Page 20 of Thorn Season (Thorn Season #1)

I kept my expression hard. If he wanted to believe I’d known about the dullroot glasses, I wouldn’t correct him.

“So, you’re an ambassador as well as a kidnapper,” I said.

“Actually, just an ambassador. That was my first kidnapping.”

“Mine too.”

I waited for him to squirm under my glare. It took longer than expected.

“I have no further dealings with the Capewells,” he said. “My business in Daradon is now strictly political.”

“I should take your word for it?”

“Not if you don’t want to. But... I doubt you would’ve ventured here alone if you feared for your safety.”

“Perhaps I’m carrying a weapon.”

Keil looked me over again, wind rippling his shirt. Without the leather armor, I could make out every hard, streamlined muscle of his torso, and I suddenly wondered which version of him I liked best—

I jolted, flushing at the direction of my thoughts.

This Wielder had brought me nothing but chaos. The best version of him was the version that existed far away from me.

Then he said, quietly, “After our first encounter, I wouldn’t blame you.”

And the memory surfaced—Keil’s hands, trembling toward that wagon. My question slipped out: “Who was it?”

His brow furrowed.

I clarified more gently, “Who did they steal from you?”

He drew upright. His lips parted, but no words emerged. No witty reply or flippant comment.

Though I couldn’t lament my kidnapping, for the Capewells would’ve slaughtered those prisoners without Keil’s intervention, I couldn’t help myself from lamenting my first encounter with Wielders. Or from harboring a knot of resentment toward the people who should’ve been my allies.

But now, seeing the deep pain alongside Keil’s remorse... that knot loosened.

Then he murmured, “My sister.” And the knot unraveled entirely.

This was why Keil hadn’t risked targeting Capewell Manor himself. Not because he was a coward. But because he would’ve been risking her life alongside his own.

“Is she—?”

“Alive, yes. But... they’d had her for a month.”

I caught his dark meaning, and clasped my quivering hands. Before I’d known what he’d traded for my freedom—before I’d understood Father’s share of the blame—I’d said Keil had deserved whatever the Capewells had done.

I now regretted those words.

Because the Capewells had tortured Keil’s sister for a month.

He cleared his throat, returning from the depth of his emotion, and I forced myself to return with him. To file down this shard of guilt and lay it beside the rest.

“My empress,” he said, “was already looking to improve Daradonian relations when news arrived of my sister’s capture. We extended a request to your king so I could journey here under diplomatic immunity.”

I pieced the information into the story Garret had told me—and noted, too, Keil’s tone when speaking about the notoriously callous empress: strangely easy and familiar, without a drop of fear or unease.

“And Erik knowingly allowed a Wielder into his home?” I asked.

“It was my empress’s request. Knowing Daradon’s treatment of Wielders, she considered it a test of good faith. Your king agreed under the condition that I wouldn’t Wield within his walls.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “And did you not understand the demand, or do you simply lack self-restraint?”

Keil’s lips twitched, that mischief returning. “If your king understood Wielders, he wouldn’t have made such a request. To Wield is to breathe. Locking a specter away would be like going through life holding your breath.”

The words reminded me of an account I’d sneakily read in one of Father’s textbooks.

Owing to a specter’s natural tendency to stretch into the open, there was allegedly a time in history when specters constantly ebbed like tidal water across the surface of a Wielder’s skin—moving as freely and unobtrusively as air flowing in and out of the lungs.

While I’d always experienced the internal, ever-present strain for release, I’d become... familiar with the discomfort. I’d even convinced myself that this idealized history possessed an air of myth.

But hearing that Keil’s experience of Wielding truly resembled the necessary act of breathing , my insides twisted with a bitter yearning I begrudgingly identified as jealousy.

At least I finally understood my kidnappers’ carelessness with their specters. Not all Wielders were born afraid. Because not all Wielders were born criminals.

Then, like the delayed heat of a spice, another question crept over me. “Your sister,” I said, tentative. “She was dwelling in this kingdom?”

Keil must have gathered my true question— Why would any Wielder relocate to Daradon? —because he hesitated. Then he said, smiling, “Ansoran humidity is murder on her hair.”

I narrowed my eyes at the nonanswer. Garret believed that the Ansorans would try to find the compass themselves if they discovered it was missing—that their ruthless empress would want to exploit it in her own bid for power...

But how much did the Ansorans already know?

Pocketing a theory, I slanted my head. “If the king discovered your ulterior motive in coming here, it would put your diplomatic immunity at risk.”

“It would,” Keil said slowly. “But I hadn’t anticipated discovery.”

“Yet here we are.”

“Here we are indeed.”

We assessed each other as the sun sank, its last rays flaring in my eyes. Despite Keil’s easy posture, I knew he could feel the balance of power shifting between us, as invisible but tangible as a specter changing form. Back in the ballroom, I’d given him that taste of exposure for a reason.

To show him we were on my battleground now.

I stepped forward, a dangerous smile pulling my lips. “Go ahead, then. Ask me.”

Keil’s eyes ran over me, faintly wary.

I breathed a little laugh. “Ask me if I’ll reveal that the Ansoran ambassador and his cronies kidnapped the lady Erik plans on marrying.”

Keil’s eyes widened slightly at that last declaration, but he otherwise kept his composure.

“Of course,” he ventured, “I wouldn’t expect something for nothing.”

“My silence”—I adopted a lilting, weighing tone—“in exchange for what? I don’t desire riches.”

“I can’t imagine you would, Lady of the Most Affluent Province in the Kingdom.” He smiled wryly around the faux title, but I wouldn’t coax the words from his mouth. I would wait until he offered them freely.

After a beat, he ambled forward. “A favor, then. That’s the currency at court, isn’t it?”

“A favor ,” I echoed.

“Any favor that is within my power to grant.” He held out his hand, an offer and request, his muscled forearm bridging the gap between us.

I bit my lip as if considering his suggestion. Let him stew for five glorious seconds. Then I spread my serpent smile wide. “Very well, Ambassador. You’ve convinced me.”

I reached out and his hand swallowed mine, as warm as the cocoon of his specter that night in Vereen.

“I hope you’re better at keeping to this agreement,” I said, the breeze ruffling my skirts. “You wouldn’t like making an enemy of me.”

I went to pull away when Keil’s grasp shifted, became that of a gentleman.

My power tingled to the surface again, spreading soft heat within me, as he lifted my hand and paused just shy of his mouth.

“Oh, I think I’d enjoy making an enemy of you, Lady Alissa.

” His voice was low and tempting, his breath tickling my skin.

“What an interesting dance that would be.”

Then he smiled—slow, satisfied—and held my gaze as he pressed a defiant kiss to my knuckles.

As I journeyed back through the palace, my specter humming and my face strangely hot, I wondered if perhaps we’d both won that round.