Page 66 of Silver & Smoke
‘Not exactly what I’d call a honeymoon,’ Torj said as they started down the trail.
Thea laughed. ‘It’sexactlywhat I’d call a honeymoon. Adventure. Sleeping beneath the stars. Killing a tyrant or two...’
‘That’s my wife,’ Wilder murmured with a smile.
Torj rolled his eyes. ‘So in marriage you’ll be even more insufferable?’
‘We’re a fucking delight, Bear Slayer,’ Wilder retorted. ‘But no, I came bearing shortcuts. There’s a narrow mountain tunnel to the north that leads to Delmira. You don’t have to take the Wesford Road.’
Torj’s brows shot up. ‘Since when?’
‘Since always,’ Wilder replied. ‘I just never told anyone but Thea about it. We used it when she was still my apprentice. Silas won’t know of it, and he’ll be expecting us to travel across the main route.’
Torj turned to their company behind him. Seven hundred shieldbearers and Lucian’s three hundred bannermen... ‘Can it take us?’
‘We’ll have to go in single file for some parts, but yes,’ Theaanswered. ‘It shouldn’t be a problem unless Wren loses control of her magic between the mountains.’
‘You know that from experience?’ Torj asked.
Thea shrugged. ‘A certain Warsword was being particularly frustrating during my last journey through there, but no mountains were brought down. Luckily.’
Torj glanced over his shoulder, back to where Wren sat astride her mare. Dessa rode beside her and the two women were talking animatedly. He liked seeing her like that. There had been a time where he’d worried for her – so intent on isolating herself from the rest of the world, her heartbreak over Ida and Sam preventing her from developing new friendships... She had Dessa and Zavier now, as well as Thea, Wilder, Cal and Kipp. No matter what happened to him, she’d always have them.
‘It’s going to be alright, Bear Slayer,’ Thea said quietly beside him.
‘I didn’t say it wouldn’t be,’ he grunted.
‘You didn’t have to. Your face is like an open book,’ she replied.
‘I don’t believe that for a second,’ he argued. ‘I’m a seasoned Warsword, I can mask my—’
A snort sounded on his other side as Darian appeared on his thoroughbred stallion, likely worth Torj’s weight in gold. ‘You mask nothing, brother,’ the nobleman said with an infuriating grin. ‘You wear your big heart on your sleeve. You always have.’
‘Have not,’ Torj muttered.
‘I think the posh git is right,’ Thea declared.
Darian shot her a look of annoyance. ‘Glad to hear that’s catching on.’
‘Not as glad as I am,’ Torj quipped. ‘Now, can we pick up the pace? I want to reach Delmira before the next century.’
Thea laughed. ‘After you, Bear Slayer. We’ll tell you when to turn off the trail.’
And so Torj led them north, to war.
CHAPTER 36
Wren
‘Delmira was once the most fertile kingdom in all the midrealms. No one knew why, and yet when it fell to the darkness, some rejoiced’
– The Midrealms Chronicles
WREN’S MAGIC CRACKLEDin her veins as the unit moved into single file through the narrow mountain pass. She blamed Thea, who had warned her so incessantly about not using magic that now it was all she could think about. Things were already so on edge, so unstable within her, that it felt like walking a tightrope... One false move, and instead of tumbling from the wire, she’d bring an entire mountain down around them.
No pressure,she thought darkly.
Voices echoed up the cavernous walls, and it smelled of damp. Wren rested her hand on the grip of the dagger Torj had given her. She didn’t have him by her side to ground her, to tether her to the present, but something that had belonged to him was the next best thing.
