Page 3 of Thorn Season (Thorn Season #1)
I walked the side streets home, avoiding the bustle-and-haggle of the market, ducking around every corner like the criminal I was. Though Byron had accepted my ugly excuse, Lidia had seen everything, and my steaming indignation was cooling into doubt.
Never show your power , Father had always taught me. Never give them a reason to look. And what had I done? I’d openly vandalized the Hunters’ Mark, then inexplicably conquered a locked door. I may as well have taken the pink Happy Rose Season! banner from the square and waved it above my head.
It had been foolish. Reckless. Yet despite my churning anxiety, I knew it had also been right .
Some believed that the Hunters descended from the legendary Spellmakers of old, the only beings who could sniff out power like bloodhounds—and could even harness certain forms of power to forge indestructible objects.
My father knew the truth. His late mother, a Hunter, had married into nobility, and his inherited title had saved him from having to execute Wielders with the rest of the vast Capewell family.
But though this had made Father an outcast among them—subject to both scorn and envy—he’d still learned how the Hunters truly found their targets.
While the family didn’t possess a drop of Spellmaker blood, they did possess a Spellmade compass.
A compass that pointed to Wielders, separating us from Wholeborns like chaff from grain.
The idea of such an object had always horrified me—but even more so since the rise in Huntings. Was this uptick born of sadistic boredom, or had it been a directive from the young king, wanting to reassert his power? Most importantly: Was the spike going to drop?
I’d implored Father to extract answers from the Capewells, but he’d looked so pained that I hadn’t pressed again.
And now Marge was dead. Slaughtered by the same people who’d sent my father a premature condolence letter during my childhood bout of blueneck fever. The same people who spoke to him as though he wasn’t worth half the space he took up in a room.
Father only tolerated the Capewells so they wouldn’t look in my direction; he believed they wouldn’t think to consult the compass around their own family members without cause.
But if I’d survived this long purely because of the fortune of my blood ties... how could I not use my extra time to wash the hateful mark off Marge’s door?
The ruddy water was drying stiff to my blouse as I gusted into the foyer, inhaling the scent of the sesame biscuits Father toasted every morning.
While Rose Season had ensnared the rest of Vereen, our staff knew to keep our manor rose-free—though they didn’t know why I’d emptied my stomach when a new maid had arranged a vase in my chambers last spring.
To this day, I wouldn’t discuss the root of my aversion.
Wouldn’t explain the dark months when I’d refused to leave my chambers, and the maids had wafted fresh-bread steam under my door just to get me to eat.
Only Amarie knew about the old, rose-infused memory I still couldn’t face; as our house manager and only live-in staff member, she was the only person my father trusted with every secret.
She was also the only person who scolded me like a child.
“I know, I know.” I cringed at my boot-treads as she hurried toward me, her tawny hair jouncing in its bun. “I’ll clean up—”
“Go back out,” she said, hissing and shooing me toward the door.
The wide staircase creaked, and I scrambled backward. Father should’ve been in his study by now.
My hand was on the doorknob when someone said, “Alissa.”
The voice twisted like a knife in my gut.
I hadn’t seen Garret since the increase in Huntings, and I felt too raw for this meeting. Too weary. But when I turned, I knew that despite the vinegar fumes making me smell like a meat marinade, I looked just as composed and aloof as the boy coming down the stairs.
Not a boy anymore , I reminded myself. In a black waistcoat and blazer, his leather shoes polished to a mirror-gleam, Garret Shaw looked every bit the Capewell he’d promised never to become.
Long limbs and sleek edges. A clean shave across his deeply tanned skin.
The only token of his youth was the eight-year-old scar interrupting one eyebrow like a crack in a mask—a souvenir from headbutting a doorknob the night we’d swiped my father’s brandy.
I hated that scar more than any other piece of him. It always reminded me of how hard we’d laughed that night.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, automatically scanning for the weapons he must have been carrying beneath his fine clothes. Weapons he hadn’t yet used against me, despite being the only Hunter who wouldn’t need the compass to know what I was.
I’d made the mistake of telling him myself.
“I had business with your father.” Garret descended the last step and looked me over, that dark eyebrow lifting in cool amusement. “Been swimming?”
“Painting.”
“You don’t paint.”
No—while my father had produced the peacock-colored spray of artwork along the mahogany walls, I could barely draw an apple.
“You don’t do business with my father,” I countered.
Garret’s mouth flattened. Although they’d long ago given up the attempt, the Capewells used to proposition Father to join the Hunters’ service, for the triumph of having him—a ruling lord—under their command. Father had always given the same answer: no.
Garret turned to Amarie, whose eyes flitted nervously between us. “Send word if Heron reconsiders our discussion. Before tonight’s ball.”
“Amarie doesn’t take orders from you,” I said.
“That wasn’t an order.” Garret smiled thinly. “Just a request.”
He slunk toward me, the clasp of his steel bracelet flashing in the sunlight. Even after seven years, I shuddered at the sight of Garret’s oath band.
Though still permissible by Daradonian law, the oath band was deemed archaic; it served as a shackle, only removable by the person to whom the wearer had sworn an oath. And if the wearer broke their oath—or the band—without permission, the law demanded they forfeit their hand from the wrist down.
Garret was the only Hunter who wore one of those bands. Probably because he was the only Hunter who hadn’t been born into the role.
Garret’s birth parents had been killed during the Starling Rebellion, when rogue Wielders had attacked Wholeborns in a gruesome attempt to balance the score of violence.
Wray Capewell, my father’s cousin, had known Garret’s parents well, and he’d raised their orphaned child within the family of Hunters, treating Garret no worse—but certainly no better—than the many young Capewells squalling about Capewell Manor.
Now Garret stopped before me, as flinty-eyed as he’d been for the past seven years—since he’d been sharpened under the whetstone of the Hunters’ influence.
Since he’d chosen them over me.
I refused to shrink back when he reached around me for the door handle. Then, because I could still feel the phantom dint of Marge’s tooth, because I wanted to torture myself with one more reason to despise him, I asked, “Been to town recently?”
Garret paused, his arm outstretched behind me, his severe face inches above mine. His warm breath skimmed my cheek as he said, eyes narrowed, “Not for weeks.”
It was the note of confusion that made me believe him. And though his answer changed nothing between us—though he’d killed countless other Wielders—I felt a stab of relief that he hadn’t been the one to kill my friend.
He looked all the way down me then, and I tensed as his gaze landed on my red-stained fingers. “Mind that nobody sees you,” he said carefully, “when you’re... painting.”
I glowered as he brushed past me, and with a tendril of my specter, I slammed the door behind him.
“You’ll get a rash,” I muttered atop the grand staircase, the heat-and-perfume haze pressing around me.
Father had been scratching his chest for the entire hour-long journey into Henthorn, the capital city. I couldn’t blame him; city visits tested both our nerves. But Father wore his anxiety for all to see.
And courtiers saw everything.
They twirled in a sea of satin below us, music and laughter flowing as freely as the sparkling wine.
Roses coiled up marble pillars and burst like sores between the archways, their petals weeping over the king’s throne.
And above the dais, shimmering in silver, were the symbols representing Daradon’s five provinces: a carp for Avanford; a wheat stalk for Creak; a sword for the soldiers of Parrey; a book for the scholars of Dawning; and in the center of them all, a bejeweled ring for the craftspeople of Vereen.
“At least they have lemon cakes.” I nodded toward the dessert table, where sugared tarts, brandied plums, and pistachio-crusted truffles tumbled from a pastry cornucopia.
But the semolina lemon cakes—my favorite dessert—were a new addition and usually only found at Verenian bakeries.
“How terrible can one night be with a lemon cake in hand?”
“Don’t tempt the gods,” Father grumbled.
“The gods don’t care about lemon cakes. Now stop scratching, and be glad you don’t look like you belong on a plate beside the lemon cakes.”
Father eyed me and cringed. I’d heaped myself in Henthornian fashion this evening, with puffed pink sleeves hanging low off my shoulders and satiny skirts tenting below my corseted waist. I resembled a walking meringue—and my sweeping updo was the swirl of chocolate cream on top.
“You didn’t have to wear that,” he said.
“And miss the chance to trip over my skirts on the way to the dance floor? I was hoping to take a few centerpieces down with me.”
Father’s mouth barely twitched in amusement.
He seemed especially fretful tonight. While Rose Season manifested at court as the annual social season—during which the nobles indulged in enough gossip, merriment, and rich foods to hibernate over the cooler months—its roots originated from a more formal tradition, which still held strong.