I TRIED TO FIND Thorne later that evening after finally escaping Eeira's clutches. He was nowhere to be seen, not making his rounds nor eating in the kitchen, the two places he always seemed to be found. I figured then that he was in his room, and I went to the barracks where my knights trained to ask one of them for directions to it. When I had a hold of the information I went straight there and knocked on his door.

I waited and waited for what seemed like minutes instead of mere seconds, with no answer. So I knocked again, harder this time and asked for him.

"Thorne? Are you in there? Thorne?"

Again no answer.

"Forget this," I grumbled under my breath, then reached for the door handle. "Please be unlocked."

Pulling and hearing the click of the latch I slowly pushed the door open to reveal the dark chamber. I peeked inside and squinted my eyes to try and see, landing on a figure sitting at the edge of the bed. Thorne was dressed in just his pants, hunched over with his elbows on his knees. In one hand he held a frame with a painting of a young girl likely the age of sixteen, and in his other a cup of ale with four other empty ones on the floor. The whole sight puzzled me, and I was afraid I had walked in on something I was not supposed to.

"Don't say I should've heard you banging my door down," he said to me without turning, "I did. Figured you'd try to barge in anyway."

I sheepishly stepped into the room and closed the door behind me. "I. . .don't mean to disturb you if this is a bad time. But we need to talk about what happened earlier."

Thorne lightly chuckled, but it sounded dry and hollow. "Well, I can't deny my queen what she wants, can I?"

He then turned and even in the darkness I could see his eyes were sunken and wet, as if he'd been crying. By the deeper sound of his voice and smell of the ale swirling around the room I already knew he was drunk.

"Let's get it over with then," he said.

"You might want to put down the ale first if you want to remember it in the morning," I told him. He chuckled once more and set it on his nightstand while still clutching the portrait.

I slowly walked over to his bedside and grabbed the box of matches on the nightstand, lighting the candelabra to bring a glow to the room.

"You know if this realm is up to date with the ephemeral world's current century to use their matches to light the candles, you'd think we could have electricity," he joked with a weak smile.

I couldn't help but smile myself and agree with him. "I'll say. I think that's the one thing I miss the most about the human world, along with running showers."

Thorne hummed, "And city lights. I was always fascinated by those."

I stared at Thorne a moment, again taken off guard by something he'd brought up about the human world. I didn't understand how he seemed to know so much about it when he had never been a knight to travel there on assignment like Calder had.

"How do you know so much about the ephemeral world, Thorne? You've mentioned pizza, electricity and city lights. I've also never really brought up the fact that you don't sound like everyone else here. I mean, your speech is like mine. You don't talk like you come from another century. Why?"

I watched Thorne clench the portrait tighter in his hand as he gazed off into space, a look of stone crossing his features with brows furrowed together. I sat down in the velvet seat next to the bed while I waited for him to answer.

"I lived there for a time, years ago."

I widened my eyes in surprise. "You lived in the human world? How? Were you banished?"

"Might as well have been. I was forced there and couldn't return. I didn't know how to make portals yet. Took me several years to master it before I got back."

"If you weren't banished then how did you end up there?" I wondered.

Thorne paused again, looking down at the portrait in his hands and stroking the frame. "My father made me go after she died. He pushed me through a portal and I ended up in New York City. Stayed there for five years."

I glanced at the painting, noticing the girl looked a little similar to Thorne, but younger. "Who is she?"

Thorne looked up at me with eyes glassy, from impending tears or the ale I wasn't sure. "My sister."

He looked back down at the painting and pursed his lips together, slowly shaking his head. "Was my sister."

I realized then that Thorne had a much darker past than I thought, and I wondered if I should worm my way into his privacy. He was probably only telling me all of this because he was drunk and not thinking clearly, but in all honesty I wanted to know. I had to discuss what happened earlier and explain that I didn't trust him because I didn't know him. Perhaps telling me his story would help me do that. It did with Calder after all.

"What happened to her?"

"A group of Sylvi's knights killed her," he mumbled before growling and throwing the picture across the room. "And I couldn't save her!"

I jumped slightly at his outburst and Thorne noticed, a look of pain crossing his face. He hunched back over and put his face in his hands while shaking his head.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry," his voice quivered. I didn't know if he was saying so to me or to his sister.

"Thorne, it's ok," I assured him calmly.

"No it's not. It's my fault. She trusted me and I failed her. That's why you're right not to trust me, Eerika. You can't. Because I'll fail you too. I've always been a failure to my parents, to her. And I'll be a failure to you too, Your Majesty."

"What happened to your sister wasn't your fault, Thorne."

"Yes it was!" he spat back at me, "How is a brother not able to protect his sister? That is the one thing I should be able to do! She was my twin. We were connected from birth and I should have protected her more over our sixteen years together than what I ever did.

It shouldn't be a sister's job to take care of her brother when he gets beaten up in a pub fight or is laying in the street drunk off his ass! I should have been the one with the head on my shoulders and protecting her when she was taken advantage of by those men while working in the pub. I should've watched over her instead of being with a different woman every night. And in the end karma got me. Because of my sins she's dead, and I've been only half of myself ever since."

I didn't know what to say, the room growing quiet. I didn't expect this kind of backstory from Thorne at all, and it surprised me. Not because of his actions, but because of the vulnerability he actually had under his cocky attitude. It was all a front to hide it. My heart ached for him.

"What happened that day?" I asked him, hoping I wouldn't enrage him by bringing up such a horrible memory.

Thorne paused for what felt like ages before he began the story. "It was eight years ago. Just a regular day, nothing different had happened than what normally did. The village was in a bustle of the work day, gathering ingredients for medicine and food, hunting, making furs, that sort of thing. It's always been poor living in the village, so everyone was always working. If you didn't make the coins, you didn't eat or keep warm."

I felt sick at hearing how my people lived and wondered why no one had told me so before. If I had known of their conditions perhaps even as princess I could've lended my help when I arrived to this world.

"My family was slightly more privileged than everyone else," Thorne continued, "My parents were paid a little more than others because of the fur and swords they made for the palace as I told you. It still wasn't enough to get by every day though, so it was mine and my sister's job to make the rest of the payments. I told her it wasn't her place to work for Mother and Father's debts, that I would work for the both of us, but she refused. She said we were born together so we were in this together, as long as we lived. I just didn't realize that would be so short."

Thorne then stood and walked over to where the portrait had landed, picking it up and luckily being undamaged.

"So, Thyra began working at the pub where I did. I had already been aquatinted with the place because of my rebellious reputation as you know of. I was more of a customer than I was a worker. I got into a lot of fights that she had to break up. She even got hit in the face one time by a man she tried to pull off me.

I became a disgrace to my parents after that one. But she never saw me any different. She would say, "You aren't the sum of your faults, Thorne. You're my brother, the other half of me. I'll always love you no matter how many stupid things you'll do". She was such a better person than I am."

"You're just as good a person, Thorne. Look where you are now? Because of all the fey you helped in the village during Sylvi's attack you became Captain of the royal guard," I told him.

Thorne lightly scoffed as he came and sat back down. "That's only because Calder is gone and someone was needed for the position. I only fought those knights out of anger of what happened to Thyra, because of who they were. I should've done more for Thyra that day than I did during the attack. Then she would still be here. But I was too drunk to even stand up let alone defend her from her killers.

Sylvi's knights were at the pub after looking for new recruits to her army. The bastards weren't drunk, they knew exactly what they were doing. All the men that came to the pub had dirty eyes on Thyra and so did they. They demanded she serve them and out of fear of what they might do, she did. But they didn't just want ale. They wanted her."

A shiver ran up my spine at the image of Thorne's sister being taken advantage of by Sylvi's knights, remembering it had almost happened to me during mine and Calder's journey. If Calder hadn't been able to rescue me, I would have suffered the same fate.

"She refused at first, and I tried to intervene even though I was too drunk to fight. That got a foot in my gut and a slap across Thyra's face that knocked her into the bar when she spat on them and struggled in their grip. I remember screaming at them to stop as they began touching her, and they told me if I even dared move they'd slit my throat. They ordered everyone else out of the pub and not one hesitated leaving. Then the Captain Vegard took her in the back and in my restraint I had to listen to her scream in fear."

I nearly gasped at the name of the Captain, remembering clearly the man who almost did the same thing to me was also called Vegard.

"I. . .know him, the Captain. At least I did. On mine and Calder's journey to find the sword a man named Vegard of Sylvi's guard captured me and. . .nearly took my body in the snow. Calder killed him, so perhaps you can consider her death avenged in some way."

"He didn't get that far with Thyra either. She burned him with her frost and ran back to the front of the pub where I was. She shouted my name as she came towards me and I struggled in the guards' grasps to get to her. But Vegard quickly came up behind her and ran her through with his sword. I remember screaming and feeling as though half of my soul left my body as hers did. Nothing will ever be able to avenge her from what happened. I'll pay for that for the rest of my immortal existence," Thorne spoke darkly.

I realized now I had been too harsh on Thorne when I first met him, and even today. I had quickly judged him when I shouldn't have, even when his attitude towards me was uncalled for. I stood from my seat and walked over to sit down next to him.

"You shouldn't feel you have to pay for what happened to your sister. It was the knights' faults, not yours. Don't blame yourself for that."

"Why shouldn't I?" Thorne asked dryly. "My parents did. I had to carry Thyra's lifeless body back home and watch my father's face turn to shear horror and my mother fall to the ground wailing. I tried to tell them what happened but Father refused to listen to a word of it.

He ripped her out of my arms and put her in my mother's and then made a portal. I begged him not to do it but it was too late. He told me never to return and pushed me through, and I landed under the Gothic Bridge in Central Park. I don't even think he thought of where to make the portal take me, he just opened it and hoped it would toss me anywhere.

I had never even been to the ephemeral world so I had no idea what to do or where to go. So I just glamoured my ears and began living with the humans. I lived in an abandoned apartment building and stole food from markets and restaurants. New York pizza became my lifeline. I even nearly got arrested one time but I got away.

Eventually I learned to make a portal and found my way back here. By that time both my parents had been dead for three years from Sylvi's raid of the village. I was already dead to them though so I guess it didn't matter that they were. I went back to doing exactly what I did before, drinking and sleeping with any woman who would have me, just so I could forget."

I placed my hand on Thorne's shoulder and watched him flinch against my touch. "I'm so sorry, Thorne."

He looked up at me, his face now serious as if his intoxication had vanished for just the moment. "Now you see why I wanted to go through with the plan. I know what it's like to lose someone you love, Eerika. And you love Calder. You can deny that to yourself until the end of time but it doesn't change the truth. I want to help you get him back, because if someone could've stayed to help me save Thyra things would have been so much different. I'm the only chance you have."

"But that's what I'm afraid of, Thorne. You're the only one who has been willing to go rescue Calder. What if your knights refuse to go with you? You can't go on your own."

"I'll make them go. They can't deny my orders," he said.

"Even so, I don't want you or anyone else to be killed. Sylvi is too smart to leave Calder all alone while she comes here to fight. He'll be guarded," I pointed out. "And what if she creates another iron knight that can drain our powers? We would all be nearly defenseless once more."

"She won't bring one of those clunkers with her. It drains her knights' powers too, and she's going to want all the force she can get this time. Even if Calder is being watched, there won't be but two or three men there. I can handle that."

I sighed, "Thorne. . .I would not be able to live with myself if something happened to anyone else. I want you and all of my knights safe. Especially Calder. I have to think of the risks that come with what we're about to do."

"I'm telling you right now Princess that if we don't do something he's going to die anyway. So wether you trust me or not you've got to decide. I'll do whatever you order of me, stay or go. It's up to you."

I pondered his words and fiddled nervously with my fingers in my lap. "I wasn't sure I trusted you at first, mainly because there was nothing I knew about you. But now that you've told me all of this, even though you had to be drunk to do so, perhaps I misjudged you. I've just had so much betrayal already from Gulbrand secretly siding with Sylvi and Eeira being a wolf in sheep's clothing, that I don't know who to believe anymore."

Thorne then reached out and placed his hand on mine, making me look into his eyes.

"You don't have to worry about my loyalty, Eerika. As much as you get on my nerves with your sassy ass, I would never deny or defy you. You're going to be my queen, after all. I can't imagine what you'll be able to do to me then if I ever were to cross you. You remind me of my sister a lot in that way. She used to pinch me by the ear when she was mad to make me listen to her."

I laughed a little, smirking at him. "Well I might have to start doing that so you'll do what I tell you."

The room grew silent once more and I stared at the flickering candelabra flames until Thorne spoke again.

"So is the plan set then? As I said I'll agree with whatever you decide. But I seriously think this could work, Eerika."

I turned my gaze back to Thorne, biting my lip to keep the tears at bay that were coming up from fear. "I can't lose him again, Thorne. If this doesn't work-"

"Then we'll find another way," he said. "As long as my heart's still beating, I won't stop fighting to bring him back. I promise you, Princess."

Once more I wanted to believe him. But promises were always such a fickle thing. One minute they were made, then the next they were just as easily broken. I had learned that from Calder. He promised he wouldn't leave me, yet he did. I just had to hope with every ounce of trust in me that Thorne's promises weren't as empty.

I swallowed down the lump in my throat and nodded, and decided to leave the conversation at that before my anxiety took over.

"Well, I think we better both get some sleep," I said, standing from the bed. "No more drinking tonight, please. I need you sharp and ready these next two days."

Thorne smiled lazily, his intoxication back to bubbling through his mind. "Got it."

I gave one final nod and said goodnight, exiting the room as Thorne immediately passed out on the bed. Leaning against the closed door I took in a deep breath and let it out, writhing my shaking hands together.

This was it. I was all in now, and I couldn't turn back. In two days Thorne would attempt to save Calder's life, and I would risk mine under Sylvi's impending attack, both blindfolded. We were driving straight into the eye of the coming storm, and I didn't know who or if anyone was going to make it out alive.