Thorne (Random Romance) (27 page)

Ava put her hand on my shoulder and admitted, ‘I was never capable of much complexity though, kid. In that way I was like your da.’ She swallowed and gave an uncomfortable smile. ‘He and I were similar in a lot of ways.’

After that she left us to babysit. Finn saw that I’d lost interest in the records so she sang a loud, crude sea-shanty that made me laugh reluctantly. Ella and Sadie watched her raptly, seeming torn between thinking her either the best or the weirdest person ever.

Osric came by late in the afternoon. ‘I’m glad to see you well, Finn.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, a tad stiffly.

Osric sat next to me, peering over my shoulder at the record I was pretending to read.

‘Any idea why warders would be working with Pirenti men to kidnap Kayan girls?’ Finn asked him bluntly.

He shook his head. ‘Those warders were not trained by us. They are illegals. I imagine that’s why they wanted you.’

‘I’m not an illegal!’

‘Technically, you are.’

We both stared at him.

‘You used your power,’ he shrugged.

‘To get free!’

Osric spread his hands. ‘Yes. Still illegal.’

‘Osric,’ I started.

‘I won’t say anything. I have no love for the warder rules and regulations. I am more powerful than any of them, and yet I have no place in their hierarchy because I am apparently too selfish by nature.’

Which was patently not true, evident in the help he had freely given.

Finn’s gaze softened. ‘Idiots,’ she muttered.

‘So how can we find out who they were?’ I asked.

Osric turned to Finn. ‘You touched their skin?’

‘Sure, but I was two seconds away from eating dirt. I have no idea who they were. And the warders left me with nothing either – they made sure I couldn’t touch them.’ She pondered for a while, then frowned. ‘The soldiers had tattoos on their hands. Both of them. I thought it odd at the time.’

‘Arrow heads?’ I asked quickly and she nodded. A sigh slipped from me. ‘Then they were soldiers from the barracks in Vjort.’

Finn gave a bright smile. ‘Well then. Looks like we’re going to the most dangerous city in the world!’

‘Please
try not to look so happy about it.’

Osric nodded suddenly. His eyes had gone distant. ‘You must leave tonight.’

‘Why?’

‘I’ve seen it. Something to do with the timing. Something will happen when you get there, but I don’t …’ He shook his head, shrugging blithely. ‘That’s it. That’s all I got.’

‘Prophecies and visions,’ I said. ‘Ruling our lives. What if you hadn’t said anything just then?’

‘But I did.’

I opened my mouth but nothing came out except a sound of pure frustration.

Finn grinned. ‘Thorne has trouble with the concept of fatalism.’

‘Fate is a tricky mistress,’ Osric agreed mildly.

I looked down at the journal in my hand. My father’s large, neat handwriting described his battle tactics for an upcoming skirmish on the borders of Kaya.

‘I want answers, Thorne,’ she told me.

Meeting her eyes, I nodded. ‘To Vjort we go. It’s on the way anyway.’

‘To where?’

‘The berserker mountain.’

She said nothing, but her eyes changed again to pale, pale blue and she got up to join the twins on the floor. It was the first time I’d ever seen her look unimpressed at a potential adventure.

The reality was this. If my da knew something about the bond, and he learnt it while under the mountain, then maybe, just maybe, it was the only place left in the world that still bore that knowledge. I didn’t know
how
, but frankly I didn’t have much else to go on.

Aside from that – aside from it all – the ice had been calling to me my whole life. Perhaps it was time I stopped denying it.

Falco

General Brathe called for soldiers to fortify the city. We prepared for attack, for the possibility of a siege. But Quill and I knew without needing to say it that walls and soldiers would not stop first tier warders.

Lutius was our greatest weapon. His warders were called in from the furthest reaches of the country. I only hoped they would make it in time. I didn’t know how many it would take to stop Dren and Galia, but if the couple had managed to break through the magic of the prison, then I feared what they were capable of.

Brathe, Lutius, Quillane and I were seated around a large table in my study. Brathe had been demanding that we be moved for the last hour, but Lutius had informed him that Dren and Galia would be able to feel our energy no matter where we were, so we’d best be kept in the most secure place available – which was the palace.

‘It would actually be the warder training facility,’ Lutius pointed out.

‘Protecting them on the road would be nigh on impossible,’ Brathe snapped.

‘We’re not going anywhere,’ Quillane said. ‘I am more concerned about our people than Falco and I.’

‘I’m not!’ I exclaimed. ‘I want all day and all night protection – as much as we have.’ Gods, what a joke I’d become.

I paused then, considering this. Who was I really helping, being a fool in times like these? In war, people needed an Emperor who could inspire them to have courage. Not some cowardly imbecile who pissed himself at the first sign of trouble.

But the truth remained the same – the Sparrow was a greater threat. He had an army behind him, and he was coming. One day soon he would try to attack me, and I needed him to have no idea of what I was capable. I needed him to sadly underestimate me, or I had no chance at defeating him. I had set up this plan many years ago. It was a long game. I just had to keep reminding myself to see it to the end.

‘I want the boy,’ Lutius said abruptly.

‘What boy?’

‘Jonah of Limontae.’

I frowned, glancing at Quill. She leant forward with a probing gaze. ‘Why would you want him?’

‘Because he has more power than he admits to. That’s either dangerous, or very useful.’

‘He’s on the road. Last we heard, they were reported to be in Pirenti already.’

‘Call him back.’

‘How?’

‘Osric was my emissary for the Midwinter’s festival. I will contact him and have him find the boy.’

She spread her hands. ‘Very well. For all the good it may do us.’

I agreed with her there. For I happened to have a theory about the twins of the cliff. I didn’t know much about magic. But I knew one thing – bonded couples could share their powers, if they both happened to be warders. When Finn fell from the plinth she cried out for her brother’s help, and after she’d been saved Jonah was not the only one drained of energy.

Twins were not bonded, but there was a deep and resonant connection between the brother and sister – no one who met them could deny that.

So whether it was insane or not, I was convinced that in truth it was not Jonah with power that rivalled Osric’s. It was Finn.

Quillane

Radha was pacing the room when I stole a few minutes to check in on her. ‘How goes it?’ she asked quickly.

I’d barely forgiven her for leaving the room and accosting
Falco
, for Gods’ sakes. Luckily he was a distracted wastrel most of the time, and hadn’t given the exchange another thought.

‘We’re sending for all the warders in the country.’

‘They won’t make it.’

‘Probably not.’

‘I want to fight.’

‘What?’

She paced towards me. ‘I want to fight, Quillane.’

‘Absolutely not.’

‘I’m going to, with or without your permission.’

‘And when you are killed? I die too. There goes the Empress of Kaya when the country is under attack from two different enemies. Do you think Falco would manage on his own?’

‘He might –’

‘He would crumble. This city would crumble, and then the country. All because you wanted to prove to yourself that you could be brave.’

She stared at me, and I began to regret the cruel words.

Radha swallowed. I was reminded in that moment both of her delicacy and her incredible resilience. ‘I was a soldier, before you,’ she said softly. ‘I was a fighter. And a dreamer. I was so many things.’

My eyes prickled. But I was our leader for a reason – I knew which risks to take and which ones to leave.

‘You will remain here, safe, until all threats have passed,’ I said softly, firmly. ‘I’m sorry for it, but that, it seems, is the price you pay for having had the misfortune of bonding with an Empress.’

Finn

The walled city of Vjort was cold and grey. I felt the difference in the air, the static deadliness. As we entered eyes fell to me, and I wasn’t sure if it was because I was a woman or Kayan – probably both. Thorne stayed very close to me, hand on his axe at all times. The men walking along the streets and spilling out of ale houses were grizzly and scarred, warriors all. None seemed to recognise him up here, because he’d lived his whole life in the south.

I gazed up into the sky, struck by the beauty of it and wondering if it would snow. It certainly felt more than cold enough.

‘Keep moving,’ Thorne told me.

He brought us to a small, quiet inn too expensive for anyone but nobility to afford. There was a large room upstairs usually reserved for the King and Queen, which we rented, warming ourselves before the fire.

‘This doesn’t feel right,’ I told him. ‘Leaving without them.’

‘I begged you to stay, Finn. It’s not safe for you here.’

‘How?’ I whirled to him, annoyed. ‘How was I meant to stay and be parted from you?’

His expression softened. ‘When they reach the fortress, Ambrose will tell them where we’ve gone. They’ll be fine.’

‘It shouldn’t have taken them so long,’ I shook my head. ‘Something’s happened.’

‘We don’t know that.’

There was darkness building inside me. I wanted to curl into a ball and sleep and sleep and sleep. Or maybe I wanted to climb out that window and stand in the freezing cold until my skin turned blue and died. I could hear people screaming, screaming,
screaming
–

‘Finn, look at me.’

I didn’t want to see his eyes, didn’t want them to see me.

‘Fight it,’ he urged me.

‘I can’t.’

‘Don’t let it have this much control over you.’

‘I need Jonah. Only he can make it stop.’

‘He’s not here, and he’s not coming, so you have to do it yourself.’

‘I
can’t
,’ I exclaimed, stalking away from him. ‘You don’t get it. You have no idea.’

‘Of course I do. I’ve spent my whole life fighting my own darkness. I’ve never let him gain control of me. I’ve never let him free.’

I looked at him and wondered what would happen if he ever did let the beast free. I wondered if it would be as catastrophic as he thought it would be.

‘When your eyes shift red, is that not the darkness taking over?’ I asked him.

‘Those are the moments when I lose control of him and he becomes stronger than I,’ Thorne murmured. ‘But I have never intentionally let him loose – I cannot. I will fight him every day of my life, fight to keep him caged. You must do the same with whatever threatens to pull you under.’

‘I’m not as strong as you.’

‘It is only you who decides how strong you are. So decide, and then be it.’

Just then there was a loud shout from beyond the window and several angry voices in the night.

‘Wait here,’ Thorne ordered me.

Right.

I followed him down the stairs curiously, then stepped outside into the icy night air and wished I’d been quick enough to grab my fur. At the end of the street was a small town square. In its midst was a large group of men clustered around something, and lots of shouting burst into the sky. Thorne shoved through some of the men at the back of the crowd, clearing a path for us to squeeze through.

It was like all the air around us had been injected straight into my heart, so cold did I feel then.

Isadora was standing in the middle of the circle, positioned protectively over my brother, who was unconscious on the ground, and Penn, who was frustrated out of his wits. Circling her dangerously were four large Pirenti soldiers, expressions of rapt lust on their faces.

‘Touch either of them,’ Isadora’s voice snapped into the night, ‘and I’ll kill you. Do you understand?’

The men laughed, as did most of the crowd. Clearly this had to be stopped, but before we got the chance to do anything the man in front of Isadora stepped forward to attack her. His movements were lazy. He reached for her with his big, meaty hands, not having bothered to draw a weapon.

He didn’t even see what killed him. One of Isadora’s secret, hidden knives sliced straight through the enormous man’s throat. He made an awful, gurgling sound, blood spurting, and then he toppled like a tree trunk to the ground, dead.

There was a moment of shocked silence, and then the other three men gave thunderous screams of fury and lunged at her.

Thorne’s voice was quicker than all of them. ‘
Halt
!’ he boomed over the commotion, something so commanding in him that everyone did actually halt. Clearly no one made an order in Pirenti unless they were entitled to do so.

In my mind was one thing:
Jonah Jonah Jonah Jonah
. My heart reached for him, terrified of the stillness in his body.

‘Nobody move,’ Thorne commanded.

‘Who the fuck are you?’ one of the men snarled furiously.

Thorne walked into the circle to stand beside Isadora. ‘My name is Thorne,’ he spoke, and slowly the faces of the men changed. They gaped incredulously at him, letting their weapons fall instantly to the ground.

‘Majesty,’ one of them whispered. ‘Forgive us, we had no idea …’

‘You’ve attacked three Kayan youths in one of my cities during peacetime,’ Thorne said very coldly. I could see, as I watched him, that he was struggling to keep his beast caged. I could see how much he wanted to unleash it. And I could see, too, how well he fit his title, here in the cold north. He was younger than the men, but as he eyed them we knew, collectively, that he was infinitely more dangerous. This was a boy who had berserker blood in his veins – they didn’t know it, but their warrior instincts could feel it.