Chapter Fifty

In the light of day, the devastation across Thezmarr was brutal. The once formidable stone walls that had stood tall for centuries had been reduced to piles of rubble and debris, some parts still on fire.

As Talemir set Thea down in the ruined courtyard, her knees threatened to give way. Once, it had been a hub of bustling activity, where warriors readied their horses, where shieldbearers were given their orders for the day. Now it was a sea of broken weapons, scorched earth and lifeless bodies. The cobblestones – or what remained of them – were stained with black and red blood, marking where defenders of the midrealms had fallen against their monstrous enemy.

Thea's storm had swept away the scent of burnt hair, but in its place, the air was thick with the metallic tang of blood and the heavy odour of burning wood. Beyond the courtyard, the fortress itself was in ruins too. Heart sinking, Thea approached the edge of a crater in the building. The mighty stone Furies, the monuments Thea had vowed to carve Anya's name upon, had toppled, taking half of the Great Hall with them.

‘What happened here?' Her voice was raw, and she wasn't speaking to anyone in particular, just staring in a daze at the mass of rubble.

‘Kipp blew it up from below,' Wilder said at her side. ‘There was a portal… The hall was overrun with wraiths…'

‘And the wraiths, the howlers…?' Her eyes roamed the splintered timber, the dust drifting through the air, the broken bodies among the wreckage.

‘Those who were sired by the reapers we killed on the cliffs perished,' Talemir answered, approaching the pit of debris, his arms folded over his chest.

Drue came to his side, nodding. ‘They turned to ash right before our eyes. Your and Wren's storms swept them away in the wind.'

‘And the rest?' Thea pressed.

‘We killed all the remaining howlers. We took no prisoners —'

‘But the wraiths? The reapers? Those who weren't linked to the ones killed in the caves?'

Drue sighed. ‘We did what we could. Cal and his men shot them out of the sky. But we didn't get them all. Without an aerial force of our own, we couldn't run them down. Some escaped.'

Thea's stomach roiled with unease.

‘It was the best we could hope for,' Audra's voice sounded.

Thea looked up at her former warden, the former librarian of Thezmarr, her armour slick with blood, her weapons still unsheathed at her sides.

Following Thea's gaze to the blades, she shrugged. ‘We've been finishing off any wounded monsters on the grounds.'

‘Good.' Thea tore her eyes away from the remnants of the Great Hall, her gaze instead drifting to where she and Wren had left Anya's body. ‘We need to…' She trailed off, suddenly unable to form the words.

Wilder's hand found the small of her back, his sturdy presence offering a small measure of comfort. ‘Without being sure of the fortress' structural stability, we've got no choice but to assemble in the open. Gather any commanders and people of influence left standing in the courtyard.'

As exhausted and bereft as everyone was, they did as he bid, putting the call out to the far reaches of the battlefield.

In a daze, Thea surveyed the familiar faces that convened in the dust and blood, amid the bodies and the ruins. Wilder, Talemir, Drue and Audra were already there, but Thea breathed a sigh of relief as she spotted Cal and Kipp. The Guardians were covered in cuts and scrapes and dirt, but seemed otherwise unharmed. She spied Farissa sitting on an upturned barrel, her head in her stained hands.

Adrienne and Esyllt staggered forth from the ruined building, both coated in dust and Furies knew what else, the weapons master leaning on Adrienne for support. Thea couldn't see where he was wounded, but his face was contorted with pain.

‘We can't find Osiris,' Esyllt said. ‘The spineless coward must have run off after —'

‘We'll find him,' Audra cut him off. ‘He will answer for his crimes, one way or another.'

Panic rose in Thea's throat as she scanned the limping women warriors, the handful of shadow-touched soldiers, and the group of midrealms folk who were scattered around the courtyard, all bearing signs of injury.

‘Where's Wren?' she demanded. ‘Where's —'

‘She's right here,' Torj Elderbrock answered, striding into the courtyard with Wren a few steps behind him.

Thea stared at the Warsword for a moment, at the changes the battle had wrought upon him. Against the blood and dirt covering his powerful frame, his now-silver hair seemed more prominent, and the sea-deep blue of his eyes brimmed with an emotion Thea couldn't pinpoint.

No one addressed the change in his appearance. They simply stared at the lightning-kissed Warsword in their midst, until Wren pushed past him, holding a bandage to her neck.

‘What happened to you?' Thea asked, noting the blood staining the linen.

‘She got cocky with her lightning,' Torj replied with a shake of his head. ‘Missed the reaper that was —'

‘That's not what happened,' Wren said. ‘I —'

A shout cut through Wren's words, and everyone's eyes snapped to where Dratos had fallen to his knees in the wreckage. There, he lifted Anya's lifeless body to his chest with a broken cry.

Thea's heart fractured all over again, watching the shadow-touched ranger cling to her dead sister. She made to move towards him, to comfort him, but Adrienne and Drue were already halfway there.

The Naarvians crouched at their friend's side, but he shot to his feet, his wings flaring at his back. ‘I can't do this —' His voice cracked, and without another word, he launched himself skyward.

A heavy silence fell across the courtyard. Thea felt Anya's absence keenly, like a piece of herself had been ripped away, leaving a gaping hole in its wake. She should be there with them. Though hard-won, the victory was just as much Anya's as anyone else's. Thea hated the injustice of it all.

Anguish and loss hung thick in the air, wrapping around those left standing like a shroud. All Thea wanted to do was find somewhere quiet to curl up in a ball, away from the heaviness of everyone else's sorrow. But in the midst of the profound sadness, she felt a flicker of something else: lightning. Not her own, not Wren's, but Anya's, gifted to them, a power to strengthen their resolve. And that was exactly what they needed in that moment – resolve.

She took a deep breath and straightened, pushing her shoulders back as she surveyed the group. ‘There will come a time to mourn our dead,' she said, fighting to keep her voice steady. ‘But there is work to be done here.' Her eyes were tired and gritty, burning with unshed tears as they sought Kipp and Esyllt in the small crowd. ‘I take it there are practicalities that need to be carried out? Logistics of the aftermath of all this?'

Kipp nodded. ‘We need to assess the casualties, and categorise them: wounded, missing and dead…' He faltered at the last word.

Esyllt took over. ‘With the fortress' foundations in question, I suggest we set up a temporary infirmary in the training arena for those who need more extensive treatment. It's not ideal, given its openness and its distance from here, but we don't want anything collapsing on top of our wounded while we tend to them.'

A murmur of agreement followed.

‘We can burn our dead on the Plains of Orax, as is tradition,' the weapons master continued. ‘When those things are done, we can look to the future. But for now… For now we do what we can.'

Completely numb, Thea helped carry the wounded to the training arena on stretchers until she was unsteady on her own feet. It wasn't until a gentle hand guided her to a seat that she realised she'd stopped in her tracks and was staring into nothingness.

‘Let's take a look at that head wound.' Wilder's voice brought her back from the darkness, as it always did.

‘It's fine.'

‘I wasn't asking,' he said.

Thea closed her eyes as his fingers parted the hair at the back of her skull, the sensation distant, as though it were happening to someone else. She hardly registered the sting of matted hair being prised from the wound, nor the burn of the rubbing alcohol Wilder used to clean it.

‘It needs to be stitched,' he told her.

She didn't have the energy to reply. She simply sat there with her eyes closed against the throb of pain behind her lids as he worked. Thea barely felt the pinch and pull of the needle and thread.

‘Did someone check Wren?' she asked, remembering the bloodied bandage her sister had been clutching.

‘Farissa is with her now,' Wilder answered quietly.

‘Is anyone else hurt?' She realised how stupid the words sounded as they left her lips. Everyone was hurt, the pain far deeper than any delivered by the slash of a blade.

When Wilder was done with her sutures, she forced him down onto the seat she'd occupied and surveyed him critically. She had seen him go down beneath the onslaught of those wraiths in the courtyard when the portal had opened up like the maw of a great beast. Both of them had taken the brunt force of those monsters, and unsurprisingly, her Warsword looked worse for wear. He was covered in slashes and scrapes, which she tended to with the fresh linen and rubbing alcohol. Wilder didn't so much as flinch at her ministrations. He was clearly in shock as well, and it was enough to coax her from her own mind.

Thea knelt before him and waited until his silver eyes met hers. ‘We survived,' she told him. ‘You and me… We're here. We're still standing.'

Slowly, Wilder nodded. ‘We are.'

Thea cupped his face and brought her mouth to his in a soft, tender kiss. ‘I love you,' she whispered against his lips.

He took a deep breath, as though he were savouring the moment, savouring her; as though the fact that he was able to do so surprised him. ‘I love you, too.'

As much as Thea wished they could stay in that moment, the realities of the aftermath of war were far from over. Ignoring the protests in her muscles, she got to her feet and offered Wilder her hand. ‘They'll be lighting the pyres soon,' she said. ‘Will you come with me to say goodbye?'

His roughened palm slid against hers and he stood with her. ‘Always.'

The Plains of Orax had somehow emerged from the battle largely unscathed, the grassy stretch of land unblemished by the violence that had stained the fortress. It was a surreal sight. The only evidence of the conflict here were the pyres that littered the fields.

Thea had only seen the funeral rites once before, when they'd burned Lachin and five other Thezmarrians after the reaper battle amid the ruins of Delmira. She was worlds apart from the girl who had stood there that day, watching the flames climb higher, until they kissed the sky.

Now, the pyres were countless, and larger, holding more dead than Thea dared to imagine. It had been one thing to witness the fall of so many in the chaos of battle, but to see their lifeless bodies lining the timber structures, to watch Audra's warriors pack bundles of wood around each base, ready to be lit… Thea struggled to swallow the lump in her throat as she spotted Wren by a pyre closer to the cliff's edge: Anya's.

Wilder squeezed her hand, but even he couldn't quell the wave of grief and regret that rushed through her as they approached Wren. They had lost Samra and Ida. And they had lost Anya twice: once as small children, when she'd been ripped away from them, and now, after they'd just found each other once again. Thea felt the injustice bitterly, along with a tangle of other emotions. Anya had been her sister, but they hadn't known each other long. The grief she felt at her loss was also the loss of what they could have had, had fate been kinder, had they been able to cherish that bond of sisterhood into later life. The pain was so raw, and so deep that Thea felt it in the marrow of her bones. All the while, a little voice in her head told her: it should have been you.

Trying to gather herself, Thea released Wilder's hand and went to the edge of the plains, looking out onto the Chained Islands off the coast of Thezmarr. It was where she, Cal and Kipp had completed their initiation tests as shieldbearers, where she'd taken the first official step to becoming a Warsword of the midrealms. The small archipelago remained unchanged, its islands linked by thick chains, towering high above the crashing waves below. Something else had changed, though… Beyond the jagged rock faces, where a wall of mist had once stood, was a vast expanse of sea and light.

‘Thea?' Wren called.

She started, having lost herself to whatever lay beyond the horizon. Turning back, she saw that not only Wren and Wilder were waiting for her, but Cal, Kipp, Talemir, Drue, Torj, Adrienne, Audra, Esyllt and Farissa as well.

‘Dratos?' she asked, only for Talemir to shake his head.

‘I think Dratos will say his own farewell elsewhere,' the Shadow Prince told her sadly.

Thea hurt for Anya, that one of her oldest, closest friends wasn't here for her funeral. But she understood, as best she could, that people had to grieve in their own way, and that Dratos' grief had taken him far away from this place. She only hoped he'd gone somewhere with happier memories of Anya.

Thea peered over the arrangement of sticks to look upon her sister one last time. In death, the hard lines of her face had softened; even the brutal scar down her eye seemed less vicious. Thea hoped it meant she had found some semblance of peace in whatever came after this life. Her scythe rested across her chest, along with her fate stone…

Thea couldn't stop herself from reaching for it, turning the jade over against the worn fabric of Anya's clothes, only to find the stone completely smooth.

The number that had been engraved there was gone.

‘I didn't think you'd want to keep it,' Wren said quietly at her side.

‘You were right.' Thea placed the piece of jade back with Anya and stepped away.

All around the Plains of Orax, torches were being touched to the kindling beneath the pyres, flames blooming to life and licking up the timber frames.

‘Does anyone wish to say something?' Adrienne asked as one of Audra's warriors came forth with a torch for them.

Thea's words got stuck in her throat, and tears stung her eyes as Wren fidgeted at her side. Even at a glance, her younger sister seemed different: harder somehow, older.

Wren lifted her chin, revealing a jagged cut down the column of her throat, and addressed their friends.

‘It feels strange to be the one to speak of Anya, when many of you knew her for so much longer,' she began. ‘But she was our sister. It was a rocky start at first… but by the end, she was a part of us. We gather here now to remember her. Anya was complicated, but steadfastly loyal to her cause and her companions… She was a mosaic of contradictions, a blend of darkness and light, and as such, she mirrored the very heart of humanity.'

Wren sniffed. Still not able to find the words herself, Thea put a comforting arm around her as she continued.

‘Anya faced every challenge in her life with an unmatched ferocity, and yet, behind her steel exterior, there was a heart that beat with loyalty and love for those she held dear. When the dust has settled and we break bread together again, I hope we can celebrate her bravery on the battlefield, her resilience outside of it, and her unbreakable spirit.'

Wren's words sank into Thea, and at long last, she let the tears spill down her face, a soft cry escaping her lips.

It should have been me. It should have been me.

With a nod to Wren, Talemir took the offered torch and stepped towards the pyre. ‘I wish it were Dratos doing this honour. He knew Anya the longest…' Talemir hesitated, but with a nod of encouragement from Drue, he cleared his throat. ‘Rest in peace, dear friend. You will be remembered and cherished as long as tales of valour are told.'

Tears flowed freely down Thea's face as Talemir touched the torch to the tinder beneath the pyre, and the fire roared to life. Flames engulfed the timber structure, swallowing Anya with it. Thea watched the blaze intensify, plumes of smoke drifting up into the sky to gather with the rest.

She was still holding Wren when her sister's head came to rest on her shoulder, her tears wetting Thea's shirt, her body shuddering with silent cries.

‘She gave us her power,' Wren murmured, staring into the flames. ‘What in the realms do we do with it?'

‘Use it well, I guess…' Thea closed her eyes against the heat of the fire, allowing it to warm her face. ‘But not now.'

‘What now, then?' Wren asked.

Thea opened her eyes, watching the flames climb higher, watching the smoke drift towards that bright horizon. ‘Now, we say farewell.'