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Thorn looked up, searching for the thin white line that marked the mouth of the Break.

She found it, at last—so narrow and distant it could have been a single white hair drifting in a black sea.

She squeezed her eyes shut. “Go, Cub!”

With a grunt, Cub reared back, flung out his huge hairy arm, and let them fly.

.42.

The Shimmering Spoon

Noro carried Thorn swiftly up the winding switchback trail they’d traveled down only two short weeks before. The path quaked under Noro’s hooves, the cliffs of Westlin shedding dust and dirt like falling snow.

Thorn tried her best to ignore the world crumbling around her. At the top of the trail, the Fall Gate stood open. Someone had seen them coming. Crowds of people lined the streets of Aeria. They whispered and pointed. They wondered and stared. A little girl with brown skin clung to her mother, her eyes wide as coins. A pale old man wrung his hat in his hands.

With their whispers buzzing in her ears, Thorn wished she hadn’t convinced her mother to stay behind at the war front.

“Noro,” Thorn whispered, unable to say more.

But Noro seemed to understand. “You’re doing the right thing, Thorn.”

“You don’t sound like you mean it.”

“I do mean it. It’s only that...” His voice sounded older than it ever had. “I wish someone else could do it for you. Someone else couldtellher, at least.”

“I don’t know how the queen will react,” Thorn said for the fiftieth time, because saying the words aloud helped steady her. “She could get angry. And if she’s going to hurt someone, it might as well—”

“Be you?” Noro shook his head and snorted. “Thorn, say that again, and I will drag you right back down to Estar, no matter how many times you call me a coward.”

The curse lining Thorn’s entire small, tired body sizzled like meat on a spit, turning ever blacker. It was somehow less frightening to now think of it as a curse, rather than a hand or a web or a shell that she didn’t understand.

Not that she understood curses, either. But at least it was a thing with a known name—and at least she wasn’t the only one fighting it.

She thought of Cub—his big gentle eyes and his huge rumbling voice—and felt the tiniest bit better.

Noro followed the main road up to Castle Stratiara. Fuzzy-leafed ferns spilled over low stone walls. Thorn inhaled the smell of rain and soft black mud, the fresh green scent of living things and the crisp bite of mountain wind. Vale scents.

Home.

At the moss-capped stone arch that marked the castle’s grand entrance, there was a long gray path of rising shallow steps.

One of the queen’s gray-haired advisers stood beneath the arch, hands clasped at his waist. His shoulders drooped. His pale face was wrinkled and tired.

Thorn shrank a little. She didn’t know this man, and hedidknow the queen. He would not be happy once he heard the news Thorn had to share.

But the curse wrapping up her veins and her bones whispered,Who cares if he’s happy? Plow him down! Are you afraid? You coward! You sniveling lump!

“I am Thorn Skystone,” Thorn declared, her voice shaking. She was tired, and she did not want to do this thing she must do. “I know how to save the Vale.”

A flicker of emotion passed across the adviser’s face. Hestared at the ground for a long moment before motioning up the stairs. “I am Lord Dellier, Thorn Skystone. Come with me.” His gaze flickered to Noro. “Would you wait here, please? I think it might distress the queen to see a unicorn in her castle, given recent events. And... I would like to save her what distress I can. She is... not well.”

Noro stamped one silent, silver hoof. “I will stay with Thorn, thank you very much, and I’d like to see you try and stop me.”

“It’s all right, Noro,” Thorn whispered, sliding off his back. “I don’t think anyone will hurt me.”

So Thorn said. But her heart still pounded as she left Noro standing rigidly at the castle doors and followed Lord Dellier inside.

There were no soldiers in sight, for which Thorn was glad, for she didn’t want to think too hard about Bartos, and how reassuring it would be to have him at her side—his feather cap, his rumpled soldier’s coat.