Page 27

‘So, why haven’t you used it?’ he asked, feigning casualness. ‘Your magic?’

‘Who says I haven’t?’ she replied.

Wilder simply raised a brow. He wasn’t about to throw Kipp to the wolves.

Thea sighed. ‘How do you know I haven’t?’

‘You don’t want to know.’ It wasn’t until he’d spoken to Kipp that he’d been sure, but he kept that detail to himself.

Thea kept walking, but he sensed her body go rigid beside him. ‘All I have ever asked of you is the truth, so don’t tell me what I want.’

Wilder took the hit. ‘I can feel its absence in the world. Ever since we —’

‘Don’t,’ Thea cut him off.

He tried again. ‘We’re connected —’

‘I said, don’t.’ But her voice was strained, and where Wilder would once have felt a crackle of magic alongside her warning, there was empty silence.

‘Grief can affect —’

Her gaze snapped to his, full of fire. ‘You think I grieve for you?’

Wilder swallowed the lump in his throat. ‘I think you grieve for a lot of things, Princess.’

‘Is this what’s meant to save you? Dredging up our shitty history? One that was built on lies?’

‘I never lied about how I felt. Not about you, not about us —’

‘There is no us. I don’t want to hear any more about it.’

The air was knocked out of Wilder’s lungs, and he struggled to compose himself, grateful to be the one holding the torch, angling it away from the devastation he knew was clearly written on his face.

‘But you’ll listen to the rest?’ he asked.

‘I have nothing better to do.’

It wasn’t exactly how he wanted to tell her after all this time, but as they moved through the tunnel beneath the mountain, Wilder knew he may not get another chance with her alone. He took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders.

‘It all starts with Talemir,’ he began.

He felt, rather than saw, the shift in Thea at the mention of his former mentor, the legendary Warsword of Thezmarr, the Prince of Hearts.

‘The day Malik was hurt in Naarva, something happened to Talemir as well,’ he continued, wishing he’d had the foresight to bring a canteen. His mouth was already dry. ‘A reaper… A reaper pinned him down, got its talons in his chest. I couldn’t get there in time. I tried – gods, I tried. To help Malik, to help Tal, but… it already had him. It lifted him up in the air with its shadows, pierced his heart with its fucking claws. Eventually I managed to bring it down, but Tal… Tal was hurt, and our unit was in pieces. I got him and Mal on their horses and retreated, to get them back to Thezmarr, to Farissa and the healers.’

Wilder paused, fighting to keep his voice even. He’d never told this story aloud before, not like this.

‘Malik… Well, you know what fate Malik faced, what he still endures. But Tal… For a while, Tal seemed to heal. He was out of the infirmary in a matter of hours. He was broken up about Malik, same as me. But he was himself. Or so I thought.’

‘He was still hurt?’ Thea asked, seeming to forget her vow of silence momentarily. Wilder was grateful. Her voice grounded him.

He nodded. ‘In a way… It wasn’t until months after that battle at Islaton, after he and I got sent to the ruins of Naarva on another mission, that I found out the truth.’

He could see Thea fighting with herself over whether to engage with his tale, wringing her hands before her. In the end, curiosity won. ‘Which was?’

‘He’d been cursed. In the same way you nearly were in the Bloodwoods after the initiation test. The reaper who attacked him got its darkness in his heart. He’s…’

‘He’s what?’ Thea pressed, all pretence of nonchalance forgotten.