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‘It’s been taken care of,’ Wilder said.

‘That’s what I hear,’ Torj replied evenly. ‘What was the threat?’

‘Half-wraiths,’ Thea answered. ‘And they’re not the first we’ve seen.’

Cal and Kipp were fidgeting, a telltale sign that they were bursting with questions about what she’d seen and done during her travels with the Warsword. But in the presence of their own Warsword, they kept their mouths shut.

Torj traced lines through the condensation on his tankard. ‘Is that so?’ He didn’t keep the note of surprise from his voice. ‘Where?’

Thea looked to Wilder for confirmation that she could divulge the information. She knew Torj was as close to a friend as the Warsword had, but she was still learning the intricacies of the politics between the elite warriors. He gave her a subtle nod.

‘We found one caught in a vine blight on the outskirts of Thezmarr,’ she told Torj. ‘And we came upon a half-wraith corpse on the way to Delmira.’

‘Half-wraiths…’ the warrior murmured, shaking his head. ‘I’ve never seen one myself. But Osiris said that’s what this tyrant is building her army with…’

‘Apparently so,’ Wilder agreed.

‘Then the ones you’ve found… What are they? Spies?’

Wilder nodded. ‘That’s what we’re thinking. King Artos had captured two of them when we arrived in Harenth. One was a half-wraith; the other… It was too far gone on the wraith side. Both infected by a reaper.’

‘You interrogated them?’ Torj asked.

‘I did. Servants of evil, the both of them. Courtesy of someone calling themself the Shadow Prince, and then his master, the supposed Daughter of Darkness.’

Torj got to his feet. ‘I want to see these creatures for myself.’

But Wilder shook his head. ‘They’ve been dealt with.’

‘They’re dead?’ Torj asked, lowering himself back into his seat, rattling the whole table.

‘They are now.’

‘But the king —’

‘The king wanted my expertise. He got it,’ Wilder replied bluntly.

Torj considered Wilder curiously. ‘What were you doing in Delmira?’

Thea’s gaze slipped to Wren, recalling how, upon entering their supposed homeland, she’d wished her sister had been there with her to see the ruins, the heather growing amid the rubble and the bell tower at the heart of it all.

Thea met Torj’s questioning stare. ‘Hunting monsters,’ she told him. ‘We dealt with another vine blight, a shadow wraith and a reaper amid the ruins.’

Torj drained his tankard and reached for another, despite Wilder’s incredulous stare. ‘Fair enough.’ He addressed Wilder next. ‘What’s the plan now, then? Back to Thezmarr?’

Thea tensed. She hadn’t considered what came next. She wasn’t nearly close to mastering her magic, and as much as her warrior reputation suddenly preceded her, she knew she wasn’t ready for the Great Rite either.

Torj and Wilder fell into a steady conversation, their voices low, and Thea’s attention was drawn back to her sister.

Wren watched her warily. ‘I don’t know how you stand it,’ she muttered, looking completely miserable.

‘Stand what?’ Thea asked, frowning.

‘Living and travelling with a bunch of rowdy men.’

Torj stopped mid-sentence. ‘You don’t like men, Elwren?’

To Thea’s surprise, her sister sized him up. ‘None that I’ve met, Warsword.’