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Thea lowered her bow, her whole body trembling. ‘He’s one of them…’ she heard herself croak. ‘He helped them escape. I saw it.’
Torj screwed his eyes shut before opening them again, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘As did I…’
‘What in the realms is going on?’ Osiris’ voice cut through the shocked silence. When he reached them, his gaze fell upon the empty cage and the discarded ropes on the forest floor. ‘Who did this?’ he demanded, his neck flushing.
‘Wilder Hawthorne,’ Thea told him, her heart shattering anew as she said his name. She never wanted to utter it again. More than anything, she wanted to crumble. She wanted to slip away and wake up from this nightmare. Perhaps she’d find she was still on the battlefield, at the mercy of a reaper’s dark magic. She wished she was.
But the roar of rage that ripped from Osiris rid her of such notions.
This was happening. It was all real. Wilder had betrayed the guild, betrayed the midrealms, betrayedher.
‘We need to get this under control,’ Torj was saying to the Guild Master. ‘We can’t let word of this spread, not before we get a handle on it.’
The Warsword’s words spurred them into action, and before Thea knew it, she was at their side, heading towards the castle and the war room.
There was no trace of the victory they’d shared the night before as she was ushered into the chamber. A rich oak table stood at its centre, the rulers of the three kingdoms sitting at its head.
‘What is the meaning of this summons, Osiris?’ King Artos demanded as soon as the Guild Master sank into a chair.
Osiris didn’t answer immediately. The back of Thea’s neck prickled as he looked not to the king, but to her.
‘Althea?’ King Artos prompted, brow furrowed in confusion.
Heart seizing, Thea cleared her throat and rested her hand on the pommel of Malik’s dagger, trying to keep her head high as she spoke. The words on the tip of her tongue threatened to break her.
‘Wilder Hawthorne has deserted, Your Majesty.’
The king blinked. ‘Deserted?’
She drew a sharp breath. ‘Yes, sire. He committed treason of the highest order, releasing your half-wraith prisoners, along with the monsters’ leaders. He fled with them, wrapped in darkness, Your Grace.’
Her voice sounded like it belonged to a stranger, calm and detached, in stark contrast to the utter turmoil that raged within. She hadn’t taken note of who else stood in the room with her, but she could feel their stares boring into her, searing.
The world suddenly grew close and sharp as she relived her most intimate moments with Wilder in excruciating detail. His laugh and smile. Her name whispered against her skin. The feel of him inside her.
Thea swayed, suddenly nauseous. She forced herself to inhale steadily through her nose, ignoring the attention of those around the room and focusing solely on King Artos, using him as an anchor to the present.
Artos was conferring with Queen Reyna and King Leiko, all three of them wearing the same expression, a mixture of horror and dread.
At last King Artos looked up and addressed Osiris. ‘You saw his treason for yourself?’
‘Torj Elderbrock did, Your Majesty. I was there at the end. It was as Guardian Zoltaire said. He was right there in the shadows with them. It has also come to light that he attacked Guardian Sebastos Barlowe without provocation on the battlefield.’ Osiris’ voice was trembling with fury. His lips had gone white. In all her years at Thezmarr, Thea had never seen the Guild Master so full of rage.
It was then that Seb limped forward, horrific violet bruising colouring his throat, his eyes blood-red. ‘He tried to kill me, sire,’ he rasped, his voice broken.
‘If he was trying to kill you, you’d be dead,’ Osiris said coldly. ‘But the fact remains… Hawthorne committed treason.’ His gaze fell to the three rulers. ‘Do I have your permission to deal with this?’
King Artos exchanged looks with Queen Reyna and King Leiko. The royals nodded in agreement and the King of Harenth turned back to Osiris.
‘You do,’ he said.
The Guild Master’s jaw clenched before he turned to face the rest of the war room. It was only then that Thea scanned the faces around them. Torj and Vernich stood shoulder to shoulder, their faces etched with fury of their own. Beside the Warswords and Esyllt, Thea spotted Cal and Kipp. Both of their expressions softened as she met their gazes.
Pity. Theypitiedher.
Thea didn’t blame them. She’d been a fool. All this time she’d worried about Vernich and Seb being the treacherous warriors in their midst, the ones she would have to track down across the realms in the end. But she’d been wrong. So completely and utterly wrong. It had been the Warsword in her bed, the Warsword who’d burrowed into her heart.
More faces stared back at her: Farissa, Audra, Wren… All of them looking at her as though she was something fragile, as though she were about to break.
