Chapter 21

I t was over.

The fight for the Blacksteel Commandership was over, and Torin had been victorious.

Oaths were recited, knees were knelt on, and warriors held their palms to hearts in the sight of Thorin that they would honour and obey their newest leader. Emara witnessed the newest commander stand before his brethren like a god. He stood in front of his men, power radiating from him even as blood dripped from his body. Even the ones who had not chosen his corner now did, knowing that they would receive punishment for not selecting his side.

They now had to bow to Torin.

And that included the former commander. A slight awe crept into her chest to acknowledge that she was proud of Torin for not murdering his father. His heart was so much bigger than anyone could have ever imagined. And now his soul would not be tarred with the memories of killing Viktir.

It was wise of him to know that Viktir's biggest punishment would not be death, but to be ranked under his son and to be dealt the hand that the commander gave him.

And Naya, thank the Gods for Naya. Torin could have been forced to end his father's life had it not been for her.

When it was over, Torin fled from the ruins, avoiding anyone who tried to congratulate him or even speak with him. Healers had run after him, but he had shrugged them off, telling them to attend to Viktir first. Naya had hugged Emara until she couldn't breathe, tears streaming from her eyes, and even Gideon had embraced her.

Artem Stryker, being himself, announced an honorary service for Torin's commandership, which of course meant that he would order wagons full of ale and there would be a few days of revelry for anyone who celebrated the new commander.

As the preparations for the service began at mid-morning, all magical factions that stayed within the Tower pulled together, making pastries, shining glasses, and dressing tables in fine lace that needed a little flair. As letters were sent to clans across the kingdom, as maids polished every oil lamp, as everyone buzzed around prepping the Tower for the commemorations, Emara felt numb.

She couldn't find Torin.

She had searched the Tower all over to find him. His room, the library, the rooftop, the stables, the infirmary, but nothing. No witch had seen him for healing, no cook had seen him for eating, no hunter had seen him for sparring. He was nowhere to be found. Marcus declared he hadn't left the grounds, as he had not passed the foyer doors, so that meant there was only one place left.

The Commanding Office.

A strange feeling passed through Emara as she stood outside the large oak door to the office she had entered a few times to speak on political matters with Viktir. She hated the place. It was cold and dull, and there was nothing pleasant about it.

Her knuckles rattled on the door before entering, wondering how many times Torin had dreaded coming through this very door.

"Enter," Torin commanded in a voice that didn't sound like his own.

She opened the door slowly and halted when she saw him.

A darkness festered in the room. The poor lighting hid Torin's face as he sat in what used to be his father's chair, sprawled out, his feet on the wooden desk in front of him. His hand rubbed along his brow, his knuckles still bruised, but at least he seemed to have had them cleaned up. He tried to smile at her with a weary grin that didn't reach his eyes, and he placed down a paper that he had been reading on the desk.

Emara flicked her wrist in the direction of every candle and, one by one, a flame ignited, adding light to the dim walls and allowing a glow to soften Torin's fierce features.

"Did no one ever tell you that reading in the dark was bad for your eyes?" Emara tried her hardest to find humour in the moment, but an overwhelming sadness took over as she glanced upon his injured face.

"Well then, I guess it's a good thing that I have such a talented witch to light my candles." His smirk was small and almost non-existent.

Defeated.

She took a few more steps into the room. "They are throwing celebrations for you down in the main hall to honour your victory. I have never seen so much liquor." She chewed on her lip. "Breighly even organised for the La Luna sugar spice and rum recipe to be served for you as a toast to your triumph."

"I know," was all he said as his fingertips drummed a short beat on his temple.

She glanced around the room, not knowing what to say to him, and he took his feet from the desk and planted them on the ground.

"Can you come over here?" he asked as he looked at her through dark lashes. "Please," he added, and the weakness to his voice almost made her knees buckle.

Emara strode across the room and flung herself against him. She wrapped her arms around him before he pulled her into his lap, and she nuzzled her face into his neck. All she could feel emerging from her soul was the healing energy of her magic; it took over everything else. She pulled back, placing her hand on his injured brow and allowing her magic to aid his bruised skin. His eyes didn't falter from her face as his skin knitted back together and he twitched slightly in pain.

She could have lost him today, but the Gods had spared him, and for that, she would thank them every night and day. He had been the better fighter. Torin pulled her against his solid frame once he had had enough healing.

It was over. He had lived. He seemed to relax against her, his muscles softening as she stroked the back of his neck. They sat in silence for a moment more. She could feel his fingers intertwining in her midnight locks, threading through the strands as if he took comfort from it somehow.

"You won," she whispered as tears threatened to course down her cheeks.

"I was always going to win because it was going to bring me back to you," he breathed into her cheek, and his lips found her skin as he scattered a few kisses over her face. "I was always going to come back to you." He embraced her a little tighter.

She found his lips, and she didn't care if they were swollen. She pressed a kiss to him, and he swallowed hard. Emara pulled back slightly, curiosity taking over. "How did you come to the decision to let him live?"

His large hand stroked past her face and into her hair once more. "My father might have been a cruel man with awful tendencies, but he is intelligent, and if there is one thing that I have taken from my lessons with him it is that you should always keep your friends close and your enemies closer. I might need him."

She sat up in his lap and ran a hand down his swollen cheek. "I respect what you did, but I could have lost you."

He looked up at her with hope roaming free in his glittering blue eyes. "You won't ever lose me again. I promise."

She kissed him again, bringing her lips to his in a thankful embrace and thanking any of the Gods or ancestors who had listened to her prayers. A well of emotion crashed around her, and she could feel that familiar sting in her eyes as she let out a sob against his mouth.

He pulled back, concern ablaze in his eyes. "What's wrong?" he whispered so gently.

Her hands tightened around his arms, his tunic. "When you were just gone from the battle…I thought…I thought—"

He looked at her with guilt, knowing what she would have gone through today. A long finger curled under her chin as he commanded her to meet his gaze. "Emara, look at me when I say this." His voice was deep and promise lingered there as she raised her tear-filled eyes to his. "I am never leaving your side again unless you order me to as your guard, as your partner, as anything more should you want it. I am not going anywhere." She ran a quick hand over her eyes to wipe the tears that had escaped and took a sharp breath to steady her emotions. "The minute I had been sworn in as commander and the battle was done, I knew that I had moves to make right away. This"—he looked around—"it's Viktir's personal cave of secrecy and knowledge. Anything valuable to him will be in here. Anything that I shouldn't know about, anything that he's been hiding, should be in here. And now the key belongs to me. I had to find it before anything could be destroyed."

"I understand," Emara whispered, her heart feeling a little lighter.

He pushed back her hair, which had managed to stick to her tear-covered face. "I wanted to come to you right away and feel you against me. But I had to see what I could claim in here. What I could use. So please forgive me for just stepping out on you and the celebrations. I had to secure this office."

Emara raised her eyebrow and smirked. "Spoken like a true commander of the Blacksteel legacy."

He finally smiled, truly smiled, and even with a burst lip, it was magnificent. "Don't look at me like that." His hand travelled a little further up Emara's dress as a deep breath huffed out of his chest. "I had no intention of christening my new desk until early next week, but if you keep looking at me like that, these papers that I have so carefully sifted through will be a mess once again." One of his eyebrows rose as if he liked the sound of the challenge. He wanted her to challenge him. "I fear I would lose all my hard work."

Emara let out a laugh that finally reached her belly. "It seems you are making such progress already, and I wouldn't want to come between that." She placed her hands over his shoulders and around his neck once more. "I would hate to be the cause of such destruction in your new office."

A wicked, deviant flicker burned in his eyes. "I would love nothing more than for you to be the cause for such destruction."

She laughed again just as his dimples appeared on either side of his mouth and the scar in between his brow smoothed out. He traced little circles up her leg.

She grabbed his hand that had begun travelling to a place of no return. "I will not be the cause of your new office being mistreated. You have new responsibilities, Commander."

His full mouth pulled into a grin. "Oh angel, you know that when we go exploring, I never mistreat you." His eyes roamed her face, and those wicked fingers ran all through her hair and over her dress. Emara's skin almost went up in flames. His lashes lowered before he spoke again. "However, Empress, regardless of my unbelievable restraint to not explore every inch of you, I do have something for you."

She rose as he did and his hands rested on her hips, guiding her to sit on the edge of his desk. She watched him in confusion as he limped over to a unit that housed a few things like liquor and glasses. He withdrew an engraved box coated in gold and black paint. As he brought it over, he removed a brass key from his pocket and opened it.

Lying there in a white silk wrapping was the Resurrection Stone.

Emara gasped as she looked at it for the first time since Gideon had stolen it from her. The dim candlelight flickered over the stone's polished edges, and all the brilliant colours flared through it.

She had forgotten the feel of its supremacy, even as it lay untouched. And now that she had tapped into her power, she could feel hints of fire, earth, water, and spirit in the stone, the elements calling to her.

He pushed the box along the desk to where she sat. "This is yours, I believe."

Emara looked at Torin, her mouth open. "The prime said I couldn't protect it properly."

"The prime doesn't see in you what I do." His angled face told her that his decision was final. "Fuck the prime."

Her heart caught in her chest. "That's not very commander-like." She smiled.

And he smiled back. "I am not one to follow the chain of command, am I?"

Heat simmered her blood as he watched her.

He lifted his chin. "I want you to do what you wish. Keep it, destroy it, throw it in the Broken Sea." He sat in his chair again and managed to push one of his legs in between hers. "I can keep it for you or I can hand it over. What do you want to do?"

The choice was a shock to her. He was mere hours into his commandership and he had already given her back the power that had been taken from her on one of the worst nights of her life. The Resurrection Stone was more powerful than anything she had ever known. Her mother or grandmother had hidden it in her possession; there must have been a reason for that.

But the stone was sought after. It was a relic that people would kill for, yet he trusted her with it. She didn't even know what kind of magic it wielded. She didn't know the depth of its power or how she could use it.

"I don't know what to do with it," she admitted.

"Well, it is here for you when you decide what you want to do. I can keep it in the Blacksteel vault. It was where my father kept it after Gideon took it from you."

She nodded and bit into her cheek before asking, "Are there any other stones in the Blacksteel vault?"

She had been so busy she hadn't been able to catch up with Sybil to see if she had made any progress with the ancient grimoire. Maybe she had already unlocked something within the text. Maybe she had worked out where the other stones were.

Torin let out a little laugh. "No. Not until you showed up. We haven't tended to be successful in finding anything worthwhile."

She rolled her lip in her teeth. "Well, I do need to let you in on a little secret of mine."

His brows pulled together in a sort of amusement. "Oh, you know your secrets are my favourite kind of secrets."

"Sybil and I," she announced, ignoring the grin on his face, "have been looking into the Gods' stones. We have been researching where they might possibly be. Well, Sybil has been doing most of the research; she has more education on ancient languages and runes."

His lips pursed. "And have you found anything valuable?"

"Actually, we think we might have found something. But it could entirely be old witches' tales."

"Do tell." He let his knee rub against her leg.

She gripped the desk to stop herself from flushing with desire for him at this inappropriate time. "I mean, it might be nothing, but—"

"It's not nothing if you think it's important," he said as he leaned back in his chair.

"Sybil has a grimoire."

"Yeah, the one Gideon gave to her for the winter solstice?"

"Yes, exactly. And she has been obsessed with the ancient magic in it ever since. There are lots of spells and magic long lost to us. But there is a section on enchanted stones unlike anything she has ever studied before. She said something about it being a mixture of Fae and Witch magic, possibly citing an old oracle who could still be living."

Torin's eyes raked over Emara's face as he sat forward a little.

Emara continued, "She also said something about how she still had to translate most of it, but there were drawings of stones, and we believe one is the Protection Stone."

"Did it say where the stone was?" he asked.

"We haven't gotten that far yet." She chewed her cheek. Emara placed her hands on his strong legs and leaned forward. "If we find the two remaining stones, it will mean that the Dark Army can't. It would put us in a position of power. I believe that my mother only used two of the stones to banish Balan into the underworld, so that would mean that it would only take those two stones to get him out."

Torin looked to be mulling over her words. "If we have them, it would keep you safe from him."

"It would keep everyone safe," Emara reminded him. "Torin, I am not naive to think that it wouldn't also put a target on our backs. No one can found out about us trying to locate these stones. Only the Empress of Earth and I know about this."

"You know your secrets are always safe with me."

Look at us…we have our own dirty little secret.

As the memory of Torin teasing her many moons ago appeared in her mind, she punched his leg. "I am serious. No one else knows I am even looking into this."

"So am I. We have had plenty of secrets together, and I like it that way." Torin ran the back of his hand over her arm and her skin prickled, reacting to his touch.

She shook off her body's reaction to him and tried her best to focus. "We already have the Resurrection Stone. So all we need to locate is the Protection Stone, which is invisible in any of the stories except for what we have found in the grimoire. We'll need the Dark Crystal too, but there is a whole lot of folklore on that. The one that Thorin slammed into the land in battle to save his men, breaking apart the continent, is said to be lost to the Broken Sea. If we have the majority of the stones, it means that no one can free him." She looked down at her hands on Torin's legs for a second before meeting his gaze again. He was patiently waiting for her to continue. "My mother locked him up for a reason, Torin. He is a monster. But having the stones also means Veles will never get free and we can control the Dark Army. Is that not the clan's true goal, to either stop them or destroy them?"

He leaned forward in his chair. "You, Emara Clearwater, are fucking incredible."

Her breathing hitched as she fought a smile. "What do you mean?"

"I just love how your brain works." He grinned a little. "But you are right. It would certainly put us in a position of strength should we have more than one of the Gods' Stones," he agreed. "But we cannot go on the quest alone; it is too dangerous to have only a few men on a mission like that. It could take us years to find anything. Should we find any information or one of the stones, we would need something far greater than just myself and two empresses to protect it. And I have just gained more responsibility than I've ever had. I can't go wandering off on a quest. The clan would look for answers."

She tucked a stray hair behind her ear, and he followed it with his ocean eyes. "Then we take them with us. Think about it, with more men, we can cover more ground. It can be a secret mission for the Blacksteel Clan, the first that you will command to demonstrate the kind of moves you will be making as a commander." She reached out to touch his arm. "It also confirms your authority. It's a power play, and a respectable one." She let him think on that for a second. "It is in the clan's best interests just as much as it is in ours to seek out the stones. More and more humans are finding out about the Dark Army, and what is protecting them from the shadows? Nothing. Yet the Minister of Coin can only think about greed and gold instead of the protection of his faction. It is only a matter of time before the Dark Army uses humans to find the stones too, granting them immortality. You saw what he did with Taymir, and he was a member of a powerful elite family. If Balan can convert the magic community to become darkened, then think what a human with nothing to lose would do for immortality." She sat back a little, and Torin looked like he didn't want the distance to come between them. "We know they have the Immortality Stone, let's not give them any more power than they already have. Let's be the ones to protect the kingdom and secure the keys to the cage of the underworlds."

Torin sat in silence once more, likely pondering over what she had just said. "Let me think it over. I will speak with Gideon and Artem and see what they think of it. I will seek out my first counsel, since I will need to appoint my second-in-command soon."

She nodded. "Should it not be Gideon? Is it not his birthright?"

"Actually, it would be my son's birthright." He looked over at her, and she felt her throat thicken. "It is only Gideon's name until the Gods grant me a son. And as commander, I need to write a decree that announces who it is until I have a successor. But even then, clans have fought over less." His lip pulled at the corner.

Emara snorted. "I think you hunters just make excuses to fight."

Torin chuckled. "It's how our world works. It's competitive."

She rolled her eyes. "I hope there isn't a queue of people lining up outside your door this very minute to be your second-in-command. How would you choose?"

He rested back into his chair with a cocky smile on his face, and he looked like an oil painting in one of the Minister of Coin's rooms, powerful and strong. "Whoever it is must be as good-looking as me and able to swing a sword just as easily. But I guess it's not fair to set such high standards."

"You are honestly the most arrogant asshole I have ever met." She lightly hit his leg with her hand, and before she knew it, she was laughing as Torin Blacksteel caught her hand and pulled her in.

His eyes narrowed. "Are you insinuating that someone is more handsome than me? Because if you are, I am going to have to kill him." He tickled her side, and her laugh and scream could have been heard around the Tower, but she didn't care. It was a welcome reprieve.

He paused and ran a hand over the back of her head, sending shivers of her body. Torin looked into her eyes and said, "See, it's not only your flaming candles that light up the room. It's your laugh too." He tilted his head to the side, displaying the angles of his face. "Maybe this room won't be filled with endless misery after all."

A long silence waded in on them as they looked at one another, not willing to look at anything else in the world. It was just them and the light of a flame, the unseen magic that burned between them the magic of a thousand universes. "Marry me," he uttered, and Emara's heart stopped. "Marry me here. Marry me now. Marry me tomorrow. Marry me anytime you want." He took her hand in his. "But just be mine forever."

Unable to stop the hand moving to her heart to clutch anything she could touch, Emara sucked in a breath. Shock must have taken hold of her tongue. She was sure she wasn't speaking, or maybe her heart was not beating. Or maybe she had imagined the whole thing.

But Torin spoke again. "I was going to ask you at a different time, at some stupid ball or at some monotonous formal event, where everyone in the kingdom could have talked about how I got down on one knee and asked for the hand of the Empress of Air. But I cannot believe in my heart that it would be more perfect than asking you here, now…especially when you are smiling at me like that." He slid her off his knee for the second time, and as he stood her upright, her legs shook, almost leaving her body to drop to the floor. But he held on to her hips as he moved from the chair and onto one knee.

Torin removed a small box from the breast of his leather tunic and clutched it in his hand. "For years, I was terrified of this little box, more terrified than I was of anything that moved between the shadows or that could have been discovered in the lakes of the underworld. I have been terrified to give this box to anyone but you." He opened it to reveal a stunning gold ring holding a black diamond in the shape of a teardrop. Emara's breath faltered again as he spoke. "I tried giving this to you at winter solstice as a second present—not to rush you or make you feel that I was igniting pressure for a formal treaty, but as a promise that I was all in with you. As a promise that there would be no one else but you." His eyes glittered with darkness, and Emara's lungs squeezed in her chest, starved of air. "It was a symbol that I didn't want to search for anyone else to be by my side." Tears began flowing from her eyes, and Emara found her stomach contracting as she forced herself not to cry. "But we were interrupted and I gave this ring to Magin to give to you should anything ever happen to me. After you were taken, I couldn't believe how foolish I had been, and I promised myself that I would be the one to give it to you. And now that the Gods have willed me to live another battle, I still want you to have it. It was my mother's, and I know she would be honoured to see you wear it. But there is one more thing I need to show you before you answer."

One more thing.

Was he trying to kill her?

She tried gasping for air, but her element was just as shocked as she was. It was failing her, stunned into silence.

"Open the bottom of the box." He pressed his full lips together as he placed it in her hands.

There was a small compartment that slid open as Emara pulled it open with trembling fingers.

In the candlelight, it looked like a strange powder, and Emara looked down at Torin, still kneeling before her, not understanding.

"It's ash," he said.

"Ash?"

He nodded. "The ashes of your treaty to the Blacksteels."

Emara's heart punched against her ribs, not knowing whether to stop altogether or to burst.

"So if you choose to marry me, you would be marrying me because you want to and not for a treaty or an alliance, but because you choose me and I choose you. Just like I said last night, meeting you has set me free from so many boundaries, and I will do everything I can to ensure the same freedom for you." He took hold of her hand again. "So, will you do me the honour, Emara Clearwater, and marry me?"