Page 27 of Thorn Season (Thorn Season #1)

G arret should have been here by now.

My foot tap-tap-tapp ed on the pebble path, the gardens rustling in the chilly night air.

I shivered, still dressed in a sheer turquoise gown.

Though today was Grayday, the day we halted Rose Season celebrations to remember our past monarchs, Erik had insisted on hosting me for a first dinner together.

I’d been so focused on my mask of effortless charm that I’d hardly touched the hot, crispy potatoes or chestnut-stuffed quail.

Similarly occupied during the fruit course, I’d only remembered to eat when Erik had handed me segments of his clementine between his own bites—a seemingly unconscious generosity, and one I hadn’t understood until he’d asked what dish I would prefer next time, since I’d barely eaten tonight’s.

I’d faltered, surprised by his notice. By his concern that I might not feel content or comfortable—and his desire to do something about it.

Then I’d laughed, brushing off his patient attention. I suppose it takes a special man to distract me from my meal.

Erik hadn’t seemed convinced.

Only as I’d left his private chambers, feeling oddly liquid-full, had I realized he’d strategically fed me half the fruit off his own plate.

Frowning at the memory, I tore off my short silk gloves—now constant accessories around Erik—and mentally recapped everything to tell Garret.

I believed Nelle and Carmen had arranged a meeting via the Bolting Box. But with the box now lost, Tari had eagerly offered to monitor Carmen’s movements. Garret wouldn’t like that, but I was more concerned about the pink feather that had undoubtedly alerted Carmen to my presence in her suite.

She’d seemed distant these past few days, and it had produced an acidy guilt in my stomach. I wasn’t yet certain that Nelle had the compass—or that Carmen was involved with the copycats at all—but even in a best-case scenario, I’d potentially ruined our friendship.

Movement whispered between the hedges, and I peered ahead. The pergola lanterns were unlit for Grayday, and black organza draped the windows above, blocking the light from the palace. With the grounds steeped in soupy darkness, it was the ideal night for a meeting.

But no footsteps followed. No cold drift of Garret’s voice.

My specter thrummed, unsettled. Everyone should’ve been indoors for the Grayday tradition of solitary reflection.

Even the staff ran on a bare-bones crew, the guards included; it was one of the reasons we’d chosen tonight, when Garret could enter via the hidden servants’ gate and sneak through to the gardens unobserved.

I ventured forward, skirts snagging on the shrubs.

A crunch , louder this time.

I halted, breaths quickening. I felt eyes on me, closing in like the heat of a flame.

Goose bumps erupted over my skin, and I scrambled into the palace.

My footsteps clapped across marble, candlelight trembling in my wake. I slowed at a wide hall that split off into different corridors. Then—to my left—black organza, rippling.

I shot in the opposite direction, then paused inside a dark alcove to catch my breath.

After three long, quivering minutes, I peeked out.

The halls were empty. The organza hung limp across the windows.

My panic drained, and I began to feel rather stupid. This was the palace, for pity’s sake. The worst thing lurking in these halls was Rupert with a full glass of wine and a long story to tell.

I straightened my skirts, chiding myself, and continued to my chambers at a more reasonable pace.

I would have to send Garret a report tomorrow, because I certainly couldn’t return to those gardens.

Though I’d likely been driven to nervous tatters by nothing more than loud lovemaking nobles, we didn’t need those nobles overhearing our conversation.

I sagged into my chambers, leaning back against the door. I blinked, adjusting to the dimness, then crossed into the bedchamber.

A wave of nausea hit me.

Thorned roses overflowed from a vase on the vanity, filling the room with their fresh scent. Erik must have sent them up after our dinner. I brought my wrist to my nose, but the night air had blown off my perfume.

My head began to throb. I’d rather sleep in the lounge than handle the roses tonight.

I was plodding out when shadows stirred beside the dresser, and I snapped my head around. A silver-tipped boot peeked from the darkness. The boot of a palace guard.

I frowned, voice sharpening. “You shouldn’t be here—”

My words hitched as that boot stepped forward to reveal strong, leather-clad legs and a heavy torso. Black hair fell around the man’s snarling face.

“Stop your search,” he said.

I gulped, pulse pounding in my throat. “How did you get in here?” But I already knew. This man must have stolen those boots—a whole uniform, probably—to walk these halls unnoticed.

Because he was certainly not a guard.

“Stop your search.” His hands rested on twin knives, one sheathed at each hip. “We won’t warn you again.”

“ We? ” I echoed. “Who are you?”

He smiled viciously, shifting between his feet. Metal glinted below my eyeline, and I felt the floor tip as I looked slowly down. Toward the steel canister sheathed at his thigh.

With bright, blazing horror, I realized I hadn’t been followed through those halls. I’d been steered through them.

So I would end up back here.

“You killed Marge,” I whispered, my specter trembling. “Didn’t you?”

He unsheathed a knife, its handle glaring bone-white. He pointed the blade at me. “You’ll stop your search, or you will join her. Do you understand?”

I could hardly hear him over the roaring in my head, over my own harsh breathing. The blood-spatter on Marge’s floor, her abandoned mug, her tooth —

The man started toward me. “Do you understand?”

I whipped around, ready to bolt, when his rough hand fisted in my hair.

I cried out, eyes watering. I staggered back against him.

“I asked you,” he growled with another sharp tug on my hair, “a question.”

My specter nettled at the pain, but I leashed it tight. That canister would produce enough dullroot to choke my specter. If he hadn’t deployed it, he didn’t know I was a Wielder.

I couldn’t let him find out.

In a rush of panic, I scrambled behind me to where his second knife was still sheathed. I drew the weapon and thrust back—blindly.

The blade met resistance.

The man bellowed, tossing me aside so hard that my neck whipped up-down . I lost the knife and side-smacked the vanity, biting my tongue. The vase wobbled—then tipped and shattered, roses showering my arms, my gown, the floor. Their scent lifted and mixed with the coppery taste of blood.

Nausea threatened to buckle my knees.

The man straightened, leather trousers blood-slicked from where the blade had skimmed his thigh. His eyes leveled on me, and I knew I had to move—to run . But I could only gasp for air against the vanity, the wood digging into my ribs.

“Highborn scum.” He spat on the floor and prowled forward. “Someone needs to teach you a lesson.”

My specter grew frantic, lashing me from the inside out. I tried to scramble upright. If I exposed myself now, the copycats would know what I was. I would never be safe again.

Unless he never got a chance to tell the others.

It would be so easy to wrap my specter around his throat and squeeze. To let my secret die with this brute who’d murdered Marge. His pulse would throb under my hold, quickening then dying out. His lips would turn blue, his eyes white from rolling back.

My breaths rushed out in wet puffs, and I felt myself swaying. Plummeting back toward that day at the Opal, with the crowd and the heat and the roses everywhere—strung and potted and crushed under wooden staffs. Petals tumbling under sunlight, carrying the reek of blood and sweat.

I knew how it would feel to watch a life slip away. I knew it would tear open the wound inside me.

The man’s fist reared back, and I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t end his life before his knuckles landed.

I shrank back just as silver spun in my periphery.

The man roared and pitched forward. We toppled together, limbs tangled. A knife hilt stuck out from his arm.

I whipped my head around, heart hammering—confused, until I saw the sharp outline of a blazer in the dark.

Garret wrenched the man’s weight off me, yanking out the knife in the same movement. The man spun, swinging his fist, and his knuckles whooshed through empty air. Another swing. Another miss. He blinked, as though seeing Garret for the first time.

Garret smiled. Then he attacked.

Where the man was slow and solid, Garret moved like a blade—each dodge precise, each strike deliberate. Boots scuffed the marble; ornaments rattled and smashed.

The man was losing. He knew it. And maybe that was why he hurled himself at Garret in a clumsy, desperate tackle, slamming them both against the wall.

Garret made a pained sound, and I knew it was over.

The man whipped toward me, and I prepared for the blow of his fist. The smash of his boot into my ribs. But he just sneered and staggered out, wounds gushing.

Three seconds later, the lounge door slammed shut.

In the spluttering silence, I vaguely registered Garret struggling to stand.

“Grayday vigils were clogging the streets,” he panted, supporting himself against the dresser. “I was late, and you weren’t in the gardens.” His voice sounded far away, muffled through the ringing in my ears. “We could’ve questioned him. Why didn’t you do anything? Did he use dullroot?”

I blinked numbly.

Garret looked at me then, and he paused at what he saw. I’d landed in the mess of sopping roses and vase shards. Warmth oozed down my lip from where I’d bitten my tongue.

He pushed off the dresser, crystal clinking. His knees bent; his eyes wavered before me. He reached for my face. “You’re bleeding.”

His thumb grazed my mouth, and I flinched. He stilled, palm hovering above my cheek. A smear of my blood darkened the pad of his thumb.

“He’s gone,” Garret said, as if that should stop my trembling. As if an equal threat wasn’t still in the room, breathing hot streams against my face.

I knew the moment he saw the change in me.

His brows drew in tight and his hand lowered, catching the strands of my hair on the way down. He rocked back on his heels, mouth pressed thin. “I won’t hurt you, Alissa.”

“Why not?” I whispered. “You could kill me right now. Just another name crossed off your list.”

His features flickered with hurt and then hardened, his own defenses slamming down. “I’m not Briar.”

“Aren’t you?” I searched his face for the boy I knew.

Only the man stared back. “A quick death. That’s what you offer, isn’t it?

Or is that just for the ones who don’t fight back?

I’ll bet the ones in that wagon fought. Did you torture them yourself before you were forced to free them?

Would you have killed them if—?” I hiccupped on the words. “How many have you killed?”

A bloated silence passed. Dimly, I knew I should’ve felt grateful; Garret had just saved me from a battering.

But instead I felt eggshell-hollow and just as breakable, and all I wanted was to heave until the rose stench emptied out of me.

And here was Garret—the ally who should’ve been my enemy—trying to comfort me.

I thought I’d resigned myself long ago to his role as a Hunter, but watching him battle that man, watching him relish it. .. the full magnitude hit me.

The person who’d once reached for my specter with awe in his eyes had become this murderer, crouched before me. He was right here .

Yet I would never reach him again.

Garret drew a slow breath, then said flatly, “I was fourteen for my first kill. Briar took me into a cell with a Parrian man, handed me a knife, and locked the door behind me. Do you know what the man said? ‘It’s all right, son. Do what you must.’ Would you believe that?

I was holding a blade to his throat, and he spent his last words reassuring me .

Briar heard me crying. She wouldn’t open the door until his blood cooled on my hands. ”

“Stop,” I breathed.

“Why? You wanted to hear it, didn’t you? The tale of how the Big Bad Hunter began slaughtering your people. A child, with a life in his hands.”

“You’re not a child anymore. Who’s forcing you now? Who’s locking you in that cell?”

He shook his head with bitter laughter. “You will never know what this is like.”

“Then explain.”

“Explain what?” he snapped. “That I look into the eyes of every Wielder and see you looking back at me? That I lie awake, replaying each Hunting, because I don’t deserve to sleep?

Don’t you understand?” His voice cracked; his eyes shone tear-bright in the dark.

“This wasn’t supposed to be my life. But if I run from it now, Briar would mark me a traitor.

And she wouldn’t just hurt me. She would hurt everyone I—” The words choked him, and he looked at me with so much spite that it stole my breath.

“Everyone I’ve ever loved,” he finished, harsh, without feeling.

And I understood. A part of me would always hate Garret, but a part of him would hate me, too. Not just for what my father had done in my name—sending him to Briar, putting that first weapon in his hands. Garret hated me because he still loved me, and Briar could use that love against him.

She wasn’t the one locking him in that cell anymore. I was.

“You know better than anyone,” he said, “that we don’t always get to choose what we are.” He sniffed, then went to stand.

My specter shuddered out. And despite the threat he’d once given me, despite the more recent memory of his blade, I touched my power to Garret’s brow.

He inhaled sharply, halting in his crouch. His wide gaze locked onto mine. My specter rippled gently against his eyebrow scar, as faint as fingertips, and I held my breath—waiting for him to cut through it again.

But his throat only bobbed once, twice. He closed his eyes. And slowly, he raised his hand.

Tears scalded my throat as Garret’s fingers brushed my power, the touch strange and new—and yet as ancient as the pained lines across his forehead.

My specter flickered faster, fraying thin with my desperate hope, and I stretched it across Garret’s jaw in an embrace.

“I believe that you are good,” I whispered.

His eyes shut tighter, lashes swallowed by the squeeze. He turned his face into my touch until the shimmering edges lapped against his mouth. For three delicate seconds, his breath trembled across my power.

Then his eyes quivered open. Fixed distantly away.

“One of us should,” he said.

He left my specter curled in the air as he withdrew from its touch, stood, and left.