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The curse clawed up Celestyna’s arms and neck like a yowling cat.

Wrong.

Queens don’t cry.

You weakling.

You embarrassment!

But Celestyna ignored the sharp angry shift of blood and muscles along her cheekbones. Like something gnawing, reshaping her. Like something ready to erupt.

She buried her face in her sister’s neck, and for the first time in her life, when she cried, she did not feel ashamed.

.41.

The Sweep and the Cub

As Noro plunged into the Break, Thorn clenched every muscle in her body, waiting for the crash.

But when his hooves at last touched some kind of ground, it was with a landing only slightly heavier than if he had jumped over a hedge.

In the absolute choking darkness of the Break, Noro sighed happily. “I suppose I can jump safely into a chasm after all. Remind me to gloat to the others, when we’re home at last.”

If we get home at all,replied Thorn’s mind, but she saidnothing aloud. She couldn’t have even if she’d wanted to. The darkness of the Break was so thick she inhaled it. Hot and scratchy, it clung to the walls of her throat.

The only light came from the faint glow of Noro’s horn. Thorn stared at her fingers, tangled in his mane. She considered apologizing to him for the things she’d said as they fled the queen’s castle.

Instead she whispered, “Start walking, Noro,” and hoped he wouldn’t ask her if she truly thought him a coward.

He didn’t.

He obeyed in silence, moving slowly through the whispering dark. Every few seconds, a movement through the darkness, a whisper of touch against her skin, made her look around frantically for monsters.

But she could see nothing.

Noro was taking a strange path—walking in a steady straight line for a few paces, then darting quickly to the left, ducking his head, cutting fast back to the right.

Thorn’s skin tingled. She longed to scratch herself, brush off the feeling of tiny legs skittering up her arms. Something was near them. The Thorn-shaped shell living under her skin pulsed outward, as if longing to break free of her flesh.

“What are you running from?” Thorn whispered. “What do you see?”

“I’m not sure you want to know,” Noro replied. “I’m not sureIknow.”

Neither of them spoke the words, but Thorn certainly thought them:the darkness that now lives inside me.

A tiny glimmer of light winked in the gloom.

Thorn’s throat clenched around her breath.Zaf?

“Noro,” she whispered.

“I see it!” He bounded toward it, leaping over what must have been gorges in the stone under their feet, breaks of ground too dark for Thorn to make sense of.

She watched the glimmer of light grow larger, could almost make out the shape ofsomethingstanding beside it.

But then the light vanished. The air in front of Thorn’s face changed. Darker than the darkness. Scorching and stinking.

Noro reared up, turned sharply left to avoid crashing into thethingthat now stood between them and the tiny glimmering light. Thorn yelped in surprise, and then a roar boomed. Reeking hot air blasted her face.