Page 134 of Silver & Smoke
This is it, Torj realized. With a trembling hand, he reached forthe two vials around his neck. He had already taken Dessa’s iruseed capsules, but now, in this moment, it was time for his final strike.
The Bear Slayer removed the corks from the vials with his teeth and tipped the contents one after the other down his throat. The bitter taste burned twice as much, but the effect was immediate. All of his Furies-given strength rushed back to him in a colossal wave, and he raised his hammer, a war cry breaking from his lips as he charged across the wreckage. He knew he shouldn’t relish the violence, that it was an ugly balm to the wounds within, but his hammer sang as it carved through air and man alike, a melody like no other, accented by the screams that sounded in its wake.
Torj, no!
Wren’s panic was sharp down the bond, but he was resolute. He knew his purpose. It was the same as it had always been. Protect her. Love her. Help her rise to her own potential.
And so, when he reached Silas and swung his hammer, he knew it wouldn’t find its mark. But it would buy her time. Time to take the power her kingdom offered her. Time to gather the strength she needed to bring the usurper bastard to his knees.
Enemy soldiers surrounded Torj before he could hit his mark, and he struck them down, over and over, while Silas watched. Blood sprayed by his hand, flesh and bone caving beneath his iron. For her, he would kill them all. For her he would raze the whole fucking force to the ground.
Dripping with gore, Torj looked up from the sea of bodies at his feet to see Silas holding a vial of shadow alchemy.
Silas looked from the onyx ribbons drifting within the confines of the bottle back to Torj. He flicked his hand in a signal.
A volley of enemy arrows blocked out the sun, and Torj couldn’t stop them.
In the distance, someone screamed as each arrow punctured the flesh of his torso. One. Two. Three. Four.
Dazed, he looked down to see them protruding from his body, hot blood gushing from each wound.
Torj closed his eyes, and knew then what he had been saving himself for. He thought of nothing but Wren as he sent his power down the bond. As his strength left him, his knees weakened, and he fell to them in the mud, using his remaining energy for one last thing.
Silas’s voice was laced with mock apprehension. ‘Do you truly think you’re enough to stop me?’
‘No,’ Torj answered, holding the grip of his hammer upright, as he smiled with bloody teeth. ‘But I’m just the calm before the storm.’
A cry of fury sounded behind him, and a bolt of fiery lightning shot past him, kissing his shoulder as it hurtled towards Silas.
CHAPTER 71
Wren
‘It is often written that sovereign magic is the most ancient in the history of the midrealms. It is not’
– The Midrealms Chronicles
WREN GASPED ASthe lightning left her fingertips, not just with the force of her own power, but with the force ofTorj’s. She had never felt anything like it as it surged through her entire being. Her Warsword had poured his Furies-given strength into their bond, intoher.
For all these years, he had protected her, had kept her safe, and now he was showing her...
She was a reckoning all of her own.
She was the storm.
Alongside Torj’s power, Wren drew magic from the very heart of herself, old sovereign magic that had run through the veins of her ancestors, magic that the kingdom of Delmira itself recognized in her. It was both within her and in the sky beyond, and she called it to her now in the ultimate warrior cry. Her lightning tore the sky apart in a blaze of blinding white. The dusk-kissed sky turned dark, heavy with thick clouds rolling in overhead, which broke apart at her command.
Delmira.Herkingdom. The land that had bloomed with silvertide – roses that could have purified the shadow alchemy wreaking havoc across the midrealms. Roses that Silas had burned to ash just days ago, destroying the one cure that could have saved thousands, that could have savedTorj.
Storm magic heightened with Warsword strength blasted through the air, and Wren struck Silas with bolt after bolt, fast enough that he didn’t have time to absorb it in the way he had before. Pressure built behind her eyes and in her lungs. Her whole body thrummed with power. Wren was stronger in her own kingdom, stronger than ever. The storm was in her blood, in her bones. She could feel Delmira calling her home, welcoming her with a tempest to rival all others.
The tether between her and Torj grew taut, and she distantly heard the gasps around them as the soul bond glimmered into being for all to see. A solid gold thread linking them, binding him to her.
Hold on, she called to him, the image of those arrows sticking out of his chest flashing in her mind. The pain of them lanced through her own upper body, but their entwined magic kept her upright as she fought her way towards Silas. His shadow alchemy gathered around him like a swarm, searching for power and strength to strip from hosts and feed back to him.
That was his endgame – not just to rule Delmira, but to consume the magic of every wielder in the midrealms. To become a living god, feeding off the power of others like a parasite. It was why Queen Reyna and Regent Liora had allied with Wren despite any lingering misgivings between their kingdoms; perhaps it was why the Furies had soul-bonded her to Torj. If Silas won today, no realm would be safe.
There was a cry as one of Audra’s Warswords faltered beneath his power, but Wren, barely aware of the ground under her feet or the shouts in the distance swallowed by thunder, wrenched the rain from the sky.
