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‘You’re no sister of mine,’ she murmured, taking aim —

‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you,’ sounded a deep, familiar voice, one that wrapped an unforgiving fist around her heart and squeezed.

Thea jolted, training her arrow on Wilder, who stepped in front of her. ‘You…’

She didn’t know what to expect – denial, reassurance, regret? But he offered none of those things as he stood between her and the enemy, blocking her shot, stopping her from bringing down the person responsible for all the rot in their world.

Behind him, shadows were pouring from the monsters, some already vanishing into thin air with their whips of darkness.

‘I won’t let you get away with this,’ she vowed, unable to hide the shake of her hands.

In the distance, she could hear the cavalry coming.

‘You let the guard go,’ Wilder said. ‘You sent him back for aid.’

‘And you? You let those monsters go. You —’

‘Yes,’ he said plainly, taking a step back as the sounds of the incoming forces grew louder.

It was all true. Everything she’d heard was true. She knew it in her bones.

‘How could you?’ The words came out as a whisper. As the fracture settled in her heart, she let that fury in, let the rage fuel her. Only someone who had burrowed deeply inside a heart could shatter it from within.

‘I did what I had to, Thea.’

‘Don’t say my name,’ she hissed. ‘Don’t ever say my name again.’

Behind him, the enemy forces were getting away, the forest filling with shadow magic —

‘Hawthorne,’ Dratos called. ‘We have to go —’

Thea heard figures crashing through the forest undergrowth as the midrealms forces arrived.

She couldn’t read the expression on the Warsword’s face. He took another step back, protecting the monsters behind him even now.

‘Hawthorne?’ Torj’s voice sounded behind her, unsure.

But Wilder’s face was cold, indifferent, as though he hadn’t just betrayed everything he had ever stood for, everything he had ever vowed to protect.

Violent shadows swirled around him, the forest behind empty but for Anya and her winged general. Wilder went to them, letting the shadows whip around him, as though he didn’t fear the darkness, as though it were a part of him.

He met Thea’s gaze.

With that one brutal look, whatever had been between them severed.

Thea’s love for him died an agonising death then and there, shedding their every moment, every touch from her body like a skin until nothing was left.

She surveyed him icily, spying the one spot where he was weak. In the armour that had never been made to Warsword standards.

She let her arrow fly, aiming straight for the ill-fitting joint.

She didn’t see if it found its mark. For the onyx lashes of power intensified, creating a churning mass around the three enemy figures until they were obscured from view, until they were gone.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

THEA

‘What the fuck just happened?’ Torj said at her side, staring at the empty cage and empty clearing before them, the final wisps of shadow vanishing.