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* * *

Wilder was given a north-facing chamber with a balcony and a cot for his ‘apprentice’, which he immediately shoved to one side of the room. He imagined, with some satisfaction, King Leiko’s horror if he discovered he’d just offered a cot to a Delmirian princess.

Thea had gone to make sure Wren had the privacy she’d been craving since leaving Thezmarr, though Wilder’s hopes weren’t high for the poor alchemist. Somehow she’d been lumped in with Torj and the Guardians, though Wilder had a feeling that the Bear Slayer didn’t mind in the least.

Night had fallen by the time Thea joined in him in his quarters, and the smile she offered when she met his gaze from across the room had his knees buckling. Never in all of his life had he imagined someone would look at him the way she looked at him now.

He’d do it all again, every wretched second of his existence, to wind up right here, with her.

She came to him, wrapping her arms around his waist. The simple gesture formed a lump in Wilder’s throat as he held her, the most natural response in the world.

‘There’s more waiting than I expected,’ she said into his chest.

‘In battle, you mean?’

She nodded.

He kissed the top of her head. ‘That’s half of it,’ he told her. ‘You wait to fight, wait to find out if you live, wait to find out if you die…’

Thea huffed a laugh. ‘What a happy thought.’

‘In spite of everything… For the first time in my life, I am.’ Wilder swallowed. ‘Happy.’

‘Good,’ Thea replied, peering up at him. ‘You deserve to be.’

Wilder didn’t believe her, but it didn’t matter. There was something darker flickering behind those keen eyes. He tucked her hair behind her ear and lifted her chin. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

Thea gave him a sad smile. ‘Only everything you already know,’ she said. ‘Darkness is coming for us all, and when it does… I feel like nothing will be the same again.’

‘Perhaps not,’ he allowed, taking in every devastating feature of her beautiful face. ‘What can I do?’

‘Fuck me till the sun rises, Wilder. Until I can’t remember the war at our doorstep, the magic coursing through me, or even my own damn name.’

His blood ran hotter at her words. ‘I can do that, Princess.’

Without another word, he lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed.

And did exactly as she asked.

* * *

As the first rays of a blood-red dawn kissed the horizon, Wilder stood on the balcony, holding Thea. Together, strapped into their armour, they looked out onto the villages below, and the torn Veil across the stretch of sea. He knew they both needed words of comfort, that the thing that loomed before them would test them to the very fibre of their beings. And even if they emerged victorious… there was still fate itself to contend with.

‘Tell me about Talemir,’ Thea asked, her words hopeful. ‘About him and his wife?’

Wilder pulled her closer, so her back was flush with his chest and his arm banded around her breasts. Sunlight caught in the gold streaks of her hair, cascading down into her side braid. Not too long ago, the mere mention of his former mentor’s name would have sent a pulse of fury through him. Now… now he understood their past for what it was: complicated. But he could give Thea this.

‘He was sent to kill her, at first,’ he told Thea, who twisted in his arms to glance up in shock.

‘What? Why?’

‘For breaking the laws of the midrealms, not unlike someone else I know…’ he answered, smiling softly.

‘What happened?’

‘She won his heart instead.’

‘Just like that?’