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In the place of a celebrated Warsword was a deadly master of shadow, talons unsheathing at his fingertips as he wielded wisps of obsidian into the shape of nightmares. He had been a hero once. Now, he was cursed with the half-life of a shadow wraith.
Not only was he an entitled, fragile man-child, but he was a fucking idiot as well.
‘What should I call you, Wildfire?’
Wilder snorted. ‘She was trying to kill you.’ ‘Some of the best sex starts that way, my young apprentice.’
‘I hope she sticks a knife in your back.’ ‘With a face like that, I might just let her.’
And though he could keep it at bay for now, on the darkest night of every month, there was no stopping it. He became a savage shadow wraith, enraptured by the darkness, by his own power.
Talemir exchanged a frustrated look with Wilder, who was growing restless beside him. His protégé wasn’t known for his patience,
a blue jewel rested against his sternum
Part man, but just as much, if not more, wraith.
He wouldn’t let her know just how unnerving the experience had been for him, wouldn’t let her know that in a world made black and white, she had been doused in colour.
Farissa, the Master Alchemist at Thezmarr, had warned him it was a dangerous experiment, that it might just as easily poison him as cure him.
So now you know… how a monster is made.’
‘Warswords are not born. They’re forged with blood and steel,’ he said. ‘But you earned that badge of honour long ago.’
Smiling, he offered it to her – the heart of a wraith. ‘I considered flowers, but I thought you’d like this more…’
Then she had seen him in the heat of the battle, his eyes dark with that night-flecked curse… The change upon him. But he’d controlled it. He’d fought at her side and saved her dearest friend…
‘If you need words of comfort, perhaps remember this: there are all kinds of darkness in this world. Some good, some bad, and some with no agenda at all. It’s what that darkness means to you and what you do with it yourself that matters most.’
Sometimes, to love someone, we have to let them go. And that sometimes, in order to go where we need to, we must turn away from one path, onto another…’
But she told me that one day I would understand, and that when I did, I should pass the gem onto someone else who needed to learn the lesson for themselves.’
‘It led me to you.’
‘Touch her again,’ he said, leaning in, crushing Coltan to the wall behind him, ensuring the punishing grip mirrored his words. ‘And you die.’
Talemir’s dark gaze met hers. ‘You are a spectrum of colour in the shadows. You pull me back towards the light…’
‘There are many things I don’t do that I would gladly do for you,’ he murmured.
‘Is he a good man, Drue?’ Fendran asked. ‘This Warsword of yours?’
Ignoring the others, he grasped her hands in his. ‘Since the moment I met you, I have felt like I was soaring. With you there is no ground beneath my boots, no rail to hold on to, and for a time there, I fought it with all my might… But no more. I’ve let go. And Wildfire, it’s more than I could have ever imagined. With you, I didn’t fall in love. I rose amid it, stronger than ever before.’ Talemir took a trembling breath, baring his soul like he never had. ‘I love you against all reason.’
‘If it’s not enough,’ he managed, bowing to unsheathe the dagger in his boot and, on one knee, pressing it into her hands, ‘then carve out my heart, Wildfire. It’s yours.’
Love didn’t happen once, she realised. It happened every day, in little moments, in the quiet gaps between grand words, in the lingering touches, in the hope it promised in the dark. Love was something that breathed and expanded, that was made and remade, again and again, reforged only to become stronger.
‘The darkness took a lot from me…’ Drue kissed him soundly, desire already reawakening within. ‘But it also gave me you.’
I’m leaving the guild for a greater cause – the shadow-touched people need a leader, need help. Perhaps the day will come where you need us too.’
He reached for the jewel around his neck and pulled it free, closing the gap between himself and his protégé and pressing it into Wilder’s palm. ‘I promise you will understand one day. And when you do, you’ll know who to give this to.’
But Talemir gripped his shoulder. ‘Not all is as it seems at Thezmarr. You know this in your bones. You know this after talking to the Naarvians. You have noticed your call for aid went unanswered? There has been no sign of our brotherhood. Keep the current state of this kingdom a secret,’ he said.
He knew in his bones that Wilder Hawthorne had a much bigger part to play in the destiny awaiting the midrealms.
But standing a little further away was someone else. Someone Talemir did not expect. Towering over everyone else was Malik the Shieldbreaker.
Tears streamed down the giant Warsword’s scarred face. Smiling broadly through them, he nodded to Talemir from across the way, an enormous dog sitting at his feet, wagging its tail.
