Page 20 of Taste of Thorns

“She is?” I say, gobsmacked.

“I doubt she gets jealous,” Dray adds.

“She does,” I say. “Trust me. The maze wasn’t the only time she’s taken her feelings out on me. It’s only that promise Thorne made her take that’s probably stopped her from skinning me alive.”

“A promise that will have an expiry date,” Beaufort says, glancing at his bond brother, unspoken words passing between them. “What if Bardin is working for the Hardies? What if she attacked Briony on their command?”

“Why would she be working with the Hardies?” I ask in confusion.

“The Hardies come from powerful families – families who would like to overthrow the Empress and take control of the realm. They may have made all sorts of promises to Bardin if she helped them.”

“What?” I say, astounded. The Empress has controlled the realm for as long as I have been alive. In Slate, we’re always told how well loved and adored she is. The thought that anyone would want to overthrow her had never entered my mind. “But what has that got to do with me?”

“You’re our thrall. They might even suspect you mean more to us than that,” he mumbles.

“So?”

“Our allegiance is with the Empress, Kitten,” Dray explains. “Always will be. And we are powerful allies – ones anyone who wanted to overthrow the Empress would need to eliminate.”

I stare at them in disbelief. The Princes are powerful shadow weavers. I knew they had this stupid rivalry with the Hardies, but not one I ever considered would put their lives at risk.

“If these families are plotting against the Empress – and you,” I say, “why doesn’t she have them arrested?”

“She can’t arrest them without solid proof,” Beaufort says. “These are powerful people, powerful families, with allies of their own.”

“You really think Bardin could be working with them?”

“I don’t know,” Beaufort says.

I push my food around my plate with my fork. “I can’t shift this feeling that all of this is connected to my sister’s death.”

“I don’t see how it would be,” Beaufort says.

I huff in frustration. It’s like all the pieces of the puzzle are right there, scattered out in front of me, but I can’t for the life of me work out how they fit together. No matter how hard I look.

“Clare put together this list – the names of powerful shadow weavers who were students here at the academy at the same time as my sister. We think they are the most likely ones who killed her in the,” I grimace, “accident.”

“You remember those names?” Beaufort asks.

I nod. How could I forget them?

“Who was it?” Dray asks.

I list the different names. Beaufort and Dray nod after each one. “Do you know them?” I ask, my voice trembling slightly. Have these three men been friends with the shadow weavers who murdered my sister all along?

“Yes, they are well known shadow weavers back in Onyx,” Beaufort confirms. He must read the horror in my eyes. “We have no connection to them, Briony.”

I let out a sigh of relief. “Are they the same shadow weavers you suspect of wanting to overthrow the Empress?”

“Two of them, yes. The others, I don’t know well enough to discern where their true allegiance lies.”

I sigh a second time. The string that links all these events together – if it exists at all – remains invisible to me.

We sit in silence, mulling over all the new information. Then suddenly Dray jolts like a realization has struck him.

“Bardin is a vampire. Tudor is a vampire,” Dray swings his gaze from me to Beaufort, “ever consider that they could be working together?”

“Fox is on our side,” I say with exasperation.