arm.

She glanced down and gasped.

Her Warsword totem.

Made of perfect steel, it shone bright in the ethereal afterglow of the Furies: two crossed swords, with a third cutting down the middle.

Thea ran her thumb over it, almost not daring to believe that at long last, she had one of her own.

But hers was different to those she had studied so intensely before. Her totem had an addition she’d never seen.

Behind the three blades were streaks of lightning.

‘What the…’ she muttered, dropping her hand to her side, her wrist twinging slightly with the movement.

I’ll deal with that later, she decided. The only thing she wanted to do now was to see Wilder, to throw herself into his arms and rejoice in her victory, intheirvictory. She knew she would never regret her question, her choice; the Furies themselves had told her as much. Thea knew in her heart that whatever fate awaited her, she would rather live a single year with Wilder Hawthorne than face a thousand lifetimes without him.

Slowly but surely, the swirling mist receded, revealing a crisp snowy day beyond.