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‘No moving them for a while, huh?’ she asked.
Malik shook his head again, getting to his feet and rummaging through the basket of kindling by the hearth.
Thea felt a bead of sweat drip down between her shoulder blades as she sagged back into the chair. ‘You could have warned me,’ she muttered.
Malik ignored this, returning to his chair and holding out his palm.
Thea reluctantly returned her hand to him, watching as he set a straight stick against the line of one of her injured fingers and bound it with the leather he’d been using to braid. He did the same for the second injured finger.
When he was done, Thea lifted her hand up, examining the ludicrous strapping. ‘What in the realms am I meant to do with this?’
Malik grinned.
‘Your sense of humour needs work, my friend,’ Thea huffed, but she gave his arm a grateful squeeze all the same. ‘Suppose it’ll force me to work on my weaker sword hand.’
After Hawthorne had left, after he’d promised that they’d work things out together and then abandoned her in her moment of need, it was Malik Thea had turned to. He had been her one constant since earning her Guardian totem, even after she’d realised that he’d known who she was all along.
‘You once told me: beware the fury of a patient Delmirian,’she’d said to him.‘I know now that I’m a Delmirian… But I don’t know what the rest means, Mal. I’m certainly not the patient type, am I?’
Malik had reached for the dagger – his dagger – at her hip, and tapped its grip twice.
For whatever reason, it had given her comfort in a sea of rage. As had the foreign words etched along the weapon’s blade:Glory in death, immortality in legend. She’d vowed then and there that with her brief remaining years, that was what she would strive for.
Now, Malik the Shieldbreaker watched her from his armchair, fondness in his gaze. His expression was so different, so open compared to that of his Warsword sibling.
Thea raised a brow, her fingers throbbing dully. ‘In case I haven’t mentioned it recently… Your brother’s a complete arse, by the way.’
Malik looked delighted.
* * *
Hawthorne’s return had brought with it a near insatiable fervour to win, to prove him wrong, to beat him. Which was why Thea found herself wandering the corridors she knew Wren frequented. Her sister had been trying to meet with her for weeks, insisting that they learn to train their magic, but Thea had been too angry to face her. But though Wren was the last person she’d admit it to, Thea was actually desperate to harness her power. At night, with only her fate stone for company, she would close her eyes and imagine the keen edge storm magic would give her against her opponents, against whatever obstacles awaited her in the Great Rite. It had already helped her defeat arheguld reaper; what more could she do with such abilities at her fingertips?
Tentative hope blooming in her chest, Thea arrived at her sister’s quarters and pounded on the door.
It swung inward almost immediately and she was confronted by a familiar pair of celadon eyes.
‘Thea!’ Her sister rushed forward to grasp her arms and pull her inside.
Instinctively, Thea jerked out of Wren’s grip and was met with a pained expression.
‘I thought…’ Wren ventured slowly. ‘I thought this might mean you’d forgiven me…’
Still tense, Thea cleared her throat. ‘One step at a time.’
‘Alright,’ Wren said, before forcing a note of brightness into her words. ‘What can I do for you?’
Thea licked her lips. ‘I… I want to know more about my – our – magic. I want to learn how to control it, harness it.’
Wren was beaming. ‘I’ve been waiting for this day for so long!’ She reached for her cloak on the hook by the door.
Thea bit her tongue, refraining from pointing out that the day would have arrived sooner had Wren not deceived her so thoroughly. ‘Where are we going?’
‘To see Audra.’
‘Now?’
‘Absolutely.’
