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‘I did warn you there would be no going back, no hiding,’ Talemir interjected with a sympathetic glance in Thea’s direction, followed by a sigh. ‘I already briefed the others on Wilder’s rescue while you were at the tavern, but we need to gather together to make our plans for the war ahead.’

With a glance at Wilder, Thea waved him off. ‘First, the Princess of Delmira would like a bath and a hot meal.’

Tal snorted at that. ‘Drue’s going to like you.’

Wilder swayed on his feet. Willpower alone had kept him upright since he’d escaped the tower, but now… it was all catching up with him. He staggered forward, praying to the Furies that he wouldn’t eat stone in front of —

‘What’s not to like?’ Thea quipped, squeezing her small frame in at Wilder’s side and casually draping his arm over her shoulder. Gratefully, he leant against her. ‘I’m exhausted,’ she declared.

‘You remember where to go?’ Dratos asked her.

Thea gave a mock salute, already pulling Wilder away. ‘Scholars’ quarters, off from the library.’

Without another word, Thea laced her fingers through his and led him from the university quadrangle into the surrounding building. Wilder was too exhausted to notice the details: the twists and turns of the corridors, the people they passed. How he was still on his feet at all, he didn’t know.

At last, Thea pulled him through a library, the air thick with the scent of parchment and leatherbound books, then into a private chamber at the far end.

‘Apparently this was the headmaster’s residence at some point,’ Thea said quietly, kicking the door closed behind them.

Wilder lurched away from her, bracing himself against the nearest piece of furniture as a wave of exhaustion and pain hit. He sucked in great lungfuls of air, trying to push past whatever threatened to overcome him. All he knew was that suddenly, it was all too much, too fast, that he had been chained up in the dark for so long that now everything was too bright, too loud —

‘I need a moment,’ he rasped, as Thea hovered close by.

She moved away, letting him breathe.

He stayed there, leaning on the chest of drawers, inhaling and exhaling, trying not to collapse as his knees trembled under his weight.

Thea was there again.

He made to pull away. ‘I said —’

‘You said a moment, and I gave you one,’ she told him firmly. She pointed to the door. ‘Out there, you can have your armour on as much as you need, but in here with me? We are equals. It was you who told me, what hurts you, hurts me. You told me we’ll take it on together.’

He remembered the words well. He’d spoken them to her in Harenth, just before they’d been shot full of drugged darts and carted off in chains to a warehouse full of mercenaries.

‘Do you understand?’ she echoed him again.

He said nothing, still braced on the drawers, still overwhelmed.

Thea pulled him towards a tub of steaming water at the far end of the room. ‘Right now, I need to care for you, and you’re going to let me.’

Wilder drew a trembling breath and stood beside the bath as she slowly removed his filthy pants and ill-fitting boots. He stilled as she gently unwrapped the bandage she’d tied around him earlier, careful of his wound. He let her guide him into the water, where at last, his weight was off his aching feet and his tremors subsided.

In the fractured amber light streaming through the stained-glass windows, Thea washed the blood from his hands, and the pain from his heart.

CHAPTER TEN

THEA

Thea woke with a strangled scream, agony blazing at her wrist, a ring of fire around her ragged scar. She had been sawing through her flesh and bone all over again, her friends at the mercy of the reapers all around her, talons piercing their hearts. Next, she’d been standing before the Furies themselves, chanting their names: Iseldra, Morwynn, Valdara…

Panting and slick with sweat, Thea looked around frantically, slowly recognising her surroundings as the headmaster’s quarters Dratos had shown her to yesterday. She was in Naarva, at the university there…

‘I couldn’t wake you,’ Wilder’s voice sounded from nearby, laced with apology. He stood at the window in nothing but a pair of loose-fitting pants slung low around his hips, looking out onto the quadrangle. He was gilded by the early morning light, so at odds with the darkness they had faced the day before. A golden warrior, a golden king.

She met his gaze, ignoring the shiver that tracked down her spine. ‘I wouldn’t snap out of it?’

‘No. And your lightning… It wouldn’t let me get close, not this time.’