Page 4 of Thorns & Fire
The traitor spoke his final words with a bitter smile.‘Every reign has its end.’
CHAPTER 2
Wren
‘Repetition and failure are the backbones of alchemy’
– Alchemy Unbound
‘FORFURIES’SAKE,’ Wren cursed, watching as yet another experiment failed in the shallow dish before her.
Her sister Thea glanced up from where she was poring over several maps on Wren’s bed, twirling her dagger between her fingers.‘What is it?’
The war hero hadn’t objected to being appointed Wren’s temporary guard after the Bear Slayer had been sent away.She hadn’t even complained about being separated from Wilder, nor had she pushed Wren to divulge what had happened between her and the Bear Slayer after the battle.But seeing her sister wherehehad sat cleaning his hammer struck a raw nerve in Wren every time.
‘We were fooling ourselves, thinking this could work.’
‘You made me someone I’m not.I’m a fucking Warsword, Embervale.I’llalwaysbe a Warsword.’
‘I’mexactlythe man you thought I was.’
His absence made her feel how she’d felt in those early months after the war had ended – when she was bone-weary, when all hopeseemed to have been sucked out of the world around her, even though it was finally free of darkness.Worse, now a new darkness had taken hold of the world, taken hold ofher,and she couldn’t seem to defeat it.
‘I don’t understand,’ she told her sister, staring into the alchemy samples that had been the bane of her existence for a fortnight.‘The solution I gave Zavierworked.It saved his life!Yet two weeks later, I still can’t replicate it...What am I missing?’
‘Have you considered that what you’re missing might besleep?’Thea grumbled.
‘No one else at Drevenor is sleeping, Thea,’ Wren replied sharply.‘Everyone here is doing what they can to understand the threat, to prepare us for what’s to come.Every adept and sage in this academy is working as we speak, perfecting advanced forms of alchemy that will aid us in any conflict.’
As an adept, Wren would not be competing in another Gauntlet, but rather contributing to the field of alchemy itself.An opus.Each adept was to work on one – a major project within their particular area of interest, which they would present to the masters at the end of the semester in order to graduate to the rank of sage.
With Farissa’s guidance, Wren had chosen to recreate the counter-alchemy she had invented as a novice – the potion that had saved Zavier Terling, the long-lost Prince of Naarva, who was currently being crowned on the far side of the kingdom.
‘Wren,’ Thea said evenly, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and pinning her with a pointed look.‘All I’m saying is that you can’t work yourself to death.You’re the one who solved this puzzle last time.You will be the one to solve it again.’
Wren braced herself against her workbench with a huff of frustration.‘I’m not sure that I can...’It was the first time she’d admitted it out loud, but over the past fortnight, she’d questioned if the first time had been a fluke.Her doubts only continued to fester, particularly as more was revealed about the substances the so-called People’s Vanguard had weaponized.
In the aftermath, the academy masters had studied each and every trace of enemy alchemy left behind on weapons and bodies.It was the largest sample they’d had to work with, which meant Wren and Farissa had been able to analyse its properties in a way they hadn’t before.
What they’d found had terrified them.
Darkness.Shadow.Remnants of the previous war, laced with poison and chemicals, their deadliest elements combined.A fusion that explained the enemy’s ability to mute the magic of royals and Warswords alike.
Power like this had swept across the midrealms before, and they had barely survived.Were men so hungry for dominion that they would burn the world to ash around them to achieve it?Was history doomed to repeat itself?
A bitter taste filled Wren’s mouth.She knew the answer to that.And she was partly to blame.It had been her work from the previous war that had led the enemy’s discoveries...The manacles flashed in her mind.They were her invention, something she’d prided herself on – a unique form of alchemy designed to target specific properties in the blood, specific people.Now, magic wielders like her were those targets.
Wren wasn’t sure if she was imagining it, but the triggering scent of burnt hair tickled her nostrils.The smell brought bile to the back of her throat, and she gripped the edge of her workbench as a cold sweat broke out across her skin.
Breathe, she told herself.You’re at Drevenor.In your room.Her gaze swept the bench for something to ground her.Mortar and pestle.Crucible.Harvesting knife.She listed the objects she saw, and slowly, air began to fill her lungs once more.
Taking a sip of water to soothe her dry throat, Wren peered out the window.The ivy-clad iron gates and the academy motto –Knowledge is the victor over fate.The mind is a blade– seemed to mock her.She dropped her head into her hands.‘I’m failing.’
‘Wren,’ Thea scoffed.‘What a load of horseshit.You did it before.You’ll do it again.But for the love of Thezmarr, eat something.Rest.And for all our sakes, take a fucking bath.’
‘I’m not that bad.’That was a lie.She passed a hand over her face, knowing exactly what she looked like.Dark smudges loomed beneath her eyes; her bronze hair was even more unkempt than usual in its messy knot.Black ink stained her fingers and was splattered across her apron and gown.
Thea snorted.‘It’s like you’ve never heard of soap.Or a hairbrush.And that’s saying something, coming from me.’
