Page 34 of Thorn Season (Thorn Season #1)

“In fact”—he drew the bowstring for me, forcing my elbow back—“Sabira’s mercenaries employed the method a few days ago, on sixty-three sympathizers.”

These must have been the mercenaries who were scouring Parrey’s abandoned smithies. My palms slickened inside my gloves.

“The trick,” Erik said, “is to tie a person down...” His lips brushed my ear. “Take aim between their eyes...” His grip tightened until it hurt. “And fire.”

He released the bowstring, and I jumped as my arrow thwacked the apple.

I tried to control my breathing while Erik nocked the second arrow.

But my pulse was pounding in my throat as he folded himself around me again, taking my fingers under his.

Keil had held me in a comparable position only recently, his embrace more confining than Erik’s.

And yet the heat flooding me now wasn’t similarly slow and molten.

It was a blotchy fever-heat. The sickly sweat of a body in danger.

“If you strike true,” Erik continued, “you’ve offered a Wholeborn a quick death. But if the arrow veers off course?” He swiveled abruptly. Cocooned in his hold, I was forced to swivel with him.

As he directed my next arrow squarely at Perla.

“Well.” Erik’s voice betrayed a cruel smile. “Then you’ve caught yourself a Wielder.”

Perla froze. Her eyes went round; her white-washed lips trembled. A more violent tremble rose up my limbs.

“It’s very clever,” I said, voice wispy with panic, my fingers trying to strain away. Though Perla wasn’t my favorite person, I didn’t want her dead .

“Shall we test the method, you and I?” Erik angled the bow toward Perla’s foot. “Perhaps someplace she won’t miss?”

“I believe most people would miss their toes.”

His laughter juddered against my back, and I fought the impulse to arch away. “Did I misread that look you gave her?” His voice took on a twist of teasing. “Wouldn’t you like to make her bow to you—right here, in front of everyone?”

I flicked my eyes around to the alarmed faces of the gentry, trained in our direction. About to watch the king of Daradon fire an arrow into a young woman’s foot. About to watch us fire the arrow, together.

“Not like this,” I panted, my specter writhing with indecision. Because to redirect the arrow would be to expose myself—or implicate Perla. But to release the arrow, to hear her screaming, to have her blood on my hands because of Erik—

No.

My specter roared forward, frantically coiling around the arrow shaft, ready to swing it aside.

Then Erik—just as suddenly—swerved me back toward the apple. My specter swung with the movement, the breath hitching up my throat.

“Very well,” he said placidly. “Imagine, then, a Wielder tied to your stand. Perhaps our Ansoran friend.” I felt his face shifting behind me, and I followed his stare.

Unlike the open-mouthed nobles, Keil was watching us from against his own apple stand, his expression calm and unreadable—so at odds with my own anxious jittering.

“Picture the arrowhead burying deep,” Erik whispered. “And then”—his fingers slid off mine, leaving them quivering around the bowstring—“ fire .”

The bowstring slipped from my hold.

My specter rushed out like the line of a fishing rod, guiding the arrow straight toward the apple. Too straight.

With a painful tug, I forced its release. The arrow lost momentum.

And plummeted into the grass.

I released a wobbling exhale as a collective sigh rushed across the fields. Too overwrought to lift my specter, I dragged it back through the prickly grass.

It was pouring thickly into me when Keil’s power slid inside my glove.

I twitched, peeking toward him. But while his specter thrummed against my fingertips with that soft, familiar strength, Keil was looking behind me—toward Erik, whom I assumed was holding his steady gaze.

A bitter anger worsened my trembling. Had this display been for Keil’s benefit?

Just one more hideous example of Erik showing his thorns—a habit he’d adopted as a young king and now couldn’t relinquish?

I was still shaking when Keil’s specter flared, reminding me of his warm touch at the Opal when he’d asked, Are you all right?

I turned before Erik noticed the trail of my attention. Then I curled my fingers slightly. Answering Keil’s question with my own silent yes .

Erik squeezed my shoulder, and I jolted. Keil’s specter glided up my arm in retreat, leaving a trail of goose bumps in its path.

“An unfortunate fate,” Erik declared as the gentry bustled up again. “All produce, no appetite.” The exact of opposite of Sabira’s result.

I struggled to uphold a smile. “I don’t possess your skill in archery.”

“No matter.” His expression softened with understanding. “There’s still time to learn.” His tone made me uneasy; it was the indulgent tone one used toward a child who wasn’t yet daring enough to dive into the deep end of a lake.

Before I could analyze it, he repossessed the bow and swept it wide. “Lady Perla. Take your turn.”

Perla gulped, looking as ill as I felt. “Oh, no, Your Majesty, please—”

“Quickly, now. Don’t make the other ladies wait.”

Perla stumbled forward. And despite the jelly looseness of her limbs, she took the bow with a steady hand, her knuckles slightly clenched.

I went to excuse myself just as Erik said to me, his voice rich and sweet, “I ordered a gift from Vereen to be sent to your chambers. Tell me how you like it.”

With another fraught smile, I darted off.

All the way through the palace, one scene saturated my mind: Sabira’s mercenaries tying down those sixty-three Parrian sympathizers, shooting arrows into their foreheads one by one.

This show of violence would surely deter more potential sympathizers. Where other nations may have mutinied, Daradonians would recoil. I’d witnessed it myself at the Opal; for every step forward this kingdom took, those in power would shove us back.

And yet... for the first time in four years, I felt a kernel of hope opening up.

I’d told Keil that Wholeborns wouldn’t fight for Wielders.

But the recent increase in Huntings must have fostered enough sympathy that for one brief, shining moment, sixty-three Wholeborns had actually tried to organize shelter for Wielders.

The knowledge was bittersweet. After all, it had cost them their lives.

I was pulling off my gloves, silk clinging to my palms, when I approached my chambers and slowed.

My door was ajar. Even if Erik had sent a gift, why would anyone leave the door open?

My specter stirred as I inched over the threshold, door hinges whining.

Sunlight blanched the empty lounge. A shuffle sounded and I backtracked, reaching behind me for the doorknob.

And from my bedchamber, Father stepped into view.