Page 15 of Thorns & Fire
A resigned sigh escaped her.‘No.’
‘Fuck,’ Wilder muttered.
‘It’s not Thea,’ Torj told him.‘They’d be shouting that from the rooftops.’
‘If they’ve got Thea, they’ve got Wren,’ Wilder said bluntly, searching Torj’s face.
Torj had already made the connection and he was using every ounce of willpower to hide it from his friend as images of the poisoner flooded his mind.
‘You look like you’re going to kiss me.’
‘Tell me you don’t want me, Bear Slayer.’
Torj turned to face the hearth.‘It’s not her, Hawthorne.They’re safe.’
The queen was shivering.‘They call him by another name as well...’she said quietly.‘Lord Silas, I mean.’
Torj took a blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders.‘And what is this other name, Your Majesty?’
Her teeth were chattering now.‘Silas the Kingsbane...For all the royal blood he intends to spill.’
A wave of goosebumps rushed across Torj’s arms.
‘I’m sending a raven to Audra,’ Wilder declared abruptly before leaving the room, the door slamming behind him.
When Wilder was gone, Torj faced the queen once more.‘It’s going to be alright, Your Majesty.’
‘Is it?’she whispered.
‘You’re safe with us.But I do need to ask you something else,’ he ventured.
Queen Reyna dipped her head, giving him permission.
‘That was a premonition you said earlier?’he said, fighting to keep his voice even.‘Before you fainted?’
She looked up at him, brow furrowed, as though she were surprised, as though it were something he should already know.‘It was...’
A moment of stunned silence followed before Torj spoke again.‘And that’s not the first time you’ve said it...?’
Queen Reyna rubbed her temples.‘No, it’s not.I had a vision, during the final days of the war, before the penultimate battle.It was why I requested that you lead my forces.I saw your potential.’
Torj distantly remembered the request coming to him, but the battle had been so chaotic, so brutal, that he hadn’t led the Aveum forces for very long.All the Warswords had united in the fray, using their joint Furies-given powers to drive the enemy back, and Wren...Wren had saved them time and time again with her exploding potions, a warrior in her own right.
‘What exactly did you see?’Torj pressed, his shoulders bunching.
Queen Reyna’s eyes widened in surprise.‘I thought you’d know...I told the Embervale sisters.’
He wasn’t sure he was breathing.‘Told them what?’
The queen met his eyes, lifting her chin.‘What I saw in my vision...That gold would turn to silver in a blaze of iron and embers.That it would give rise to ancient power long forgotten.’
A chill raked down Torj’s spine as he came back to himself, the queen’s words washing over him, a piece of the past falling into place with brutal clarity.He gripped his hair by the roots, formalities forgotten.‘You saw this?You knew this was going to happen?’
Queen Reyna’s attention was not on his silver locks, but on the centre of his chest, as though she knew the very scars that marred the skin over his heart.‘Yes.’
Torj dropped his trembling hands to his sides, biting his tongue so he didn’t spill all manner of frustrations to the queen.It wasn’t her fault that Wren, Thea and Anya hadn’t thought to share this information with him.It wasn’t her fault that in the days, weeks and months after the battle in Thezmarr’s courtyard, Wren hadn’t sought him out to tell him what she’d learned from the winter queen.
For the past six months they’d spent together, she’d withheld that piece of information.That the moment between them before the vortex of darkness had been foretold...Torj felt as though the ground had disappeared beneath him, as though he were free-falling into a dark abyss.
