Page 31 of Thorn Season (Thorn Season #1)

“A gentleman would’ve let me stab him,” I muttered.

Laughter danced in his eyes. “You’re welcome to try again. I’ll even teach you more moves.” The knife suddenly hovered above his palm, held by the specter I couldn’t see. “Well,” he drawled. “Perhaps not all the moves.”

I startled, astounded both by his public Wielding and that he’d released his specter so near to eurium. Keil didn’t share my concern on either front; his posture was relaxed, his expression lazy with harmless mischief.

Envy burned a sudden hole through me, my specter bristling. I’d been leashing my power more forcefully over the last few days, and yet Keil’s indifference—his casual freedom—threatened to erode my self-control.

I drew a sharp breath through my teeth. Resentfully tightened those internal restraints.

“As much as I’d like to gut you”—I captured the knife, jolting when my fingers skimmed his specter—“I’ll have to decline.”

I rebundled the knife, shoved it into my pocket, and marched away.

Keil’s footsteps clipped behind me. “I can walk you back to the palace.”

“Because I’m incapable of walking there myself?”

“I doubt you’re incapable of anything,” he said, a grin in his voice. “But you did look rather distressed when I found you. Does the king know you’re roaming these streets without a guard?”

“The king is not my keeper.”

“Not yet.”

I spun on him. “We’re not at court now, Ambassador. Say what you mean.”

“I merely speak from observation. Your king strikes me as a territorial man. I doubt his bride will be able to wander farther than he allows.”

“He allows you to wander freely.”

“He has no desire to keep me close.”

“Because you would exasperate him to death?”

Keil smiled bleakly, then said with a note of warning, “Because kings only lock up treasures.”

Dread coiled my insides. I didn’t want him to be right, and the force of my denial loosened my tongue. “Perhaps not all rulers are like yours—locking people up like possessions, and taking them out to play when it suits them.”

He slanted his head, deliberating something. Then he said, his tone unreadable, “You’re referring to my empress’s reputation, I assume, in imprisoning the would-be heirs who might threaten her rule.”

“I hear she’s almost as vicious as King Hoyt,” I said, naming the most tyrannical ruler in Daradon’s history—the creator of the Execution Decree.

“Then you’ve been misinformed.” Keil’s grim smile took on a wry twist. “I’m fairly certain she would fillet King Hoyt and feed him to her dogs as a morning snack.”

His brows were slightly raised, as though he expected me to prod him for more. As though he’d posed a riddle, and wanted to drip-feed me the answers just to watch me lap them up.

But his chilling statement had given me all I needed to know about the ruler he served.

So I stomped away. His footsteps followed mine a second later.

The alleys were forking off now; he could’ve branched away at any point.

“I don’t know how it works in your empire, but men who stalk women in Daradon end up with their heads on spikes.”

“What a waste of a perfectly good spike.” Keil overtook my stride and faced me, walking backward as he said, “As lovely as you are, my lady, I didn’t come here for you. I came for them.”

He turned, and I followed him into the busy street. With a start, I realized I’d circled round again to Backplace.

Keil leaned against a brick building to watch the sympathizers. I joined him, trying to see the scene from his perspective: Wholeborns clanking their staffs on the platform, voices high and condemning.

“Sympathizers don’t exist in Ansora,” said Keil, enraptured.

Unable to bear his wistful expression, I asked sourly, “Do you think even half of them truly care about Wielders?”

“They seem angry.”

“Of course they’re angry. Two centuries ago, the mayor of Henthorn tried to incite a rebellion against the Execution Decree and failed.

After King Hoyt executed her for treason, he permanently forbade the appointment of a new leader here and let the city fall into disrepair.

Now the citizens see the palace spires from their windows while their own roofs are leaking.

They smell roses from the royal gardens while their streets are soaked with urine.

Hoyt’s one act of vengeance became a generational punishment. ”

Just like the Execution Decree , I added silently.

I tugged my cloak tighter around me. “These people don’t care about Wielders. They just need a place to spend their anger.”

Keil turned back to the platform in disbelief.

I huffed a bitter laugh. “You look at them and see people willing to fight for you. My perception is not distorted by such biases.”

“Do you only ever look for the worst in people?”

“I don’t usually have to look very hard.”

We remained there a while, listening to the sympathizers’ chants, the street lanterns casting a warm halo around us.

Finally, Keil sighed. “You’re biased, too. Daradon is all you know.”

“And all you know is the happy, golden center of your Sun Empire.”

Because apparently, Orrenish troops used the islands of the Ansoran archipelago to launch attacks on the mainland, creating a gradient of destruction—and leaving the inner districts still untouched by war.

“Hardly,” Keil said, and I raised my brows. He explained, “I did two tours around the archipelago.”

“Of duty?”

“No, of the vineyards.”

I rolled my eyes, then shifted against the bricks. “Were you drafted?”

Keil shook his head. “There is no draft.”

“So, every Ansoran fighting in the Western War... has chosen to fight?”

“Is that so hard to believe?”

I bit my lip, considering. Even in Daradon, we’d heard of the Ansoran soldier—the Wielder war hero—who’d single-handedly defended a narrow pass on one of those islands, saving a Wholeborn town from massacre.

To learn that it wasn’t from obligation, but choice ...

“I spent nearly two years there,” Keil said, faraway with memory. “I saw Wielders fight for Wholeborns, and Wholeborns fight for Wielders. There are no distinctions when the bodies bleed the same.”

No distinctions. It was a foreign concept to me.

I looked to the sympathizers again, their eyes flaring with righteous anger—burning brightly for now. But too easily snuffed.

“You won’t find such kinship here. The Wholeborns of Daradon don’t even fight for each other. They would never fight for people like—” I stopped, shocked at how easily the words had nearly slipped out: people like us . “People like you,” I finished, keeping my face blank.

Keil was silent for several seconds. I turned to find him studying me with that same knitted-brow expression I’d seen in the tunnels. Like he wanted to take me apart and hold the pieces to the light.

“Stop that,” I snapped.

His frown deepened. “Stop what?”

I pushed off the wall and strode from Backplace, the knife thumping against my thigh. The ale-soaked citizens gave me a wider berth than usual, so Keil must have been close on my heels, shooting daggers at those who swayed too near.

“I should add that to my list of talents,” he called as the crowds thinned. “The ability to irritate you without saying a word.”

“Don’t flatter yourself. My irritation is reserved for people who actually matter.”

“And what about that wonderful sneer on your lips?” His voice became heavy, teasing. “Is that reserved just for me?”

I scoffed, ignoring the traitorous swoop of my stomach. “Do you have nothing better to do than goad a reaction out of me?”

“I’m doing you a service. I know you relish every opportunity to impale me on your words.”

“You don’t know a thing about me.”

“Oh, you’re not so hard to decipher.”

I whirled, eyes wide. “Is that so?”

Keil prowled closer. “Lady Alissa Paine.” He drew out my name as if to savor the taste. “Intelligent, beautiful, sharp-tongued. It’s no wonder the king wants your hand... A shame, then, that you don’t want his.”

I blinked, then forced a bark of laughter. “That’s what you think you know about me?”

“I told you: I speak from observation.” Keil leaned forward, his honeyed breath tickling my face. “When you mention the king, you clench your jaw. And I see the tiniest flutter right here .” He brushed a fingertip along my temple. Goose bumps rushed up my arms, and I batted him away.

“You’re rather fixated on my prospects,” I said, glad that the cool night air stole the hotness from my cheeks. “Do you spend a lot of time imagining me in a crown?”

His grin was maddening. “Do you want me to?”

I scowled, and his deep laughter sent another spike of heat along my bones.

“And what about you?” I asked. “You think I can’t read you just as easily?”

He canted his head and said, for the second time tonight, “Go ahead.”

Very well, then. I angled back and looked at him—really looked —past the loose stance, the twinkling eyes, the easy confidence. Had he been like this even as a soldier, fighting for people who couldn’t fight for themselves?

No... I’d seen a crack in that light, down in the tunnels—and again, on the palace balcony. A facet of him that contained something deeper than sorrow. Something more like guilt .

“You blame yourself for what happened to your sister,” I said in soft realization, “though the blame isn’t yours to bear.”

Like the slow dying of a flame, Keil’s smile faded. That same shadow crept over his face. He stood silent, strands of gold-brown hair sweeping in the breeze.

When he finally spoke, his voice was pained.

“The empress wouldn’t let me travel here without the shield of diplomatic immunity.

The others made passage first, hoping to stage a rescue.

But I waited until your king approved our request for entry.

I waited those weeks while they—” He stopped, released a juddering breath.

“I don’t know what would’ve happened if I’d arrived sooner, against the empress’s orders.

But if it had made one day of difference. .. one hour...”

He held my gaze with a frankness that made me feel ashamed. Like I was stripping him bare. Or, rather, that he was baring himself —offering a vulnerability I couldn’t reciprocate even if I wanted to.

And despite our silent competition for the compass, despite the fact that he would hand such a valuable device to the empress who’d kept him from his sister... a part of me did want to.

So, I offered in quiet confession, “I didn’t know about the dullroot on those glasses.”

Keil surprised me with a faint, tender smile. “I know.”

My specter fluttered—an echo of my churning emotions—and I had to look away. My gaze landed on a charred patch of cobblestones, and all feeling went out of me.

I hadn’t realized how quiet it had become. How we were the only ones around. Had I known where I was going when I’d stormed from Backplace?

I turned to take it in, a chill creeping down my spine.

The Opal had been modeled after Vereen, set to burst with color and craftwork—the first new capital district in two hundred years.

That made it worse, seeing it like this: dim and grimy, with paint peeling around the shop fronts and rotten wood boarding the windows.

It was how Vereen would look in the wake of disaster.

And the scorch marks beneath that lantern pole, where Erik’s guards had tied the man... Four winters hadn’t washed them away. I could still taste the rancid smoke, still hear the screaming.

Or maybe the screaming had never stopped. Maybe I was still in that crowd, roses grazing my feet, a piece of me tearing away and dissipating like heat rising off the cobblestones—

A touch on my arm—and I jerked, my specter surging. But Keil’s eyes anchored me, his steady warmth blooming across my skin.

“Are you all right?” he asked, brows drawn with concern.

I gulped, waiting for the terror to wash over me. Being here so soon after my attack was like digging a scalpel into a reopened wound.

I nodded and drew back, leaving the Opal on weak legs.

Keil’s solid presence behind me forced me to keep myself together—to focus through my hazy tunnel vision. In the bustling city center, I finally twisted toward him.

His face quickly slackened, and in that moment he didn’t look like a powerful Wielder here to reclaim a coveted Spellmade object for his empress. He looked like a man trying to hide the bemused frown he’d been aiming at my back.

“Good night, Ambassador.” I spoke firmly, so he would understand the dismissal. Then, after a brief hesitation, I added, “Thank you. For your help tonight.”

He blinked, his expression softening in a way that flipped my stomach again—left me feeling too exposed before him.

So, I walked away. And this time, Keil didn’t follow.