Page 37 of Thorn Season (Thorn Season #1)

Then another tug—on my wrist —and the world rushed back to me as I was yanked by my ribbon into the crowd.

I followed the pull to Erik.

The king half smiled, pleased at his conquest, and, with another playful tug, asked me for a kiss—his first and only of the night.

My instincts must have numbed since that day on the fields, because I leaned toward him without flinching.

And as I pressed my lips to his cheek, I found Keil’s eyes in the crowd of red.

Keil’s throat bobbed under my stare, his honey-gold skin flaming with a shade I wanted to paint on a victory flag.

I didn’t know why I journeyed to the drawing room after the game ended. I only knew that I felt hot all over and a little lightheaded, and I needed the fresh air to cool off.

Coming up behind Keil on the balcony, I realized he’d needed to cool off, too.

He must have sensed my presence because he chuckled without turning. “If you were too shy to kiss me in front of the gentry, you could have said so.”

“How have you not already tripped on the train of your ego?”

“I pin it to my belt to keep it out of the way.”

I rolled my eyes, turning to leave...

But the sky was an open geode tonight, clear and clustered with stars.

A string of red paper lanterns encircled the railing, casting a rosy vignette on the stones.

I told myself I was staying for this little pocket of enchantment.

For the lush view of the gardens, twinkling below.

But as I joined Keil at the railing and glimpsed his growing smile, I knew that wasn’t true.

Still, I stood far enough away that I wouldn’t be tempted to lean toward his body heat. More lipstick splotches covered his face, some layered as if the poor girls had run out of room. His mouth was noticeably unmarked, which gave me a pang of relief.

Then Keil said, slow and soft, “He’s rather taken with you.”

And I knew I wasn’t the only one thinking about the unwelcome lips of others.

“Yes.” I sighed, lifting my face to the cool night air. “Apparently, I’m quite the catch.”

“Hmm,” Keil agreed.

I peered over my shoulder and found his gaze trailing the stretch of my neck, the sweep of my collarbone. He blinked, and his eyes landed on my face again, alight with new heat.

My cheeks tingled. So much for cooling off.

Then, for the first time, nervousness wriggled at the back of my mind.

Because although we’d been alone in the palace before, our seclusion now felt different— heavy , with more secrets than one.

And if anyone saw the look passing between us, they would realize what I hadn’t wanted to admit.

What even Perla must have known but hadn’t possessed enough gumption to reveal.

That in whatever space existed between me and Keil, the air was charging to ignite.

So, I looked away. Then I paused, detecting a gleam in Keil’s hand. Over the railing, he fiddled with a small, diamond-shaped slat of glass—sometimes twirling it between his fingers, sometimes taking it up with his specter, making it appear as though floating.

It reminded me of how I twirled my mother’s coin—though perhaps a sharper, more dangerous version.

“Dayglass,” Keil said, noticing my attention. “Ansoran lands are rich with it.”

“Your lands are rich with broken glass?” I asked dryly. “How painful that must be for your feet.”

“Not glass.” He smiled. “ Day glass.” Then he drew back, raised the shard, and whacked it against the railing.

I gasped, instinctively recoiling from the shatter.

But there was no shatter. The glass remained whole and glossy, without even a scratch.

At my expression, Keil’s smile turned mischievous. He offered me the shard. “It’s as strong as diamond. Under sunlight, it glows as if a rainbow has been captured within.”

I couldn’t resist pushing off the railing and taking the dayglass for a closer look.

The shard was warm from Keil’s touch, the edges softer than I’d realized—filed for safe handling—but it otherwise felt like any other glass fragment.

“Keep it,” said Keil. “View it in sunlight for yourself. Though I ask that you don’t show it to your king.”

I quirked a brow. “Erik’s interested in dayglass?”

“Most kingdoms are. But my empress doesn’t desire a trade deal yet.”

Yet.

She might then use this valuable material as a bargaining tool—just as she would likely use the compass. For her own benefit, rather than for the protection of fellow Wielders.

Keil slipped his hands into his pockets, head tilting. “It would be best if Erik remained unaware of this sample. One taste of pleasure usually begets an appetite.”

I glanced back at the dayglass, now frowning slightly. “You would trust me with this?”

Keil laughed under his breath. “You sound surprised, my lady. Do you forget that every minute I spend at court is a product of my trust in you?”

My frown deepened. I could’ve exposed Keil as a kidnapper several times over by now. But my silence had nothing to do with trust.

“You still owe me a favor, Ambassador. I’m unlikely to reveal your secrets until I recover the debt.”

“Until?” Keil ambled closer, amusement teasing around his mouth. “And after my debt is settled, would you go back on your word? Reveal me after all?”

I could , I wanted to say. Because you’re here for the compass, just like I am. We both know we’re waging a silent battle. And neither of us is going to let the other win.

Instead, I placed the dayglass on the railing. This game of flirtation was one thing, but I didn’t want the burden of Keil’s trust. Not when I might have to break it.

“Court is filled with charming vipers,” I said, chin lifted. “But we are vipers all the same.”

Keil stopped two paces away. The playful light in his eyes softened. “I saw your face at the exchange,” he said quietly. “When you realized what was inside that wagon.”

I winced at the memory of my kidnapping—the horror in realizing Keil had traded my freedom for the Capewells’ Wielder prisoners.

“I know vipers,” he said, still earnest. “You, Lady Alissa, are no viper.”

The dayglass lifted from the railing, glistering with a sheen of starlight, and slid into my pocket.

As the pressure of Keil’s specter trailed against me, withdrawing, I raised my hand to find it—grasping, as I had that night on the Verenian fields.

Keil froze. And though I couldn’t feel it anymore, I knew his specter had paused, too.

All my life, I’d wanted to meet another Wielder. Now Keil was in front of me, and there was a distance between us—one I hadn’t allowed myself to cross because we were competing on opposite sides.

But for one night, I wanted to indulge the tenderest part of myself—the part I’d always had to secure with thorned defenses. The part that never could’ve thrived in a kingdom that wanted my blood.

Tonight, I didn’t want Keil to be my rival.

So I stepped closer, my layered skirts brushing his knees. And despite how exposed we were atop this balcony, despite my own better judgment, I whispered, “Show me.”

The world stilled again, only our quiet breaths and the bobbing lanterns filling the silence.

Then Keil’s specter coiled between my fingers.

I didn’t twitch; the rippling pressure was familiar now, akin to the warm feel of his skin.

He guided my hand upward, then lifted his palm to face mine.

His power flowed through the inch of space between us, twining our fingers and wrists, thrumming with the pace of Keil’s quickening heartbeat.

Locking a specter away would be like going through life holding your breath , he’d once said. He was right. My specter strained inside me, yearning to exhale—to comb through his power like fingers through sand.

“How does it feel?” I breathed, aware of the moment’s fragility.

Keil said, just as quiet, “That’s like asking how it feels to move an arm. There’s no separation. The specter is me.”

Was that how I felt? After years of leashing my specter—of bending it to my will—I’d come to think of it as an entity separate from myself. The specter was mine, but it was not me .

It felt like something I should’ve been sad about.

Keil studied my face. “Would you choose to have it if you could?”

I faltered, an odd sense of guilt creeping over me. Because, once again, Keil was baring himself. And once again, I couldn’t bring myself fully to do the same.

So, coming as close as I dared to honesty, I mentally rephrased his question: Would I give up my specter?

I didn’t think so, and yet... “I would always be afraid,” I said.

“Always Hunted for the crime of being born.” I swallowed, dislodging the admission from my throat.

“I could never be happy as a Wielder. Not in the ways that mattered. It would... hurt to keep a part of myself inside.”

As I spoke, I realized I’d never verbalized my experience so openly. That these words to Keil—even wrapped in a half-truth—might be more than I’d given anyone.

Keil slowly shook his head, unaware of my confession, yet still somehow enraptured. “It’s never been that way for me. Where I’m from, there is no crime in existing. A specter isn’t something to be ashamed of. It’s a gift. And gifts should never hurt.”

My specter squirmed for release—a near-cruel contradiction to the tender resonance of his words. Because if I ever explored the depths of my power as Keil did, if I ever learned to love it... I feared I would lose the will to confine it.

Embracing my specter was the most dangerous thing I could ever do.

And so I never would.

“That’s beautiful,” I whispered with an aching smile, drawing my power painfully back.

Keil’s head slanted, his specter lapping further across my hand. A warm, questioning touch that brought out a breath of my laughter, turned my smile into something truer.

“I love those,” he said, and I paused. I was about to ask what he meant when Keil’s specter suddenly spiraled up my arm and lifted off, knocking the hanging baskets on the balcony above.

Powder-pink apple blossoms rained over us, tickling my nose, and I laughed again—truly laughed —the sound carrying on the breeze.

When I turned back to Keil, my pulse stuttered. Because his gaze drew between my cheeks, his expression soft and starved all at once.

I love those. He’d been talking about my dimples, pinching deep whenever I smiled.

“I wonder,” he murmured, still looking me over with an intensity that warmed my skin, “if it’s your Hunter’s blood that makes you unafraid.”

I glanced across his lipstick-spattered face. “You want me to fear you, looking like that?”

“Never,” he said quickly, then continued, more gently, “I never want you to fear me.”

My heartbeat skipped again, my traitorous body leaning toward his. Keil’s eyes swooped down me, noticing the incline, which only made my breaths come out faster. “Why not?” I asked.

He hesitated, seeming at war with himself. Probably realizing, like me, just how dangerous this was.

Then he said, voice low and hoarse, “Because if you did... I couldn’t do this.

” Slowly, he reached for my hair. His fingers drifted through the strands, and he lingered a moment before withdrawing, a blossom pressed between his thumb and forefinger.

The flower swirled on the breeze, and his hand lifted again, gently brushing a wayward strand from my brow. “Or this,” he whispered.

My body hummed as a tendril of his specter echoed his movement—grazing my temple before it glided down with his trailing fingers. Painting lines of fire down the curve of my face, my jaw, my fluttering throat.

“Or this,” he breathed, pouring that spectral thread down the back of my neck while his fingers drew inward, across my collarbone.

My specter coiled inside me, hot and trembling, as Keil’s power thrummed along my spine, pausing at the top edge of my gown. His fingers similarly stilled at the dip of my collarbone—barely making contact, like he was touching something sacred.

I swallowed, and his touch bobbed against my skin. “Well,” I said on an exhale. “It takes more than a party-trick power to rattle me.”

His pupils swallowed the gold in his eyes.

Then Keil’s specter swept fully around me. Wreathed me—hands and arms and shoulders—in tingling, mischievous vines. My right hand landed in his palm, while the left dropped onto his shoulder. His spare hand curved around my waist, his skin feverish against the lacy fabric.

His power glided off me, and his heated gaze fell to my mouth. “How’s that for a party trick?”

Because he’d positioned us as if to dance.

My chest rose and fell rapidly, his breaths spilling hot between full, parted lips.

And I realized how much I wanted those lips on me.

Not just crushing against my own, soft and open and tasting of Keil.

I wanted them on me —mapping my skin with that near-reverence, following the path his specter had taken.

I wanted to breathe him in and lose myself in the rich, head-emptying scent.

With that image singing in my mind, I lifted on tiptoe. Keil leaned down to meet me, pulling me closer from the waist.

It took all my self-control to turn at the last second—to brush my lips against his ear and whisper, “Impressive. But I’m still not going to dance with you.”

I pulled back to watch a smile gather around Keil’s eyes—the smile of a competitor who’d met his match.

He released me slowly, his shoulder muscles shifting under my fingers, his thumb making one last sweep over my knuckles before he freed my hand. I stepped back and the night felt colder.

“Good night, Ambassador,” I said, breathless.

Keil cleared the hoarseness from his throat. “You don’t have to call me that, you know.”

I looked him over and raised a brow. “You wouldn’t like the other names I have for you.”

Keil’s laughter chased me through the drawing room as I tried, and failed, to cool down from the inside out.