‘Of course, but why?’I was pleased he was coming with us, but Torgrin and Atlas were his family.They were preparing him to be a captain one day.
He smiled sadly.‘I’ve too many memories of Murus.I’m not ready to return yet.’
I thought about Cillian’s forge and blacksmith shop and our happy times together there.Going back and seeing it empty, cold and his tools covered in dust – I understood Tomas’s reluctance to go back.
‘I’ve never travelled much.Murus is the only home I’ve ever known.I’d like to see the mountains and the snow,’ he said, looking over the ridge covered in woodland that would change little in winter.
‘Yes, I would love to see the mountains too,’ I said, thinking of Torgrin’s drawings I’d saved.
‘Well, you will both regret saying that after spending weeks climbing those bloody things in the snow.Before you know it,you will be begging to come back here to the warm south.’Mae shuddered in her borrowed cloak as if she were already in the snow.
Tomas and I smiled at each other.We took a few minutes to watch the sun break the horizon.
It was time to leave, and I had not seen Torgrin or Atlas.I looked around the camp one last time before mounting Nightmare.Only a few tents remained, and no-one came out to stop me from leaving.I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or sad.General Toro and Braya were in front, followed by the curator and Mae.Tomas and I rode with the soldiers.
The road ahead of me seemed narrower than it first appeared.Nightmare sidestepped slightly as my body tightened in response to a feeling of unease.
Was I doing the right thing?
It was my sense of honour that had guided me to make an oath to Lord Warwick – an oath to protect his children that I was breaking for the second time in a matter of days.I had left Bethel to her fate in Capita, and now I was leaving Ania and Wolfe in the middle of Danu Forest.
Who was I without honour?I didn’t have the sense of purpose that I once did.I had sustained myself on thoughts of revenge since I was eleven winters old.There was one question that was loudest in my head:Would I ever see Torgrin and Atlas again?
I slowed Nightmare, letting the riders surrounding us pull ahead.With every step Nightmare took down this road, Torgrin and Atlas slipped further away.It was like they had wrapped threads around my heart, and they were now pulled so taut that they cut me painfully.
The first time I saw them, I had followed them along the river’s edge, watching them play and laugh with each other.When they’d left the river and disappeared into the woods, I experienced thesame uncomfortable sensation I did now.Three souls bound across eternity and fated to find each other in every life.
There was a loud crack and the sound of a falling tree.I looked up at the clear blue sky.Was that lightning?
Nightmare reared up, and I struggled to stay seated in the saddle.Just as I got her to calm down, there was a clap of thunder and another lightning strike.
The general swore loudly.
I turned in my saddle to look back the way we had come.A gust of wind whipped the trees into a frenzy, and thunderous grey clouds gathered behind us.My ears twitched as I heard creaking trees swaying in the ferocious wind and then a deep howl of pain – or was it anger?
Torgrin was yelling my name.
I sucked in a panicked breath and raced back to the camp.Ignoring the general’s swearing and the sound of hooves chasing me, I urged Nightmare through the swirling leaves and broken branches flying through the air.
There was mayhem in the camp.
A tree was on fire, and the small group we had left behind was cowering in fear.
As I got closer, I could feel the air crackling around me.My skin prickled as the little hairs on my exposed skin rose and trembled.
With a hand on her heated neck, I attempted to calm Nightmare, who was pawing the ground with her hooves.
In the middle of the chaos was Torgrin.He stood alarmingly still, wearing his leather trousers low on his hips and a scorched, shredded shirt.A peculiar, ethereal glow flickered beneath his skin.
I cried out when a bolt of lightning burst from the sky and struck him in his chest.I watched, stunned, as it exited his body into thedirt beneath his feet, leaving him unharmed.His outstretched hands sparked, and when he looked at me, his ordinarily dark eyes were a luminous white.The scars etched across his face and shoulder resembled jagged crevices, radiating with a light that illuminated the camp.He pulsated with an otherworldly glow, raw lightning coursing through his veins.
‘Storm Weaver,’ Mae said in awe, coming up beside me.
Atlas emerged behind Torgrin’s glowing figure, and I held my breath, afraid a lightning bolt would strike him.
Then Atlas raised a large tree branch and hit Torgrin so hard he crumpled to the ground.I moved to go to him, but General Toro grabbed Nightmare’s reins.
‘Don’t!You will only make it worse,’ he growled.
