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Only decades of training kept him breathing as he took in her fire, her beauty and her determination. He struggled to find hisvoice, but when he did, it came out hoarse and full of unchecked emotion.
‘When I stand against the gods at the end of my days,’ he told her fiercely, ‘I will regret nothing. Not the lies I’ve told, nor the lives I’ve claimed or the rivers of blood I’ve spilt. I do not regret a single moment, because every one of them led me to you.’
Thea’s chest heaved. ‘Wilder…’ she breathed, closing the gap between them.
His mouth was on hers in an instant, as though with a kiss he could stop the force of the Furies themselves. The dark frenzy that had always connected them took hold and they became a tangle of limbs and a tempest of longing. He threaded his fingers through her hair, deepening the kiss, trying to put everything he felt for her into every brush of his lips, every stroke of his tongue, desire burning white-hot from the inside out.
He wanted to tell her he couldn’t, and wouldn’t, live without her. That, should the Furies wish to take her from him, he’d tear their fucking mountain down to get her back.
But it was Thea who broke away, panting. ‘I want you to know… If I come out of this unrecognisable, if I leave this Rite a different person… I want you to know that I have felt for you what I have felt for no one else. That I —’
‘Don’t.’ Wilder’s mouth crashed to hers again, an outlet for the rising tide of panic within. ‘We don’t say those words again until we’re on the other side. Until we can say them Warsword to Warsword.’
Understanding filled those stormy eyes, and slowly, Thea nodded, her fisted grip on his cloak loosening.
They broke apart and the cold swept in, more brutal than before. Mist swirled at the base of the mountain, beckoning her with smoke-like tendrils.
‘Warsword to Warsword, then,’ she said, her shoulders rising and falling as she steeled herself.
Wilder stood with the horses as she checked her weapons and left the rest of her belongings in her saddlebags. He had told her she could take nothing more with her into the Great Rite.
His heart hammered mercilessly as his apprentice, his love, gave him one final look. He lifted three fingers in salute, in deference to her, before she turned to face the mountain, squaring her shoulders.
A hundred moments flashed before Wilder’s eyes, but he didn’t dare blink as Thea took a breath and walked into the swirling mist.
In seconds, her form was obscured. A moment later, it was gone.
Wilder stared after her, at the fog that danced in her wake.
He thought he had known terror before, known it intimately. But this was a different kind entirely. The kind that saw a man glimpse what he’d always wanted, only to watch her walk into the clutches of fate itself, knowing that for the first time, he could not follow.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
THEA
The mist devoured her, and suddenly Wilder was gone. When Thea looked back the way she’d come, she could see nothing but swirling white fog that seemed to push at her back, to coax her forward.
This is it, she told herself as she stepped onto the sacred grounds of the Great Rite. She had dreamt of this her whole life, and now… now she was about to face the deadly trials crafted by the Furies themselves, challenges that would push the limits of her mortal resilience.
Let them try, Thea thought as she started up the incline of the mountain.
The terrain was uneven and steep, with icy rocks concealed beneath the frost-kissed leaf litter. All around her, the air was damp and prickly, bearing down on her along with the closed-in feeling of the woods. She could barely see the glimpses of sky beyond the barren canopy, but it didn’t matter. By the magic of the Furies, she knew the way:up.
The mist danced around her ankles as she trekked on, her calves burning as the gradient became even more arduous. Shewas quietly grateful that she bore no pack across her shoulders. But with every step, her trepidation grew. Her heart was racing in anticipation for the first trial to be sprung upon her. At any moment, she expected to be thrown into a pit of chaos.
She wasn’t.
Strong of mind, strong of body, strong of heart, she chanted to herself with every foot placed in front of the other. Thea knew that the imminent prospect of danger could be almost as trying as the danger itself, and so she steeled her mind, trying to lose herself in the physical task of climbing the formidable mountain. When the trial began, she’d know it.
Time became an expanse of nothing. There were no markers to signify the hours passing, only the sweat on Thea’s brow and the thirst that dried her tongue and throat. It didn’t take her long to realise that she needed to hydrate if she meant to continue. Thankfully, there was no shortage of narrow streams carving their way down the mountain, and Thea dropped to her knees beside one now, cupping her hands beneath the icy water. She brought it to her lips and drank deeply. Closing her eyes as the crisp taste hit her lips and soothed her parched mouth, she drank her fill.
When she opened her eyes, she was no longer by a stream.
She was inside the mountain itself, staring at a wall of mirrors.
Torches illuminated the cavernous space, their flames reflected in the shiny surfaces before her. Thea saw her startled expression in her own reflection, her confusion winding tighter as she walked the length of mirrors. As she did, they shifted, creating a strange optical illusion that followed her with every step.
The nape of her neck prickled as two of the reflective sheets swung inward.
