Shadow & Storms (The Legends of Thezmarr, #4)

by Helen Scheuerer

When Wilder Hawthorne came to in the cold, damp cell of the Scarlet Tower, his first thought was of Thea: fierce. Unflinching. His.

‘Then the world will know that if they hurt him, I’ll burn them all to the ground.’

She was ready to shed blood. Ready to take back what was hers.

‘You’re dead anyway,’ she promised. ‘But touch him again, I dare you.’

I love this trope. Touch him and ill kil

They had hurt him. One ruined building was not nearly payment enough for that crime.

‘You and I? We’re forever. We have been since I spied on you atop the cliffs at Thezmarr, since you shot that arrow at me in the Bloodwoods, and every moment since. We will find a way through this,’ she vowed. ‘Together.’

‘Another scar to impress the ladies with,’ he said roughly. Thea scoffed. ‘Ladies? Plural?’

Bro was this close to getting an ass whopping

‘You are the strongest person I know,’ she told him as she withdrew breathlessly. ‘For the longest time I have lived upon the frayed edges of memory, of life. But with you by my side, I feel… reborn. Like you’ve answered the restlessness within me with power of your own. Power that fits together like pieces of a puzzle.’ She traced the line of his jaw, hoping he saw everything she felt for him shining in her stare. ‘Tell me what you need and it’s yours.’

‘I need a moment,’ he rasped, as Thea hovered close by. She moved away, letting him breathe. He stayed there, leaning on the chest of drawers, inhaling and exhaling, trying not to collapse as his knees trembled under his weight. Thea was there again. He made to pull away. ‘I said —’ ‘You said a moment, and I gave you one,’ she told him firmly. She pointed to the door. ‘Out there, you can have your armour on as much as you need, but in here with me? We are equals. It was you who told me, what hurts you, hurts me. You told me we’ll take it on together.’

He didn’t want what Tal and Drue had, not exactly. He only wanted Thea. A future with her. And for a moment, he allowed himself to dream that fate would allow them to have it.

‘I told you who I was before we had him. I will change for no man, no child.

‘No man could have you and not be consumed,’

‘Life does not stop after the death of a single person.’

“If there’s one thing that transcends time and distance and all else, it’s love”.’

She should have expected some level of resistance. Be it because she was a woman, a Delmirian, a Warsword – it was always something. She didn’t want to fight her own men, her own allies, not on the brink of battle. But she also wouldn’t stand for disrespect. It created a weak link in their armour. If she had to reforge it with lightning and steel, so be it.

‘You have proven time and time again that you can fight your own battles,’ Wilder murmured in her ear. ‘But there are those you shouldn’t have to. Let me fight this one for you. Let me carry this burden.’

‘You wouldn’t kill me, not in cold blood,’ Yarrow rasped. ‘That’s right. A Warsword is a moral man, a man with honour,’ someone else chimed in, though they didn’t have the balls to intervene beyond words. Thea watched the offending commander’s eyes bulge as Wilder applied more pressure to his windpipe. Wilder’s expression was cold, lethal. ‘A Warsword is also a killer. A man – or woman – of violence and fury. Any good in me is because of that storm wielder you so vehemently insulted.’

‘This is a mercy compared to what she could have done to you,’ Wilder spat. ‘Consider my fists a kindness, and know that if one more of you shows disrespect, you’re dead. Althea Embervale will turn the tide of this war. You owe her your allegiance.’

‘You’re my everything,’

She was made for him. Having her in his arms was beyond perfect. It felt right in every sense.

All women are warriors,

‘For the longest time, women have been erased, little by little, or in the case of the Furies themselves, in one fell swoop. We have lived in the shadow of the rights and laws of men. But when the world is reborn, it will be of our own making. You’re fighting for that world, and you have the same right to armour as the rest of us. You are surrounded by women who want to see you empowered, and that is stronger than any fucking army in these realms. Don’t let the world – don’t let anyone convince you that you’re not enough. Only you define your story. You and you alone. When they tell you what you’re not, when they tell you what you can’t do, remember: you are the storm, Elwren. You split the skies and flood the plains. You make the ground tremble beneath their boots. No one can fucking stop you.’

she realised that his fury wasn’t for her alone, but for all women. That despite every ounce of evidence she’d shown him over the years that she was capable, that she was a true protector of the midrealms, he would never believe it. He didn’t want to. And that meant there was no place for him in this world, the world they were trying to defend and rebuild anew.

‘Because I love you, so deeply, Thea. And if I tell you I love you a thousand times a day for the rest of our lives, it will not have been enough.’

A former child of Thezmarr, a girl turned warrior, Althea Nine Lives, the Shadow of Death, the wraith slayer. The storm-wielding Warsword. Althea Embervale.