Page 106 of Thorns & Fire
Peering into a shallow glass dish, she used a dropper to deposit three beads of blood into the sample.Nothing.Her supplies from Delmira were already dwindling, and those she tried to propagate didn’t have the same effect in her alchemy.She had studied the samples of Delmirian soil.All the masters had.None of them could discern what made it more fertile than any other.
Wren buried herself in work, because every waking moment that she didn’t she worried for Delmira and for her sister.She wasn’t sure when to expect Thea’s arrival, but with every day that passed, she grew more anxious, more guilt-ridden.
And then there was Torj...The Bear Slayer hardly left her side, despite what had happened between them.Wren was too tired to be angry; she was simply heartbroken, for the both of them.She tried to understand the secrets, the choices made for her, but all she was left with was a hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach.
Wren didn’t want to feel that way for ever.Glancing up, she took in the sight of the towering Warsword, who was pacing her quarters for the millionth time, his movements methodical and efficient, that tic in his jaw the only tell that he wasn’t alright.
‘Have a drink with me,’ she heard herself say suddenly.
Torj whirled around.‘What?’
‘Was I speaking the ancient tongue of the Furies without realizing?’she replied.‘I said, have a drink with me, Bear Slayer.Must I always promise not to poison it first?’
They were in a strange place, caught somewhere between her sorrow and his regret, that wall of secrets now rubble between them.And yet she couldn’t help wanting to be near him.She couldn’t help craving his touch or relishing the sound of his husky voice.She missedhim – missedthem.
As usual, the Mortar and Pestle was bustling with scholars and students alike, with Kipp holding court at the bar.Wren and Torj had taken a corner booth away from the noise, and Wren was currently staring into a tankard.
‘I’ve summoned Thea right into a waiting ambush,’ she told the Bear Slayer.Just because they weren’t together, didn’t mean she couldn’t talk to him.He had always been there for her, had always been a friend.
‘What do you mean?’he asked gently.
‘She’s a Warsword.’Wren took a deep drink.‘I don’t need to tellyouhow much that means to her.The world is asking her to be a queen instead, to give up her totem and swords.’
‘You think it’s only a symbol and some steel that makes a warrior a Warsword?’Torj asked, motioning to the armband of three crossed swords around his bicep.
But Wren put her head in her hands, despair gnawing at her from within.‘Thea was happy.She gave everything in the war, and she was meant to live the days after it in peace – or hunting monsters abroad, which is her version of that.Now I’ve got her tangled in this mess.’
‘This isn’t your fault,’ Torj told her.‘You didn’t start a rebellion.You didn’t attack a king or queen—’
‘I may as well have,’ Wren argued.‘They used my work as a foundation for their own evils.The alchemy I used on those manacles all those years ago...It had the ability to target certain properties, like the Furies-given strength that Warswords have.Silas took that and has been altering it – to weaken Warswords, to mute the magic of royals.It’s my design, the alchemy that targets.My fault.’She sighed.‘Perhaps there was a certain comfort back then.When you faced a monster, you knew that danger and death awaited in fangs and talons, in the shadows lashing at you.But now...With the men of the midrealms, there’s no telling what threats lurk beneath their jewels and fine clothes.No knowing what perils are threaded between their elegant speeches and formalities.Do you ever thinkthat things seemed simpler in the shadow war?Monsters were bad, we were good...But now everything is in shades of grey.’
‘Youare good, Wren,’ Torj said.
She gave a dark laugh, starting as he gripped her hands in his.They hadn’t touched since that night when they’d laid it all out on the table.
‘Oh?’was all she managed.
‘You are good and decent, kind and loyal, clever and determined.There is no one else I would want by my side, whether it’s wartime or not.’
His words made her ache.She drew her hands back out of his grasp and took anotherlongdrink.
‘And yet I’m failing the task I was given,’ she replied flatly.
‘You haven’t failed,’ he told her.
‘No?What’s it called when you don’t get a result?’she countered.‘I’ve tried so many versions of this.’
‘It’s called progress,’ Torj said, his voice low and earnest.He moved closer, his eyes locked on hers.‘Every attempt, every failure, is a step forwards.You’re mapping uncharted territory, Embers.No one has done this before.’
‘And what if no one can?’She voiced the fears aloud, as she had done with him before.No matter what was happening between them, she seemed to always find herself opening up to him like she did with no one else.It was easy, confiding in him.It always had been.
He reached out, hesitating for a moment before taking her hand in his once more.‘If there’s one thing I know about you, it’s that you don’t give up.’
There seemed to be a layered meaning to those words, an unsaid truth that pulsed between them.
‘Perhaps it’s time I did,’ she said quietly.
But Torj shook his head.‘That’s not who you are.’
