Chapter Forty-six

At long last, Thea wielded her ultimate weapon. Amid the howling darkness, she stood tall with her sisters. Fate had robbed them of a shared history, of the chance to know one another as Delmirian heirs, but it had not stopped them uniting. It had not stopped them forging their bonds anew.

She was struck by an image of the three Furies: Iseldra, Morwynn and Valdara, standing side by side as the Embervales did now.

As Thea's lightning sang within, ready to be unleashed upon the world of shadow, so too did Wren's and Anya's. In a blinding flash, their magic linked together. It was like different notes from the same song intertwining, each sister's magic subtly different but forging together in harmony.

Thunder cracked through the sky, echoing off the stone, causing the ground beneath Thea's boots to tremble, loose rock coming away from the fortress walls. Magic flowed through her veins, and she felt its likeness thrumming from her sisters either side of her as they conjured tempests from within, and summoned those beyond the borders of Thezmarr. Above, the clouds opened up and a downpour began, rain pelting the world in hard, sideways sheets. Around them, the wind picked up, tearing at their hair and clothes, gaining momentum as each sister dug deep for that well of power.

‘Now,' Anya murmured, just loud enough for Thea and Wren to hear.

Their hands shot out, and the tempest broke.

More thunder erupted as lightning crackled at their fingertips.

To Thea, the rest of the battle had faded away – there were only the reapers, who seemed to lick their lips at the taste of the Delmirians' power. But they did not scare Thea, not with her sisters at her sides and her lightning blasting through the air towards the monsters, illuminating the darkness with blinding brilliance. The rain pelted her skin, but she revelled in its song, its scent, washing away the creatures' acrid stench as she flung her hands out, directing her lightning straight at the host of reapers.

Their screams filled the air.

Thea and her sisters summoned a vortex of wind, the gale sweeping away an onslaught of shadows that came for them.

With a determined shout, Thea filled the rain with a current of energy and blasted the first line of reapers. Their bodies went flying from the wall, hitting the stone below with a crack, the Warswords lunging for them to finish them off.

Anya was drawing all three storm wielders' power together, and it was unlike anything Thea had ever experienced. The storm roiled in her chest, joining forces with her sisters', the chaos intensifying as more clouds rolled in and thunder roared above them.

Together, they shot bolts of lightning straight for the next line of reapers, the crackling energy searing their shadows and making them writhe in agony. The force of it was intoxicating; the raw power of nature combined with the magic surging through her entire being. Thea felt it in every fingertip, every toe, deep in her bones. Rain came down in a torrent and she tasted it on her lips before she unleashed another colossal fork of lightning, bringing it down from the black sky above and striking another reaper with her unrelenting fury. Sparks flew, and even in the downpour, Thezmarr caught alight, fire blazing to life on the walls.

Enraptured, she watched as the storm swallowed lashes of shadow, as the reapers on the perimeter retreated —

A clouded blue gaze bored into hers and she didn't have time to cry out, to take so much as a breath before the monster lunged for her.

Caught up in the frenzy of their joint storm, Thea faltered.

Not even all the Furies-given strength in the midrealms could have stopped the blow. A punch of obsidian, straight to the chest, sent her flying. Thea was ripped from the link between her and her sisters, the abrupt, searing pain of it stealing the air from her lungs, her eyes streaming tears. Limbs flailing, she was brutally thrown skyward, up onto a parapet. She hit the stones hard, the back of her head colliding with the rubble of the ruined fortress wall. She felt the trickle of blood almost instantly, at the nape of her neck and down her spine beneath her armour.

With pain blooming all over, her magic seemed to choke. She reached for it, hoping she might cauterise her wounds as she'd done in the Great Rite, but something forced her power down.

Dazed, she tried to get to her feet, but something pinned her back into the rubble —

A reaper.

The jagged tips of its talons hovered across the skin just over her heart.

And time slowed.

This is it, Thea realised. This is how I die.

She had waited twenty-seven years for this moment, and as promised, Fate had come for her. There was no Aveum springwater to save her this time, no tricks up her sleeve. Only storms and darkness.

Thea tasted blood on her tongue. She fought to get enough air into her lungs, the reaper's talons piercing deeper —

And then the pressure was gone.

The monster was thrown back from her, cords of lightning wrapping around its throat and dragging it across the ruined courtyard.

The scent of rosewood and leather enveloped Thea, and suddenly Wilder was at her side.

She met his silver gaze sadly, hating the devastation she found there. ‘If this is it…' she croaked, blood leaking from the corner of her mouth. ‘Then know that I loved you fiercely. Every second was worth it. You were worth it —'

Thea choked on a sob as all that she would miss flashed before her. Her life with Wilder: chasing after her Tverrian stallion with him through the rolling hills, passionate nights by the campfire, I love you whispered in the quiet breaths between the rest. She would never see Wren become a master alchemist, nor Cal become a Warsword. She wouldn't have another sour mead with Kipp, nor a —

‘Don't you dare.' Wilder pulled her to his armoured chest. ‘Don't you dare give up.' The words were an echo of ones he'd said before, in the Bloodwoods after her shieldbearer initiation test. ‘I won't let you,' he told her. ‘I won't let you go.'

Thea wanted to touch his face, to trace his jaw one last time, to bring his mouth to hers. But her hands were clumsy.

Wilder's arms trembled around her. ‘We said after you went to Aveum that we'd never part again. I mean to uphold that vow.'

Thea felt cold. She didn't know if it was the wound at the back of her head, or the dark marks that bled over her heart.

Wilder rested his forehead against hers, tears spilling down his handsome face, creating tracks through the blood and grit. ‘Please.'

‘I'm sorry —' Her voice broke. ‘I didn't want to leave you. I didn't want to die, not yet.'

A shadow cast over them both, a figure emerging on the parapet. ‘You're not the one who's going to die,' Anya said, crouching at Thea's side. ‘Chew this.'

She shoved something into Thea's mouth. When Thea bit down, she recognised the bitter taste.

Dried iruseed. The same herb Wilder had given her when she'd nearly bled to death in the broom closet courtesy of Sebastos Barlowe. It worked the same as it had then, her senses prickling back to life. The pain was still there, but she was conscious, alert, her hands able to move as she directed.

Beside her, Wilder's breathing was ragged. ‘Fuck,' he muttered, pressing a hard kiss to her temple. ‘Don't ever do that to me again.'

But Thea's gaze drifted to Anya, something about her words niggling at Thea. ‘Who's going to die?' she rasped. ‘You said I'm not the one who's dying… So who is?'

Anya grimaced, her hand reaching for something.

She pulled Thea's fate stone from beneath her armour, snapping the knotted leather cord as she took it between her fingers. ‘This was never yours.'

Thea could only stare.

‘You had it in your hands when we arrived here. It used to stop you crying. But it was mine. It was always mine. When I came back to Thezmarr to see you and Wren, and I said I didn't speak to you? I lied. I begged you to remember me. And then I gave you the stone for good.'

Remember me.

The words from the seer came back to her, along with the press of the fate stone in her palm as a child.

Remember me.

A flash of flower necklaces in tiny hands.

Remember me.

Throwing the cursed thing out to sea, only to find it on Wilder's side table hours later.

Remember me.

Her blood running cold as she scanned the forest floor in Notos for the piece of jade she'd torn from her neck and cast aside.

‘Here,'Cal had said, offering an outstretched hand. And there it had been: the pale green stone that had haunted Thea her whole life.

Remember me.

‘You gonna ask me about it?'she had prompted Anya in the Singing Hare, taking the piece of jade between her fingers and rubbing her thumb along its edges.

‘I don't think I want to… Those things never did anyone any good.'

Remember me.

Thea watched as Anya's fingers wrapped around the fate stone now. A seer hadn't whispered those words to her.

Her sister had.

Her older sister, by ten months.

Twenty-seven wasn't just her age. It was Anya's as well.

As Thea's senses came back to her, she gaped at the piece of jade in her sister's hands. For years she had worn that stone around her neck like a curse. For her whole life she'd flung herself into danger, believing that she wouldn't die.

And she wouldn't. Not by fate's hand. Not today.

For the stone wasn't hers.

It was Anya's.

The reality of that realisation hit her harder than any blow.

‘Anya,' she croaked, reaching for her sister. But Anya's attention snagged on something – someone – else, on the battlefield below.

Fastening the fate stone around her neck, Anya's eyes were trained on the frenzy beneath them, tracking a hooded man scurrying across the ruins. He clutched a sword to his chest but did not use it, did not assist any of their warriors in need.

Fury blazed over Anya's expression as she too realised what Thea had mere seconds ago. Whoever it was was fleeing the fortress, making for the shattered gates —

A feral smile broke across Anya's scarred face as darkness unfurled from her palms and her membranous wings flared open at her back.

With the iruseed flowing through Thea, her wound was forgotten. She scrambled to her feet, just as Anya dived from the parapet.

She was a vision of onyx glory, of formidable power. And at her command, a great gust of wind swept through the fortress, tangling in the wraiths' shadows, lightning sparking off the stones.

Anya's wings beat furiously, and she landed before the figure below, stopping him in his tracks.

Thea and Wilder darted from the parapet, leaping over the rubble and racing to reach Anya's side. For this was no ordinary deserter.

Anya stared at him, blood dripping from her scythe. ‘Do you recognise me, Guild Master?'

Thea gaped. Though she'd listened to the reports of Osiris' part in the fall of Thezmarr, it was another thing to watch it unfold before her, another thing entirely to see the man who had run the guild fleeing from its burning shell.

Osiris' eyes narrowed as he took in Anya's shaved head and scar. ‘Should I?'

Anya gave a dark laugh. ‘I suppose all little girls look the same to you when they're disposable… Just as you are now.'

Osiris scrambled backward, only to hit the wall of Wilder's chest, blocking him in to face his fate.

Amusement laced with malice lined Anya's features.

‘I have waited for this for a long time, Guild Master. Do not think it will be over quickly.'

With a flick of her wrist, her scythe slashed across Osiris' cheek, leaving a line of blood in its wake. He cried out, his hand flying to the cut.

‘Save your strength,' Anya said. ‘There will be many more…'

Thea watched on in horror as her sister painted her vengeance upon the former Guild Master. A slice down his face that mirrored her own scar. Then another.

Osiris screamed, falling to his knees, holding his hands out. ‘Please. I beg for mercy!'

‘What mercy did you show me all those years ago? What mercy did you show the poor souls that you and Artos turned into monsters?' Anya gave a broken laugh. ‘Mercy? You'll find none here —'

But just as Anya raised her scythe again, a reaper's lash of power struck her from behind, hard and fast as a blade.

Blood sprayed. Lightning shot from her fingertips, searing her attacker in a blaze of brilliant white light, but she staggered.

Not believing her eyes, Thea lurched forward, panic clawing at her insides.

Osiris bolted away as Anya collapsed. Thea scrambled for her, Wilder's hand on her shoulder. All around them, Thezmarr was burning in the wake of her sister's lightning.

With a sob, Thea pulled Anya into her lap, cradling her there as blood trickled from the corner of her mouth and pulsed at a deep open wound in her side.

‘I will leave this world worse than I found it,' Anya rasped, a tear tracking down her face.

‘No —'

‘You can't lie to a dying woman,' Anya said weakly. ‘Perhaps the gods will see fit that this dawn of fire and blood will wipe the slate clean. They will start anew when I'm gone…' She wheezed, her breath rattling in her chest as she gave a dark laugh. ‘If I were them, I wouldn't have the stomach for it. Not after what we've done to this place…'

‘Just hold on,' Thea begged, rocking her sister and looking around for someone, anyone, who could help.

‘Thea,' Anya murmured. ‘It's over. Finally, it's over.'

Thea's own face was wet with tears as she watched Anya's face drain of colour. ‘I don't want you to go.'

‘I'd stay if I could.'

The reality of her sister's wounds hit her hard. It was Kipp all over again, only this time, there was no vial of Aveum springwater to save her. Thea could feel Death's shadow creeping nearer. She struggled to swallow.

‘Don't leave like this, without any hope for the world.'

‘I wanted to scorch the earth with my fury,' Anya croaked, trying to shake her head. ‘But there's hope… Just not with me.' Anya's tired eyes stared at Thea meaningfully, and then flicked to Wren, who was surging towards them.

Anya breathed out, the sound ragged and pained.

She did not inhale.

With a cry, Wren fell to her knees beside Thea, just as the light left their sister's eyes.

‘No,' she pleaded. ‘Anya, wake up.' Wren shook her by the shoulders, but her body was limp, her gaze blank.

‘She's gone, Wren,' Thea told her, passing a hand over her sister's face to close her eyes and gently removing the fate stone from Anya's grasp. ‘It was hers,' she said. ‘This never belonged to me.'

Wren didn't seem to register her words, and Thea wasn't sure she had either. She knew distantly that Anya had lied to her by omission. For twenty-seven years Thea had thought that the stone was her burden to bear, that death was lying in wait for her, and she'd acted accordingly.

‘All those risks,' she whimpered, horrified at her own behaviour. ‘All that recklessness…'

‘You truly were Althea Nine Lives, then,' Wren said quietly, clutching their sister's lifeless hands.

For a moment, unimaginable anger coursed through Thea, all directed at their dead sister. Anya had let Thea believe she was not long for this world, she had —

But the anger morphed into something deeper, something far more painful than rage.

Grief.

Thea's chest was too tight. A vice-like grip squeezed her heart and wouldn't loosen. She couldn't judge Anya for how she'd chosen to live her life, not when she was still here and Anya was not.

Thea didn't bother to wipe the tears as they rolled down her cheeks, as she placed Anya's scythe in her hand and across her chest, like the warrior she was.

‘I will etch your name upon the stone swords of the Furies,' she vowed. ‘You were just as much a hero as any Thezmarrian. You defended the midrealms until your last breath.'

Wren placed her own hand over Thea's.

They both gasped —

For Anya's magic was leaving her body.

And surging directly into them.

Storm magic filled Thea's whole body. There was not an inch of her that wasn't humming with lightning. From the blazing look in Wren's eyes, she felt the same.

Audra had been wrong. Transferring power was possible.

Anya had left them one last gift.