AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Hawthorne was toying with the necklace of flowers resting against his chest. ‘I thought you were a brat then.’
‘No more than you.’
The Warsword shot her a look of disbelief and Thea laughed. Dax huffed at her side as though he were infinitely bored with them.
‘What changed your mind?’ Thea asked.
‘Who said I changed my mind?’ His gaze lingered on her hands as they threaded more flowers together, no – on her scars.
Flushing, she instinctively tucked them in her pockets.
‘No need to hide scars from me, Alchemist. I’m well acquainted with them,’ he told her.
Thea peered at him in the firelight. Sure enough, several scars cut through the grain of his dark stubble, another through his left eyebrow. His hands were littered with them as well.
Thea shifted. ‘Mine are not scars from heroic deeds…’ she ventured. ‘Merely my own stupidity for the most part.’
The Warsword pointed to the scar on his eyebrow. ‘This? I assure you, this wasn’t from slaying a mountain drake,’ he said. ‘I got it walking, or rather, falling, out of Marise’s cellar after too many bottles of a “special” vintage. Sliced it open on the gutter.’
Thea beamed at the thought. ‘You? Drunk?’
‘Annihilated more like.’
‘I can’t imagine it,’ she said, shaking her head, her eyes still on the faint white line that cut through his brow. ‘In fact, I’d pay to see it.’
‘It was a long time ago,’ he murmured, as though he were drifting back to the moment it happened.
‘You don’t have fun anymore?’
He met her eyes across the fire. ‘There are many types of “fun”, Alchemist…’
There was something about the way he said it, with the audacity to wear an arrogant half-grin that made Thea’s toes curl in her boots.
‘And how do the alchemists of Thezmarr have fun then?’ he asked, his scarred brow lifting.
Thea plucked a frond of grass and began to wrap it around her finger. ‘I don’t know really… Many read and talk, some go for walks around the fortress and when they can, tend to the horses. My sister likes to invent things.’
‘You have a sister at Thezmarr?’
‘Yes. She’s the most talented of our cohort. She’ll be the master alchemist when Farissa retires.’
‘She’s that good?’
‘The best,’ Thea said proudly.
Hawthorne’s gaze turned contemplative. ‘It’s good you have each other.’
‘I know.’ Thea hesitated. ‘Were you and your brother together at Thezmarr for long?’
Hawthorne’s expression changed, his fingers touching the flower necklace. ‘Yes and no,’ he said at last. ‘My brother…’
Thea waited, she could tell how hard it was for him to speak of it.
The warrior sighed heavily. ‘Malik is my brother, Alchemist.’
Thea froze, shock rippling through her. ‘Malik?MyMalik?’
Hawthorne’s gaze glistened in the firelight, a sad smile on his lips. ‘Yes, that Malik. I’m sure he’d find your claim to him endlessly amusing.’
