Page 129 of Shadow & Storms

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.

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