Chapter Thirteen

The festivities lasted well into the evening, and Thea found herself enjoying the odd company. It was a combination mad enough that it might just make their alliances work.

For a time, she sat between Wren and Anya, trading stories about their worst name days. Both Thea's and her older sister's were on the horizon, just two months apart.

‘I spent my last freezing my arse off in the hinterlands, hunting down Wilder,' Thea offered, glancing at her Warsword across the room. Warmth bloomed in her cheeks as she took in his handsome form, his smile soft as he watched Talemir conjure shadow birds for Dax to chase around the room.

Wren scoffed. ‘That's nothing. What about my fourteenth name day? When that tonic exploded all over me and I had to stay wrapped in those smelly leaves for three days to treat my burns?'

‘That was gross,' Thea admitted.

‘I see your smelly leaves and raise you a bog,' Anya declared, leaning back and resting her boots on the table.

‘A bog? You spent a name day in a bog?' Thea asked, barely keeping the laughter at bay.

‘It had been a while since I'd had a hot dinner, and there was this chicken…' Anya began.

Wren blinked. ‘A chicken?'

Anya nodded solemnly. ‘A chicken —'

‘Gods, not the chicken story,' Dratos moaned from nearby.

‘It's my name day story,' Anya objected.

‘It's your everything story. Chicken. Name day. Bog. Last I heard there was a rogue artist involved too —'

Anya gave a dramatic sigh. ‘You've built it up now. It was my name day. I followed a chicken into a bog and got stuck. Mud up to my tits. Couldn't move a muscle. For the entire day. The end.'

‘But what of the rogue artist?' Thea pressed, her cheeks aching.

‘That's Dratos' description of himself, because he hid in the grass, trying to draw the whole thing. Bastard waited hours to help me out.'

Thea and Wren exchanged a glance and burst into hysterics.

Anya was shaking her head, her eyes gleaming. ‘I never did get that chicken, either.'

That only made Thea laugh harder. ‘You win,' she conceded. ‘Worst name day ever.'

Wren smiled widely at both of them. ‘Perhaps one of these days we'll be able to celebrate one together. As a family.'

‘Perhaps,' Thea said at the same time as Anya. Though Thea didn't remind Wren that she only had one more name day up her sleeve.

As the wee hours of the morning approached, slowly but surely, different groups retired, while others cleaned up the leftovers in a comfortable quiet. Dratos and Gus had fallen asleep on twin lounges, their arms flung over their heads in exactly the same way, their wings draped carelessly beneath them.

Wilder came to Thea's side and pressed a firm kiss to her lips. ‘I'm going to the aviary with Talemir to send word to Torj. I'll be back in a little while. According to Wren, Audra is somewhere around here, if you wanted to see her?'

‘Audra's here?' Thea gaped. How had it taken so long for someone to mention it? ‘Why didn't she join —'

‘You'll have to ask her, Princess,' Wilder murmured against her mouth before departing with Talemir.

Thea didn't have to guess where Audra was; she knew on instinct. She headed to the library, the one just outside her and Wilder's quarters.

Thea had never been overly bookish, having always preferred the outdoors and the weight of a blade in her hand, but even she could appreciate the sheer vastness of the shelves. She hadn't had the chance to take it in the night before, but now, with all the torches lit, she let out an appreciative whistle. Soft golden light flickered from glass lanterns and the hearth at the far end of the room, casting a warm, ethereal glow upon the countless rows of shelves. They stretched tall and wide, laden with leatherbound tomes and yellowed scrolls.

Thea spotted the Thezmarrian librarian perusing the stacks by the fire, murmuring softly – not to herself, Thea realised, but to Malik, who sat in one of the armchairs before the flames as he did back at the fortress, Dax sleeping soundly at his feet.

At Thea's approach, Audra looked up, and though the stern-faced older woman didn't smile openly, there was a spark of joy behind her spectacles.

‘So you became a storm-wielding Warsword after all, Althea…' she said by way of greeting.

‘You told me I had to choose,' Thea replied, raising a brow.

‘And so you did… You chose to be exactly what you are, nothing less.'

Thea stared at her former warden. ‘Did you know? What would happen in the Rite? What would be asked of me?'

‘How could I? Not even I'm that knowledgeable.'

Thea reached for the jewelled dagger at her belt and held it out to the older woman. ‘Thank you for this.'

Audra didn't take it. ‘Did it make a difference?'

‘I think it might have made all the difference,' Thea said.

Audra didn't flinch at the sight of her scar, nor did she question Thea about the Great Rite at all. Instead, she simply pushed the dagger back to her. ‘I'll have it back when the war is won. I have a feeling you'll need it again before long.'

Thea knew better than to argue with the librarian, so she sheathed the tiny blade at her waist again and turned her attention to the rows of shelves around them.

‘I suppose this is far more impressive than Thezmarr's library,' she ventured, running her fingers along several spines. ‘Even for a fallen kingdom…'

Audra scoffed, moving towards the shelves. ‘Half the books here are love stories,' she retorted. ‘I don't know what Starling has done with the academic texts, but there are more romances here than history books. He always was a dreamer.'

Thea's brows shot up in surprise, but she didn't comment further. Instead, she peered around the library. ‘You can't find what you're looking for, then?'

‘I'm not even sure what I'm looking for yet. I'll know it when I see it.'

Audra's attention lingered on Malik by the fire. His huge frame took up the entirety of the armchair as he stared into the flames.

‘I asked if he needed anything,' Audra said quietly.

Thea shook her head. ‘Sometimes he just needs to decompress. I imagine being here, as much as he loves everyone, is a lot for him to take in.'

‘It's a lot for everyone to take in,' Audra admitted before glancing at Thea, her brows knitting together. ‘Something on your mind?'

‘These days? Always.'

Audra simply waited.

‘I was wondering… What happens to a person's magic when they die?'

Audra pinned her with a sharp stare. ‘Why?'

Untucking her fate stone from her shirt, Thea sighed. ‘You know what this is,' she said. ‘You always have. You know what's coming for me.'

‘I have never pretended to know what the Furies have in store for any of us,' Audra replied tersely.

‘Their names are Iseldra, Morwynn and Valdara,' Thea heard herself say before she came back to the moment, rubbing her fate stone with her thumb. The numeral it bore was darker than it had ever been before. ‘Does the magic die with its wielder? Or is there a way to… pass it on?'

Audra was quiet for a moment before she spoke again. ‘Pass it on?'

‘I'm just trying to be prepared,' Thea told her. ‘If there's a way I can pass it on to Wren and Anya, if I'm not here for… for the end… If there's a chance I can do that, then I want to. I want to give them every advantage imaginable. I want —'

‘I'll look into it,' Audra said.

‘Thank you.'

Audra nodded stiffly. ‘Althea?'

‘Hmm?'

‘Might I make a suggestion?' When Thea didn't protest, Audra gripped her shoulder, her long fingers surprisingly strong. ‘Get some sleep. Tomorrow is a big day.'

Thea nodded. ‘In a little while. For now, I'd like to catch up with my friend.' She glanced to Malik and Dax by the fire.

‘Very well.' Audra took several books in hand and left.

Thea sank into the vacant armchair and turned to her companion with a smile. ‘How are you, my friend?'

Malik's eyes sparkled, his fingers working on a leather belt.

‘I'm glad,' she said. ‘Glad you have had Talemir and Drue all this time.'

Malik continued braiding.

With a contented sigh, Thea watched the fire for a moment before she turned to the stack of scrolls and volumes Audra had left on the side table. She slid a hefty tome from the top of the pile and glanced at Malik. ‘Should I read to you? That used to be our thing, didn't it?'

Malik gave a slight dip of his head, but his eyes didn't focus, and she saw a slight tremor in one of his fingers.

‘Reading it is.' Thea turned the book over in her hands before she groaned at the title. ‘Tethers and Magical Bonds Throughout History… Furies save us, not exactly what I'd call a scintillating read, Mal.' She hauled herself out of the armchair. ‘A library full of love stories and that's what Audra picks? I'll find us something that won't bore us to tears.'

Thea soon found a sweeping tale of adventure and read to Malik for the next two hours, until he'd nodded off in the armchair.

When she had stoked the fire and draped a blanket across her giant friend, she murmured her goodnights to him and Dax, and returned to the old headmaster's chambers. They felt cold without Wilder, and the bed seemed far less appealing without his powerful build taking up the bulk of the space.

Instead, Thea lit all the candles and got a small fire crackling in the hearth. Before the flames, she sat writing.

Wilder, every entry began. And then whatever was in her heart poured onto the page, raw and unfiltered. She wrote to him until the candles burned low – wrote of her fears, her dreams, everything that might offer him some semblance of comfort when she was gone. Instead of her name, she signed off with a small bolt of lightning, the little gesture only they had shared since she'd started training as his apprentice.

‘What are you doing?' Wilder's voice sounded as the door clicked closed behind him.

‘Nothing important,' Thea replied, snapping her notebook shut and wincing at the thought of the wet ink bleeding into the pages.

‘I thought you'd be dead to the world by now.'

Interesting choice of words, Thea mused. ‘Not without you,' she said instead. ‘You sent word to Torj?'

Wilder nodded, shucking off his outer layers and hanging them on the stand by the door. ‘Hopefully it reaches him soon. We want him here for when Tal's forces arrive. We'll need to train them as a single unit. We need to be able to fight as one.'

Thea ran her fingers over the scar on her wrist. ‘I can't believe it's come to this. All that training at Thezmarr, all the things I went through during the Rite… I guess a part of me still didn't believe…'

‘I've been watching the midrealms disintegrate for years, and even I'm having trouble believing we're facing its reckoning,' Wilder admitted, pulling off his shirt. ‘Come to bed.'

‘To bed, or to sleep?'

Wilder grinned. ‘What do you think, Princess?'