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‘Nothing important,’ Thea replied, snapping her notebook shut and wincing at the thought of the wet ink bleeding into the pages.

‘I thought you’d be dead to the world by now.’

Interesting choice of words, Thea mused. ‘Not without you,’ she said instead. ‘You sent word to Torj?’

Wilder nodded, shucking off his outer layers and hanging them on the stand by the door. ‘Hopefully it reaches him soon. We want him here for when Tal’s forces arrive. We’ll need to train them as a single unit. We need to be able to fight as one.’

Thea ran her fingers over the scar on her wrist. ‘I can’t believe it’s come to this. All that training at Thezmarr, all the things I went through during the Rite… I guess a part of me still didn’t believe…’

‘I’ve been watching the midrealms disintegrate for years, and even I’m having trouble believing we’re facing its reckoning,’ Wilder admitted, pulling off his shirt. ‘Come to bed.’

‘To bed, or to sleep?’

Wilder grinned. ‘What do you think, Princess?’

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THEA

Wilder ravished her body with his wicked fingers and talented mouth. Stars burst across her vision, the pleasure he wrought upon her so utterly unrelenting that she thought she might combust. He wrung climax after climax from her with barely a moment’s pause, until she was a trembling, half-sobbing mess, and yet he wouldn’t let her touch him. Thea didn’t press the issue, not when she saw just how deeply she affected him by the bulge in his pants. She just gave herself to him, over and over, hoping that by mapping her body with his teeth and tongue, he would find his way back to her.

In the early hours of the morning, the nightmares descended, and Thea woke to Wilder thrashing in the sheets. He wouldn’t wake, no matter how hard she shook him by the shoulders, no matter how many times she called his name. And so she held him through the night, wrapping herself around him, trying to shield him from the pain.

When the morning light filtered through the stained-glass windows, Thea reached for him, only to find his side of the bed cold. Sitting up, she found the fire crackling away and a tray of food left out for her, but otherwise there was no sign of him. The realisation that she was alone made her chest ache.

Violently cursing the Scarlet Tower and King Artos, Thea dragged herself from the bed and bathed quickly in the washroom. As much as she would have loved to take a long soak in the tub, she knew that the time for rest was over, that war awaited her on the other side of the door. And so she dressed for battle.

With her damp hair braided down one side, Thea dressed in light leathers, fastening her Warsword totem where it belonged around her arm, buckling her sword at her waist and sheathing Audra’s jewelled dagger in her boot. Just as she reached for the door handle, it swung inward.

‘Hooooly shit.’ Kipp stood in the doorway, openly gawking at her.

‘For fuck’s sake, Kristopher, move,’ Cal complained from somewhere behind him before he, too, clapped eyes on Thea. ‘Whoa…’

After a beat, both young men surged forward and lifted Thea up in the air, jumping up and down with unabashed joy, cheering. Thea couldn’t understand a word they were saying, but her face broke into a grin as they bounced her on their shoulders, carting her around the room like she’d won a damn jousting tournament.

‘Fucking knew you could do it,’ Kipp declared when they at last set her back down on her feet. ‘Let’s see the sword.’

‘I want to see the totem.’

Laughing, Thea tossed her totem to Cal and unsheathed her sword, offering it to Kipp. Neither friend made any mention of the mangled scar at her wrist, both too caught up in the spoils of her Great Rite triumph. Kipp marvelled at her blade, while Cal blinked at her totem.

‘Yours is different,’ he said, unable to tear his eyes from the palm-sized symbol.

Kipp’s gaze snapped up. ‘Different how?’ He snatched the totem from Cal and blinked at the design.

Cal glared at him. ‘I was still looking at it.’

‘You snooze, you lose, Callahan,’ Kipp said with a wave of dismissal, studying the totem. True enough, Thea’s Furies-gifted armband differed from those that had come before with the lightning detail that encased the three swords.

‘We should have met you at the Dancing Badger for a proper celebration,’ Kipp said, finally handing it back to her.

‘Wilder and I stopped there before we came here,’ Thea said, before instantly regretting it.

Kipp’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head and he clutched his chest in shock. ‘You what? Without me? How could you, Althea Embervale?’

‘Sorry, sorry,’ she said, sheathing her sword once more and fixing her totem back around her arm. ‘It wasn’t the same without you.’

‘Of course it wasn’t.’ Her friend flung himself down into one of the armchairs by the hearth.