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‘He left, Torj,’ Wilder snapped. ‘That’s all you need to know. He fucking left when he shouldn’t have. When he’d made vows not to. And for what? Some —’
‘He’s hardly the first Warsword to leave Thezmarr,’ Torj cut in. ‘In case you haven’t noticed, there’s only the bloody three of us left.’
‘And look at the state of the realms. All sorts of monsters are slipping through the Veil. Darkness gathering on the horizon… We need Warswords more than ever before.’
Torj topped up their glasses. ‘All the more reason to take on an apprentice. And perhaps not beat the current Warswords to a pulp.’
A beat of silence followed. ‘He fucking asked for it.’
Torj clinked his glass to Wilder’s. ‘Of that I have no doubt, brother.’
The fire crackled and the two men stretched their legs out before it, talking of other things for a time. The bottle was soon empty, the warmth and the liquor making Wilder’s eyes heavy.
But when Wilder eventually drifted off to sleep still in his armchair, it wasn’t monsters and Warswords he dreamed of.
It was Althea Zoltaire, with vows of vengeance on her lips.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
As the days passed and Thea started down the road to recovery, she found herself in Wren’s healing lesson. It was one of the few areas that the guild continued classes in well after the students came of age and specialised in their own fields.
Wren explained that this was because there were always new techniques, new treatments being discovered all the time and that Thezmarr, particularly its alchemists, needed to be at the forefront of these advancements for the sake of its warriors.
So when Farissa ran them through the ingredients for various tinctures and remedies, Thea took out a quill and parchments and made notes. She ignored the ripple of shock across the room and wrote in a hurried scrawl, only pausing to ask Wren about particular spellings.
When Farissa finished demonstrating how to strip Elvan Bark in a way that preserved its healing properties, Thea raised her hand.
Farissa did a double take. ‘What is it, Althea?’
‘I have a request,’ Thea said boldly.
‘Oh?’
‘I wondered if you might teach us about battlefield healing. You know… the sort of things one might need to know shouldthey need to treat a wound under pressure or with limited supplies. The sort of things that might save a life in the heart of a skirmish.’
The whole room went tense and Ida flashed Thea a worried look from the next table over. While Farissa had said that there was always a place in their ranks for Thea, it was another thing to disrupt her lesson and make requests with her own agenda. There was no official war in the midrealms and no conflict that would see the alchemists of Thezmarr caught in the middle of a fray, and yet…
Farissa smiled slowly. ‘I thought you’d never ask, Althea.’ She pressed her fingers together and started to pace, her brow furrowed as she considered her next words carefully. After a few moments, she looked up, her eyes bright and eager.
‘Battlefield healing is an art like no other…’ she began.
For the first time in her twenty-four years, Thea listened to her sister. As much as it destroyed her not to train and spar with the other shieldbearers, she knew her body was not ready. Her abdomen was still tender, her stab wound threatened to tear open with any sudden movements and she was still experiencing fatigue and shortness of breath. Though she desperately wanted to get back to her drills and was increasingly anxious about losing the strength and endurance she’d worked so hard to gain, she knew that to push too soon would see her straight to the infirmary. Instead, she resumed her old alchemy shifts with a renewed enthusiasm, all the while the Hand of Death’s words echoed in her mind.
‘If you’re going to be a warrior of Thezmarr… You need to learn more than fighting, Alchemist… Every discipline this fortress offers has a vital part to play. You should respect themall. You should master them all. There is more to this guild than blades and fists.’
She took these words to heart, and shared them with anyone who would listen, mainly Kipp and Cal when she sat with them during the midday meal. Kipp was back on his feet sooner than expected. He was restricted to light duties for the meantime and that meant he was all too eager to hear what she’d learned throughout her days, insisting that every aspect of the battlefield, even the clean-up and tending to the wounded could be used in strategy planning.
Thea returned to the shieldbearer dormitories, Dax was there waiting at the foot of her bed on her first night back and ever since. She split her evenings between the library with Malik and the evening meal with her friends and her sister.
As her strength slowly returned, Thea went down to the training arena to watch the combat drills and classes. There, she sat on the outskirts with her crumpled piece of parchment, taking notes on different techniques. She watched the Warswords with an unrelenting intensity, drinking in everything they did, even the sadist Vernich.
Nothing more powerful than knowledge and the ability to wield it…
It wasn’t long until Seb spotted her. He strode towards her, swinging his practice sword arrogantly.
‘Scribbling away like some school boy won’t make you a warrior.’
‘Nor will sticking your big nose in other people’s business,’ Thea snapped as she finished her note on the best stance for shield walls.
