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‘You mean the herd that Warswords pick their stallions from?’

‘The very one.’

Warmth flooded Thea’s chest, her row with Wilder suddenly far from her mind as she imagined herself claiming a stallion from the herd, a Warsword totem strapped to her arm.

Her stallion was out there somewhere, amid the billowing clouds of dust.

She only needed the Great Rite to open.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

WILDER

Wilder burned the message from Dratos. It warranted no reply, only offered a warning, and that warning had come too late. He snuck a glance at Thea as they disembarked fromThe Furies’ Will. She hadn’t spoken so much as a word to him since their argument. Heaviness settled in the pit of his stomach at the thought. He should have known their bubble of happiness was bound to burst. Wilder was incapable of not fucking things up; he’d lived long enough to know that about himself. Every relationship he’d ever had, friendship or otherwise, had come to an end because of his own shortcomings. Tal, Adrienne, even Malik… He couldn’t help but hold himself at arm’s length, and now he’d dragged Thea into his mess.

In the privacy of their cabin, with his head between her thighs or his cock seated deep inside her, it was easy to forget who she was to the world. But as he watched her check her saddle on the dock, her gaze clouded with endless storms, there was no denying it.

Here among them was the heir of Delmira.

A princess. A would-be queen.

He’d allowed himself to pretend otherwise for a time, but now… As they headed to war on the home front of a ruling kingdom, the time to pretend was over.

He led Biscuit out onto the dock, waiting for the beast to settle now that he was back on dry land. But the stallion shifted uneasily, his nostrils flaring and his neck braced. Wilder rubbed his forelock reassuringly.

‘Thought you’d be happy to be home,’ he murmured, scanning the port around them for any sign of danger. Biscuit usually had fine instincts for such things, but Wilder supposed that a few days at sea might have muddled the stallion’s senses.

Tver’s main port was half the size of Harenth’s and not nearly as commercialised. There were no stalls or traders flogging their wares, only fishermen and a few travellers looking to book passage on the next ship out. It was a simpler life here, one that Wilder had always admired.

‘Ready?’ Torj was already in his saddle.

Wilder mounted, reaching down to stroke Biscuit’s neck. ‘Got the supplies?’

Torj nodded. ‘I sent Cal and Kipp to the market and told them to meet us at the northern entrance to the village.’

Wilder’s eyes fell to where Thea and Wren lingered by the port gates. The sisters sat straight-backed in their own saddles, Wren looking slightly uncomfortable, while Thea was perched with the ease of a warrior. He waited for her to sense him, to meet his gaze across the way with those piercing eyes that promised all manner of storms.

But she didn’t.

She didn’t acknowledge him at all.

The cold shoulder from her made his chest ache, but that little voice inside him told him that perhaps it was for the best. It was the same voice that had told him to treat her as nothing more than an apprentice. Perhaps he should have listened.

But as much as he wished he could, Wilder couldn’t bring himself to regret one minute with her.

‘Hawthorne?’ Torj called. ‘We moving or what?’

Wilder tried to shake the thoughts of Thea from his head. ‘We’re moving.’

They left the port behind and rode through the surrounding village. The townsfolk who spotted Wilder and Torj lifted three fingers to their left shoulders in respect, bowing their heads as they passed. Wilder wondered if they’d seen the mass of shadow moving across the sky, headed for their capital. He wondered if they knew what awaited him and his companions, what evil they rode towards.

They passed a raucous tavern, a handful of drunk patrons spilling out onto the street, tankards still in hand. With a pang of regret, Wilder realised just how long ago that afternoon in the Laughing Fox suddenly seemed. His life had been punctuated by so few moments of joy that the spaces between them had stretched on into indiscernible periods of time. Until Thea.

He rubbed his sternum, as though the movement might ease the ache there.

It didn’t.

And so he simply rode on, for that was all he had ever done in the face of such pain.