Page 12 of Thorn Season (Thorn Season #1)

G arret’s face was darkly splotched and swollen, one eye nearly sealed shut.

He held the reins rigidly, wincing as the seat jostled.

Even after Briar’s attack ten years ago, I’d never seen him so battered.

And though this was a fraction of the suffering he’d brought to countless Wielders—the suffering he could easily inflict upon me —my specter rushed up, ready to reach for him.

To lay itself like a poultice against his tender skin as if to draw his pain away.

Garret’s cargo creaked to a stop and he unseated, his blazer drifting open. Double holsters sat tucked against his ribs, knife hilts angled for easy reach. Armed , as Osana had said—but she hadn’t been talking about Father.

Dread seeped into me as Garret faced us. Why isn’t Father here?

Keil stepped forward and the air grew charged. “You are not Lord Heron,” he said, his voice harsher than I’d heard it yet.

Garret gave him a bleak look. “You’re astute.”

“Where is he?” I asked, heart rate climbing. If Briar had caught him at Capewell Manor—if she’d hurt him because of whatever these Wielders had demanded—

“I told him to stay behind,” Garret said. My knot of worry tightened.

“He wouldn’t have agreed to that.”

“He didn’t have a choice.”

“Why not?” I pressed.

Garret cocked his head at Keil. “Do you let all your hostages lead their own ransom exchanges?”

“Answer the question,” Keil ordered.

Garret released a strained, impatient breath. “Heron complied because he couldn’t have accessed what you wanted without my help. How fortunate, then, that your acquaintances left me so generously intact.”

Keil folded his arms. Even Lye tensed beside me.

Then Garret hissed as his blazer flapped wide. His knives scraped from their holsters and thudded to the grass. His waistcoat buttons popped open; his trousers rippled; his silk pockets turned out.

By the time Keil’s specter finished disarming him, a scattering of weapons encircled Garret’s feet, each blade a bright shard in the moonlight.

Garret raised his scarred eyebrow. “Satisfied?”

“Not nearly,” said Keil.

My temper spiked. While they were out-posturing each other, Father awaited my return.

“This is ridiculous.” I bunched my skirts and marched forward, shoes sinking into the grass.

I made it five feet before rebounding off Keil’s specter.

The sensation was so shocking—sending tingles across my skin—that I almost didn’t notice Osana and Dashiel shooting ahead of me. They skimmed around Garret, opened the wagon, and climbed inside. Dust swirled out in a flash of lantern light before the doors slammed shut.

My specter pulsated near the surface as Keil slunk beside me, his hood rippling in the breeze. He’d claimed the Capewells had stolen something from him; judging by the wagon size, it had to be some kind of weapon.

I couldn’t imagine the depth of Father’s terror tonight—and all for a weapon ?

I went to bite out the accusation when I noticed that Keil’s eyes had gone distant on the wagon. His fists contracted; his shoulders rolled. Was he... nervous?

Slowly, with my unbandaged hand, I reached in front of me. Keil and I jolted at the same time—him, at my unexpected touch. And me, as I met with his specter.

Having encountered various Wielders in Bormia, Tari once told me that specters weren’t equal in strength.

Some were as thin as organza—a film of power, comparable to a weak muscle.

Others rippled with force, far mightier than any corporeal limb.

My initial contact with Keil’s specter had stunned me out of proper awareness.

But now, I knew undoubtedly that his specter belonged in the latter category.

I could feel his energy within its contours, pulsing with a wild heartbeat, humming with inhuman strength. I drove forward cautiously, testing the resistance—the tensed spectral muscle barring my way.

Its rhythm flickered. Hesitated. Then I gasped softly as the power reshaped, molding like clay around my fingers.

Keil was reducing its solidity to allow me access.

He must have been watching me now—confused, curious—because the thrum of his specter slowed, the ripples lapping against me with a searching intent.

Being more accustomed to Wielding slim, sinuous tendrils that flowed unnoticed through the world, I rarely stretched my power this way. It was magnificent... beautiful .

My own specter strained, aching to break the surface.

The wagon door thwacked open, and my head snapped up. Keil’s specter began peeling away.

No . I automatically grasped, clenching for a final touch. At my reaction, Keil paused. His specter enveloped my hand again, thin and uncertain, then pulsed gently against my fingers before threading past them in silent farewell.

I touched empty air and lingered, hollowed by a deep sadness.

Then the moment returned to me, as cold as the nipping wind.

Garret was looking grimly toward the vacant space I’d been exploring. But beside him, Dashiel was emerging from the wagon alone, moving stiffly as he closed the doors.

Something was wrong.

“He’s short,” Dashiel said, unleashing the wagon from Garret’s horse. “By many.”

I recognized Garret’s too-fast blink, that slight straining of his neck. He was suddenly unnerved.

“Where are the rest, Capewell?” Keil demanded.

“I emptied the hold, as you asked.” Garret’s voice remained deceivingly calm. “We don’t tend to... store our acquisitions. You were lucky we kept these for so long.”

Dashiel stiffened further. “Lucky?”

I frowned toward the wagon doors—toward that hazy strip of light pouring from between them. How many somethings had the Capewells stolen, exactly?

“He’s lying,” Goren snapped from behind.

“Why should it benefit me to lie?” Garret asked. “Or to withhold from you that which I have no desire to keep?” He jerked his chin toward the wagon. “There are five there. Surely you found the one among them you really wanted.”

Keil held his breath, waiting. Dashiel gave a hard nod, and Keil’s chest deflated.

The reaction unsettled me.

“Well, then.” Garret smoothed his blazer. “I’ve relinquished all I can. I suggest you let that be enough, since you can’t relinquish a fraction of your leverage.”

“Is that a challenge?” Goren’s rough voice preceded the whoosh of his axe-flip.

Garret stared over my shoulder, his expression bored. Cold. “If you wanted to hurt her, you would have already. You wish to do so now, out of spite?” He smiled—a bruised, skin-splitting smile—and met my gaze as he said, “Go ahead.”

I hated myself for flinching. I hated him more for having seen it.

Garret may have fought for me in the parlor, but he’d emerged unchanged—as ruthless as he’d been for the past seven years.

“No?” he probed when the Wielders made no move against me. “Then kindly relieve us all of each other’s company. This has wasted enough of my time.”

Wind whistled through the silence, my specter flaring with each shallow breath.

Finally, Keil turned toward me. He reached into his pocket, and Garret tensed in my periphery.

Then Keil withdrew his hand. My hairpins shone in his palm.

“Goodbye, Lady Alissa,” he said quietly. His lashes fanned low, skimming the top edge of his mask. “I pray that you can accept my apology.”

I held his gaze, struggling to decipher the heavy meaning in his eyes. I gathered the hairpins, and Keil’s hand twitched when my fingers grazed his palm.

Pocketing the pins, I saw Garret drag his narrowed stare between us. My face flamed inexplicably as I crunched forward again.

My breathing heaved loud in my ears, and I entered that slant of foggy light oozing from the wagon—

And my specter lurched, rocking me back a step.

Goose bumps rushed up my arms.

My hand trembled into the light, dust freckling my fingertips. I crumbled the specks against my thumb, then hissed quietly at the writhe of my specter. At the deep, internal coiling as it raced from the surface. It had reacted the same way this morning, to the same strange dust in Marge’s lounge.

Horror sank through my bones as I finally realized why.

This wasn’t dust. It was ash . An ash that specters couldn’t bear to touch—it felt vile, wrong —because it was a product of the only poison that could stifle a specter’s power.

The ash of burnt dullroot.

“Oh, gods.” My words wobbled on an exhale. Because there was only one reason why this wagon would contain dullroot.

“Walk, Alissa,” Garret said, glaring at me. “Now.”

He drew the word out, chilling and thawing me all at once. But rather than stepping toward Garret, I stepped sideways. Toward the wagon.

“You don’t want to do that,” he said, now with a tinge of sympathy.

He was right. I didn’t want to witness this atrocity firsthand. I didn’t want to bear my kidnappers’ grief alongside my own. But it wasn’t just morbid compulsion driving me. It was guilt.

Something was stolen from me , Keil had said. Not something. Some one .

There were Wielder prisoners inside this wagon.

My specter was pumping wildly now, a second heartbeat against my ribs, and I couldn’t keep from turning, from reaching toward the doors—

Garret’s hand enclosed my wrist. “Let’s go.”

“Don’t touch me,” I snarled, trying to yank away. But he caught my other arm. Leaned over me.

“Don’t do this,” he murmured. “Not in front of them.”

I barely understood him. I only knew that my specter was wringing me from the inside out, and this Hunter was still touching me —

“You want to get back to your father?” The words lashed me, drawing me taut in his hold. He said slowly, with a look so dark that my stomach clenched, “Then let’s go .”

My pulse hammered in my throat, a wild drumbeat urging me in split directions. I glanced toward my kidnappers, who watched Garret with barely restrained fury; toward Keil, whose particular gaze had darkened on Garret’s grip around my arm; and finally, toward the wagon.

Toward the Wielders who’d been imprisoned for the crime I committed every day.

Sorrow gnawed at me, my specter squirming to the point of pain. But I tightened my internal fist around it. Garret knew me better than he had the right to.

He knew I would always choose my father.

In the midst of the thick, heaving hostility, Garret retrieved his weapons and I mounted his steed, the crunch and rustle of my gown obscenely loud. Before I could adjust the puff of satin, Garret mounted behind me, trapping my skirts under him.

The motion tugged me back against his body, and we both tensed at the abrupt closeness. His holsters bracketed my ribs, knife hilts skimming me with every movement. I heard his tight swallow as he encircled me, arms hovering awkwardly to avoid leaning on my thighs. Then he snapped the reins.

My hands trembled as we moved off, and I looked over Garret’s arm for a last glance of the only Wielders I would ever meet. Keil was already reaching for the wagon doors—for the prisoner he’d so desperately wanted to retrieve from Capewell Manor.

My chest panged with the next lurch of the steed.

Keil’s hands were trembling, too.