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‘Hilarious.’

The tension in Wilder’s chest eased. If Kipp was up for verbal sparring, the damage wasn’t permanent. He looked to Cal. ‘And you?’

‘I’m fine,’ the archer said, voice strained.

Kipp wheezed. ‘Fine… You were practically sobbing when I came to.’

‘I thought you were dead,’ Cal replied, passing a hand over his face with a grimace.

‘It’s touching to know you’d weep for me —’

‘I wasnotweeping —’

Wilder clapped a hand on Cal’s back. ‘Sounds like you both have it under control,’ he told them, turning back to where Thea was talking softly with Princess Jasira.

‘The only time I’ve seen a wraith before was at Thezmarr,’ the princess said between ragged gasps, her face still wet with tears.

‘You were at Thezmarr twenty years ago?’ Wilder asked, wiping black blood spatters from his face with an equally grimy sleeve. ‘You could have only been a child. You remember them? That’s —’

The princess looked up in surprise and backed away, horror etched on her face. ‘It’s you,’ she managed, retreating another clumsy step, her slippered feet sliding in the slush as she spun towards Thea. ‘He’s the fallen Warsword you’ve been hunting.’ She surveyed the carnage around them with wide eyes. ‘Was thishisdoing?’

Wilder cringed at that. He could only imagine what he looked like to the princess, covered in wraith blood, holding Thea’s dagger as he half limped towards them.

But he couldn’t let her believe the worst. ‘I —’

‘He’s my prisoner,’ Thea said sharply.

The princess’ gaze darted between them. ‘He… he doesn’t look like a prisoner.’

Thea tensed, her own eyes flicking to the manacles he’d discarded in the snow.

With a heavy weight within pulling him down, Wilder did the only thing he could think of. He went to the irons, scooping them up from the sludge, handing them to Thea.

And then he offered her his wrists.

CHAPTER TWELVE

THEA

Thea hesitated, just for a moment, before locking the manacles around the warrior’s blood-spattered skin.

‘One day you’ll trust me again,’ he murmured, low enough for only her to hear.

‘One good deed does not undo the wrong you’ve inflicted upon the midrealms,’ she replied, striding towards Kipp, who stood with a wince, looking sheepish.

‘Key,’ she demanded.

He produced the key to the manacles. ‘I stand by what I did. We would have died without him.’

Thea said nothing, but threaded the key through the leather string of her fate stone, where the metal came to rest against the gem.

‘Fitting, that…’ Hawthorne said, nodding to it. ‘Both our fates entwined.’

His words stirred something raw in Thea’s chest, and she turned her back to him so he couldn’t see the conflict in her face. She needed to steel herself against all that roiled within. Thiswasn’t about what she felt or didn’t feel anymore. It was about duty and loyalty to the midrealms, to the guild he’d betrayed.

‘The purpose of our journey has become twofold,’ she addressed the group. ‘We’ll take the fallen Warsword to Vios for trial as agreed, and we’ll escort the princess safely to her father. Her guards have been killed. She needs our protection.’

Cal and Kipp bowed low to Princess Jasira, both looking as exhausted as Thea felt.