Page 32 of Thorns & Fire (The Ashes of Thezmarr #2)

Torj

‘Though historically Warswords were trained to slay monsters alone, past battles have proven time and time again that they perform best within a unit’

– The Warsword’s Way

A S THEY RETURNED to their adjoining rooms, Torj faltered. The fire had left the poisoner. He saw it in her sagging shoulders, in her absent anger, in her vacant stare.

Without saying a word, Wren waited by the door so he could enter and do his usual security sweep, which was unlike her. She usually protested, complained that he was breaching her privacy... Instead, she watched on with a blank expression, as though she barely noticed him there at all.

Her quarters were as chaotic as ever: her desk in disarray with dozens of pieces of alchemy paraphernalia scattered about, her bed unmade beneath the stained-glass window and several half-drunk cups of tea, the tannin leaving rings of brown along the ceramic.

Kipp had ensured her pack and other supplies were delivered, and they sat neatly by the door.

Torj checked the bathing chamber, beneath the bed and the latch on the window.

He strode through to his room, which Thea had been occupying, and found it exactly as he’d left it.

‘It’s clear,’ he called out to Wren.

‘Good,’ she said, her voice devoid of emotion. ‘I have to get to work, so if you’ll excuse me.’

‘Let me help.’ The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them.

For the first time since they’d arrived back at Drevenor, Wren looked at him – truly looked at him. ‘You want to help?’

Torj found himself nodding, motioning to her workbench. ‘I’m a soldier. Give me an order.’

‘You want me to... order you about?’

It was only because he was desperate to see her feel something, to vanquish that dead look in her willow-green eyes, that he winked. ‘You like the sound of that, do you, Embers?’

That anger flared back to life, and for once, he was glad for it. Anger was better than apathy. ‘What have I told you about the name?’

‘I seem to recall you enjoying it immensely...’

He hoped she’d come out swinging.

And she did.

‘I wasn’t the only one.’ She stalked up to him, closing the gap between them until she was close – too close. Her words were a dark, sultry promise. ‘I seem to recall you moaning that very name in my ear... I remember you telling me to go up in flames with you.’

With his cock already straining against his leathers, Torj yielded a step. Whose terrible idea had this been?

Wren closed the gap again, only a breath away. Gods, she hadn’t been joking about driving him mad. He’d overplayed his hand, and now he was once more at the poisoner’s mercy. Wasn’t he always?

She gazed up at him through her thick lashes, her mouth slightly parted, her lips wet and tempting. ‘Tell me about the soul bond, Bear Slayer.’

Had it only been days before that Wren had told him she had the book in her possession?

Torj had no idea how much she’d managed to read, but he knew she was looking for evidence.

Once she knew... He didn’t know what was worse: that he’d lied to the woman he loved, or that he’d taken her choice away.

Would she ever look at him the same way again?

Or worse still, would she bind herself to him and risk her safety once again?

Was that even possible after what he’d done?

He yielded another step, only to find his back against the wall. ‘There’s nothing to tell.’

Wren’s fingertips dipped beneath the fabric of his shirt, tracing the outline of his scars. She watched the place where she touched him, as though she expected to see literal sparks fly. ‘No? Why did you have the book, then? What’s it about?’

‘Didn’t finish it,’ he gritted out. ‘I was bored shitless.’

Wren’s fingers dipped lower, dragging over his shirt now, down his abdomen, tracing over every ridge there. She looked every bit as powerful as she did when she called a storm forth from the sky.

‘You’re a shitty liar, Warsword.’ She tilted her face, so that if he dipped his head a mere few inches, he could kiss her. Gods, he wanted to. Every part of him was screaming to take her in his arms.

Her hand drifted south and his head hit the wall behind him. She was testing him. Trying to figure out what would make him crack. Whatever she’d read in that damn book had her research process well underway, and he was her experiment.

‘Is this where you tell me you’re not wearing undergarments again?’ His breath caught in his throat at the pain of not being able to touch her.

‘Wouldn’t you like to know.’ Wren stepped back, leaving him cold and wanting.

This woman would be the end of him, and she knew it.

But Torj had told no one of what he’d discovered.

While Audra, Kipp, Thea, and Wilder suspected, he had never confirmed the soul bond’s existence, nor had he told anyone that he’d severed the tether between them to save her life.

Whenever he wavered, he thought of that moment – the moment where he’d seen the light leave her eyes – and resolve found him once more.

He would do it all again to keep her safe.

He would do it a hundred times over if it meant Wren still walked the midrealms, even if he couldn’t walk beside her.

He straightened, adjusting himself. ‘Tell me what to do, Embervale.’ He could feel the sparks of storm magic crackling within her, a flurry of raw power that she seemed to struggle to control.

‘You want an order, Bear Slayer?’ she said sharply, thrusting her hand towards the corner of the room. ‘Clean those pots over there. I need empty vessels to propagate the silvertide in.’

And then she was back at her desk, shoving aside the clutter and whipping out her notebook, as though she hadn’t just had his heart beating in the palm of her hand.

Torj cleared his throat, hoping the action would somehow steel him against the utter turmoil roiling within. It did no such thing.

‘Right,’ was all he managed.

For the next hour, they worked in silence: Torj cleaning out small pots in the bathing chamber and bringing them back to her, Wren filling them with soil from a large sack at her feet. Torj didn’t ask how or when she’d managed to obtain such a thing. He just did as he was told.

He watched as Wren planted a range of silvertide rose samples in the freshly potted soil.

Her workbench was even messier than usual, covered in clumps of dirt and puddles of water, but she didn’t seem to notice.

Instead, she was intent on noting down the time of planting, how much water had been given, and where the soil had come from.

He shouldn’t have been surprised to find that there were, in fact, multiple bags of soil beneath her bench, from different parts of the academy grounds.

‘I’m trying to determine where it might best grow. The soil consistency is different all over Drevenor,’ she muttered, more to herself than to him.

Torj was more fascinated than he cared to admit as he glanced between the alchemist and the silvery blooms at her fingertips – their petals soft as whispers, their thorns sharp as broken glass.

Wren had dirt smudged across her scarred cheek and mud lining her short nails when she came to stand in the centre of the room, her hands on her hips. She looked from the floorboards to the stained-glass window, the crease between her brows deepening. ‘They won’t get enough light here.’

Before Torj knew it, she was barging through to his room, examining the angle of his window.

‘The seedlings will have to live in here,’ she declared. ‘Your room gets more sun.’

Though Torj didn’t particularly care, he asked, ‘For how long?’

‘No idea,’ Wren replied. ‘Some seeds can take as little as seven days, some up to two months... It depends on what conditions they find ideal.’ She dusted her hands off on her apron. ‘That will do for tonight. I’m going to bed.’

As she turned to leave, Torj couldn’t stop himself; he caught her arm. ‘Wait.’ His voice was low, his heart pounding as his hand closed over her warm skin. ‘You’ve got dirt on your cheek.’

His thumb gently brushed over the scar there, lingering a heartbeat too long. He had tended to that wound himself. He’d nursed her for weeks after the Gauntlet, washing the blood from her skin, treating her injuries with salves.

Their eyes locked, and for a moment the air crackled between them again, a familiar sensation stirring in his chest. Torj’s heart stuttered. It was simply an echo of what had been, he told himself. There was no bond between them now. His own actions had ensured it.

With the dirt gone from Wren’s cheek, he dropped his hand.

She, in turn, stepped back, looking slightly dazed. ‘Tomorrow, then, Bear Slayer,’ she said, heading to her room and closing the door between them, leaving Torj alone with the promise of tomorrow, and the lingering scent of soil and storm magic.