Page 21 of Thorn Season (Thorn Season #1)

“ B lackmailing an ambassador is the most foolish thing you’ve ever done,” Tari said.

Though I hadn’t exactly agreed to her staying, she’d swept in with a pot of drinking chocolate, sprawled beside my luggage case, and refused to get up.

I was torn; though I didn’t want her involved in my mission, she presented an invaluable comfort in this harsh, foreign place.

Previously occupied by generations of Paines, my chambers glistened with marble and polished silver, each cushion on the canopy bed perfectly plumped, each curtain pleated in crisp white lines. I’d been so nervous about spilling the drinking chocolate that I’d gulped it still scalding.

Now I transferred my garments into the dresser drawers, throat fuzzy from the burn. “Don’t be absurd. I’ve done far more foolish things. Besides, it’s not blackmail. It’s an agreement.”

“Agreements don’t have threats attached.”

“I have no desire to reveal Keil’s secrets, but it can’t hurt to have him in my debt—especially if he’s after the compass.”

Tari propped up on her elbows. “You really think his sister came here to investigate the increase in Huntings?”

“I don’t think she came for the lemon cakes,” I muttered.

“She could’ve been fleeing her country.”

“A Wielder fleeing from Ansora to Daradon?”

“It’s possible.” A grim smile. “Even Wielder-tolerant nations have their drawbacks.”

Tari would know. Bormia, a small, peaceful nation on the other side of Orren, had mounted little defense when the Orrenish began sending scouts across the border, seeking mercenaries for their war on Wielders.

Tari’s father had been a renowned blacksmith, famed for his artistry with eurium, a rare, iridescent metal notoriously difficult to forge—and also the most damaging to specters.

Eurium pierced so deep into the spectral muscle that Wielders were left incapacitated as their specters struggled to heal, making the blades invaluable in Wielder warfare.

Knowing his talent would attract Orrenish attention, Tari’s father had painstakingly acquired passage to Daradon, where he and his family may be labeled as sympathizers, but at least wouldn’t be targeted by Orrenish scouts.

I’d been deteriorating from blueneck fever at the time, so delirious that my specter had pulsed freely around me; when Father had heard of a Bormian physician who’d entered Daradon, he’d ridden through a snowstorm to beg her aid.

Having treated Wielders in Bormia, Tari’s mother, Jala Dehrin, hardly acknowledged my specter. And when I woke to the sharp attention of her willowy daughter, Tari had grinned and said, That’s nothing. I once saw a Wielder juggle shoes in his sleep.

“It’s not the same,” I said now, folding away a nightdress. “The seas around Ansora are rife with warfare. Keil’s sister couldn’t have journeyed here without a vessel equipped to withstand conflict. A vessel perhaps issued by the Ansoran empress herself.”

Tari’s mouth bunched to the side. “Isn’t this the empress who imprisoned her predecessor’s grandchildren so they wouldn’t threaten her rule? Would Keil really hand the compass to someone so... cruel ?”

“I don’t know anything about Keil,” I said, even as I remembered the feel of his specter around my hand today.

The confident, thrumming power contrasted with the gentleness of his pull.

“But if the empress really sanctioned the mission to save his sister, I’m guessing his sense of duty toward her outweighs his knowledge of her cruelty. ”

Tari was frowning, seemingly unconvinced, just as a knock sounded. Her expression brightened, and she darted to the lounge. “Maybe that’s the princess!”

The outer door whined open to silence. I was smiling at the memory of Tari blushing after Carmen had called her “peach” when I noticed two hematite stones tucked into my case.

Emotion thickened my throat. Amarie must’ve stowed these in my luggage, a tribute to the gods of protection.

Daradonian religion revolved around duality, with each pair of gods balancing the weight of power like two pillars supporting a roof.

Ever since that miserable tutor had frightened me with the idea that Wielder spirits were shackled to this realm, I’d felt ambivalent toward religion.

But Amarie, who lit two protection candles in the foyer every night, taught me that even a single set of beliefs could be widely interpreted.

Some might believe that Wielders have no place in the next realm , she’d said. But don’t the gods have power too? How, then, are they different from Wielders?

The gods carry power in pairs , I’d said.

And you carry it alone. She’d cupped my cheek with a proud, maternal smile. Perhaps, then, Wielders have the strength to bear more than the gods themselves.

Now I remembered how she’d sobbed to the gods of protection during my kidnapping.

How she’d darted between me and Goren, trembling yet determined.

And I suddenly regretted my coldness before leaving home—refusing her help with my wounded palm, taking my dinners alone.

All because Amarie was the only person Father had trusted with his secret.

So in her honor, I set one hematite stone on the dresser and turned to place the other at the opposite end of my bedchamber.

Then my door whooshed open, and I stumbled. The stone clattered under my bed.

“What is she doing here?” Garret sliced a path inside, bladelike, his expression livid. “If she’s discovered as an imposter—”

Tari gasped, storming after him with hands on her hips. “I got this job legitimately.” I cast her a look, and she added, “Well, mostly legitimately.”

“This isn’t a game,” Garret snapped. “If you draw attention—”

“ Attention? You’re the one who traipsed in like a bruised potato.” She gestured to his face. “How did you explain those?”

“A mugging gone wrong.”

“What did they steal? Your self-respect? Oh, wait,” she deadpanned. “You don’t have any.”

His nostrils flared, his composure unraveling in a rare return to his childhood self.

Tari and Garret had always coexisted on the precipice of conflict, even during that window of youth when I’d been the chain binding them together.

He cheats at every game , she’d said.

So do you , I’d replied.

Yes, but I always confess. He won’t admit it until someone catches him out.

Now Tari surveyed him with unflinching disgust. He may have been a Hunter—but to her, he would always be the slippery little boy who never played fair.

The problem was: That boy now carried weapons. And from his dark expression, he was considering how best to use them.

“Sit down, Garret,” I said, drawing his glare off Tari. “Your tantrum can wait.”

His eyes narrowed with a hint of betrayal—the same look he used to give me whenever I’d taken Tari’s side in a fight.

Tari scoffed, plonking back onto the bed. My luggage case bounced with the movement.

Garret glanced at the open case, and color rushed up his neck. He looked quickly away from my undergarments, his scowl deepening. “Don’t they send people to unpack for you?”

I buried the undergarments, more for his sensitivities than for mine, then I retrieved the silver key from a side pocket and tossed it onto the bed. “I didn’t want anyone going through my things.”

He looked toward the rose-engraved key I’d taken with me from Capewell Manor. The key that had been found near Wray’s body, linking his death to a courtier.

This hallway still bustled with too much activity to attempt testing the key. For now, I’d have to settle for gory details.

“How, exactly, was Wray killed?” I asked as the last red bloom faded from Garret’s skin.

“Two knife wounds.” He sat rigidly on the vanity stool. “One in the stomach, one across the throat. The killer took the weapon and left Wray’s body atop a drainage gutter so the blood wouldn’t seep into the street. He wasn’t found until hours later.”

Though I hadn’t been fond of Wray, I shuddered at his gruesome end.

“The person must have been strong,” Tari offered, “to have bested a Hunter in combat.”

Garret looked scornfully toward her. “You think my father was taken down by one person? It would’ve been an ambush. The killer must have had others working for them, even then.”

I paused, hand in the dresser. I’d never heard Garret call Wray his father ; they’d always seemed so indifferent toward each other. But Wray had been Garret’s main guardian from infancy.

Perhaps Garret wanted to find Wray’s murderer for more reason than one.

“You said Wray was acting strangely,” I said, “like he’d traveled to Henthorn that night for a secret meeting. Did he have any court connections?”

“None he’d mentioned, even to Briar.”

Tari said acidly, “So, the keeper of the compass could be sleeping next door to Alissa and we wouldn’t even know. Doesn’t that bother you?”

“Quite a few things are bothering me right now.” Garret spoke between his teeth. “Would you like to know where you rank?” He looked her over, lip curling. “What are you even doing here? You couldn’t play sidekick for anyone else, so you had to follow Alissa to court?”

Tari’s cheeks darkened with anger and a tinge of humiliation. Though he’d jabbed blindly, Garret had happened to strike a raw nerve.

Tari was proud of the life her parents had carved out for her in Vereen, where she spent mornings learning at her mother’s clinic and evenings cooking dinner with her father. But she sometimes felt like she’d been swept away by the tide of their routine, into a life she’d had no hand in shaping.

Recently, she’d suffered a self-inflicted pressure to find her calling. Had harbored doubt that she would stamp her mark on this kingdom the way she wanted to.

Hearing her purpose reduced to sidekick must have burned like a wasp sting.

But although I wanted to eviscerate Garret for the remark, I bit my tongue. If I revealed her vulnerabilities, he would learn to use them as ammunition.

It was Tari who sneered back at him, holding her own, “After that stunt Erik pulled with dullroot, you should be glad someone’s looking out for Alissa.”

Garret faltered. He looked toward me. “What happened?”

“Erik’s idea of a good time.” I began folding away a pair of short silk gloves, then, on second thought, left them atop the dresser. “Dullroot on the glasses.”

Garret sat up, startled. “Did you touch—?”

“Would I be alive right now if I had?”

His forehead puckered, forming a little crease of concern.

Even Erik must have doubted the Ansorans’ good intentions. If they truly sensed something amiss in our kingdom—if they were gauging Daradon’s strength—then those dullroot glasses had been Erik’s answer. No—they’d been his warning .

Perhaps the first of many.

“You still think court is the safest place for me?” I asked tartly.

Garret’s face hardened again, and I was glad to have sealed that crack of worry. It was easier to hate him when he looked like this.

“Yes,” he maintained. “I don’t think the keeper would bring the compass within Erik’s reach. Besides, the copycats have never Hunted at the palace.”

“Maybe no Wielders are stupid enough to live here,” Tari muttered.

Garret acted as though she hadn’t spoken—a habit he’d carried over from childhood—and turned to me. “You still need to move fast. With every Hunting—” He broke off. Inhaled through his nose. “You become more at risk,” he finished.

But he’d seemed close to saying something else.

I was about to press him when he added, inexpressive, “They struck again last night, in Creak.”

A chill gripped me.

After almost touching those dullroot glasses, I’d questioned whether staying at court was worth the danger. But even in the ear-ringing aftermath, I hadn’t come close to leaving. Because with the way these Huntings were accumulating, it wasn’t just my own life at risk.

“This is their shortest interval yet,” Tari said, alarmed. “The Hunting on the Jacomb estate only happened a few days ago.”

Garret wavered. Then he said, with reluctance, “The copycats didn’t target the Jacomb estate.”

At first, I didn’t understand. Then Garret’s words from Capewell Manor drifted back to me. Briar was called away on business tonight.

The night two dozen Wielders had been Hunted on the Jacomb estate.

My stomach churned.

I’d foolishly assumed—no, I’d wanted to think —the copycats had orchestrated that mass Hunting. Because if the Capewells had targeted those Wielders without the compass...

“Your father didn’t turn them in,” Garret said, yanking me from sinister thoughts. And though it was still awful— heinous —I felt impossibly relieved that Father hadn’t sentenced those two dozen staff members to death.

“A citizen had started talking,” Garret continued, speaking low.

“He used to work at the Jacomb estate. He saw plates arrange themselves in the kitchens, wheelbarrows drifting uphill with nobody to push them. The stories reached court. Erik couldn’t let the rumors fester without taking action, especially with the ambassador arriving.

So, he ordered us to deal with it. There may have been twenty Wielders among the group, or two. ..”

“But you didn’t have the compass to separate Wielders from Wholeborns,” I finished darkly. “So, you killed them all.”

“I wasn’t part of that Hunting group, but yes. The employees were rounded up that night and executed the next day. Their deaths were quick,” he added, as if that made it better. As if the Capewells hadn’t tortured Keil’s sister for a month.

Garret had claimed that the Capewells were the kinder of two evils, and I’d selfishly wanted to believe him. I’d wanted to believe that Father’s actions had yielded death without violence. That Garret, in his twisted way, had been merciful with his blade.

But now, realizing that if Keil had kidnapped me one day later, he could’ve saved two dozen Wielders from the Capewells’ hold... I felt myself buckling under the terrible weight of grief.

I wondered if this was how Father felt all the time.

“This is Daradon,” Garret said, devoid of feeling. “Wielders will always have to die. Find the compass first, and you won’t have to be one of them.”

Then he stood, grimacing at whatever injury must have still been plaguing him. I hoped it hurt like hell.

“We’ll schedule a date to review your progress.” With a glare at Tari, he added, “Don’t get her caught.”

Tari made a rude gesture at his back. As he slammed my door, I did the same.