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Thea couldn’t quell the hammering in her chest, nor the urge to call a storm down on them all as she looked upon the Bear Slayer. ‘You were the one to find him here?’

Torj shook his head. ‘They had already taken him.’ He moved a couple paces before pointing to a wide oak trunk. ‘He’d chained himself there. Must have seen them coming. Made it look like you’d captured him before the Great Rite.’

Thea fought against the sob that rose up in her throat as she crouched before the oak, noting the scuff of bootprints in the dirt. But something else caught her eye.

She shifted closer to the tree, her heart catching at what she saw there, carved into the trunk.

A message just for her.

A lightning bolt.

Grasping the grips of her new sword and Malik’s dagger, the subtle hum of Naarvian steel the only comfort the Furies could offer her, Thea got to her feet. She clung to the thunder rumbling in her chest and the storm magic rushing through her veins as she turned to Torj.

‘Well?’ she prompted, her voice hard as iron.

Torj handed her a pack of supplies and pointed to the road. ‘If you follow this trail till tomorrow’s dawn, you’ll come to a fork in the road. The first path will take you to Tver. There you’ll come upon the valleys where the stallions rule.’

‘And the second path?’

‘It’ll take you west, far west, until you meet the seas.’

Thea nodded. ‘Thank you.’

‘I can accompany you —’

Thea shook her head, her course crystal-clear before her. ‘If not at Thezmarr, your place is by the dark king’s side. We need to keep someone close. We will need your intel when the time comes.’

‘And what will you do?’ Torj asked, something wary in his gaze.

‘I’ll do my duty to the midrealms,’ Thea replied, fitting her boot to the stirrup and mounting her horse.

‘Then I wish you well, Warsword.’

‘And you, Bear Slayer,’ she replied, squeezing her gelding’s sides with her heels.

Leaving a spray of snow in her wake, Thea didn’t look back as her horse surged into a canter. She pressed her body close to the gelding’s mane, holding on tight as the icy wind whipped around them. She kept her eyes on the road ahead, eager for tomorrow’s dawn.

As Althea Embervale rode across the midrealms, the passing lands a mere blur, she felt the Furies-given strength in her body and in her heart. She felt the ever-present crackle of storm magic too, simmering just beneath the surface, waiting to be unleashed upon her enemies.

She rode relentlessly through ice and snow. The hours meant nothing to her, only that they were hours that Wilder Hawthorne might be suffering. She tried to keep such thoughts at bay, but there was no stopping them.

The only distraction was the occasional flap of wings from above, where the hawk, Terrence, had appeared, soaring in the moonlight. Thea found a small sense of comfort in his silent presence.

Not soon enough, it seemed, dawn arrived.

A blood-red orb rose on the horizon, spilling wildfire hues across the sky as Thea reached the fork in the road.

A lifetime ago, she had ridden through the valleys of Tver with Wilder at her side.

‘When you pass the Great Rite, you come here immediately… You come to claim your stallion straight away. The horses will sense the Rite on you. They will feel the call of the Furies. Remember that.’

His words reverberated through her like an echo, and she could almost scent him on the wind. She looked to the first fork in the road, where in the distance, the golden hills of Tver and a Warsword stallion of her own awaited her. Thea took a breath.

There are times in life to listen to your mentor, she thought, before turning to the second fork.And there are times to forge your own path.

But as she started down the road that led west to the seas, and beyond that, the isles that housed the Scarlet Tower, a beat of wings sounded.

Thea whirled around, seeing nothing.