Page 40 of Thorn Season (Thorn Season #1)

T he hours were long and empty yet impossibly full. Black roses arrived from the palace, and I turned my stomach out into the malachite bathtub.

The Verenian nobles knew of my position at court and pushed for a lavish funeral.

To honor Heron , they said, faces drawn.

They only wanted to spend the king’s gold.

But I was the ruling lady of Vereen now.

I vetoed their ideas and they obliged me, though whether it was from pity or genuine respect, I couldn’t tell.

Tari had been granted bereavement leave, and she coaxed the meals down me each day. She stirred nightmilk into my tea when the world became too heavy and sat beside me while I slept. I caught her weeping in the parlor one morning and wished she would return to Henthorn.

Stop your search , the attacker had said.

I hadn’t listened.

I found Father’s birthday slippers wrapped in my closet, and I vomited again.

Amarie hadn’t seen the killer’s face. She’d been knocked unconscious and locked in the closet, too afraid to scream for help once she’d woken. Neither of us talked about what happened after I’d discovered Father’s body, when Garret had arrived with the rising sun.

“She’s been like this for hours,” Amarie had said to him outside the study. “You have to do something.”

Garret had paused at the doorway before approaching.

He’d said words I hadn’t understood and then he was pulling me up.

I’d thrashed against him, slipping on my blood-soaked dress.

But he’d held on to me, even when I’d clawed his hands.

He’d held on, collapsing with me into the dark red puddle and stroking my hair until my screams had dried out.

I went back the next day and realized what I’d done.

Stuffing spilled from the peacock-blue sofas; ripped documents and crystal shards scattered the floor.

The domed window had blown apart, and wind whistled between its jagged glass teeth.

The balusters stood cracked along the balcony railing like so many broken legs.

Father’s beloved claw-foot desk had fractured clean down the middle.

I didn’t want to know how I’d managed such a thing.

“I’ll handle it,” Amarie had said. “Nobody will know.”

But the state of the room didn’t matter as much as that discolored spot on the hardwood where the blood had pooled. So much blood that, in my state of shock, I’d imagined mopping it up with a dish towel and wringing it back into my father’s body.

On the day of the funeral, Amarie laid a black velvet dress on my bed. It had no pockets for my mother’s coin, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. My only piece of jewelry was Father’s xerylite-studded brooch, weighing against my breast with each jolt of the carriage.

The day was stark and clear, the penny blossom trees’ shimmering near-blinding across the Verenian fields. I blinked away the sun-dazzle, and the two connected spires of the Paine mausoleum—meant to represent the two gods of passing—created a Hunters’ Mark afterimage inside my eyelids.

Verenian nobles gathered around the stone building, wiping their noses with pristine handkerchiefs.

Then came the ruling nobles from the other provinces.

Sabira’s older sister, the ruling lady of Parrey, stood in a black armored gown beside Rupert’s son.

Perla’s handsome father had a muscled arm around his thin-boned wife.

Junius’s mother stood apart from them all, a netted veil dappling her lovely features.

Rupert headed the congregation from court, a red-nosed Carmen close behind.

A string of Verenian citizens rimmed the fields, clutching yellow carnations. Tari’s parents would have been rammed among them—Father’s real friends, and they wouldn’t even hear the ceremony.

I climbed from the carriage to find Erik waiting for me, his hand outstretched. I pressed my bare palm to his without thinking.

“You have my deepest condolences.” He lowered his brow to my knuckles—a gesture of sorrow and respect. “Lord Heron was a good ruler and a kind man. He was taken too soon.”

Erik led me to the gray-stoned walkway, and I caught a glimmer of displeasure from Perla’s mother.

I turned from the king and started on the path alone.

The congregation dipped their heads as I passed, my velvet dress rasping over the stones.

It was a Verenian tradition reserved for the next of kin: a final journey to meet the deceased before sending them off to the higher realm.

Halfway through, I spotted the Capewells gathered behind the Verenian nobles, a stony Briar at their helm.

Garret stood beside her, his blazer crumpled, his shoulders hunched. He didn’t meet my eyes.

I climbed the mausoleum steps and faced the crowd: the Hunters and the nobles. A small voice told me to unleash my specter on them all, to let them taste the pain they’d caused me.

But my specter barely stirred.

“Welcome,” I called, my voice strong and assured—belonging to someone else entirely.

“We congregate today to celebrate the life of Heron Paine, ruling lord of Vereen.

He was best known as the generous ruler of these lands, but he was more than that.

He was a loyal friend, a passionate artist, and a wonderful father.

“My mother died shortly after I was born. Though I never knew her, I know the love she and my father shared was a love that inspires poetry. A love that stirs the beating heart of this world. My father will be dearly missed, but he is no longer alone, as he had been in life. He has been reunited with his love in the higher realm. May you all find in that the comfort it has given me.” I paused like Amarie had told me to, taking in their dour faces.

“It is with a heavy heart that I inherit my father’s title, and it is my honor to rule Vereen in his memory. ”

I didn’t wait for a reaction before I descended the steps. The high minister took my place to speak, but I’d already stopped listening.

A Verenian noblewoman turned to me, dabbing her eyes. “Such a moving speech,” she whispered. “Lord Heron would be proud.”

I nodded my thanks. Amarie had written the speech. I hadn’t felt a word of it when I’d first read it, and I didn’t now.

The ceremony proceeded in a blur. Erik gave a somber address, and then I stepped into the mausoleum to bid my father farewell.

My footfalls rang hollow, cold air radiating off the stones.

Father was musk and ink smudges and floppy dark hair.

He belonged in the creaking spine of a book or the crystal facets of a brandy glass. He did not— could not—belong here.

I turned back out only because I had to. It wasn’t until the doors thudded shut that I realized I wanted to curl up in the tomb beside him.

Amarie guided me to a copse of trees to receive condolences. My role should have been shared among the immediate family, but I was the only one left. The last of the Paines.

Rupert approached first, a blubbering mess. He cupped my face and told me I would always have a place in Creak.

The Jacombs paid their respects together, but Junius lingered to give my hand a little squeeze. “You will get through this,” he whispered.

Perla came to me alone, her large eyes brimming with sympathy. “I’m very sorry for your loss, my lady.” She opened her hand and offered a single black pearl. “In Avanford, we string them along our windows for mourning. I know it’s different in Vereen, but—”

“It was a lovely thought,” I said. “Thank you for your kindness.”

I dropped the pearl to the dirt as soon as she walked away.

The journey home was swollen with foggy sunlight and silence. Jewel-toned houses smearing past my unseeing eyes. Pat-pat-pat , Amarie’s clammy hand atop mine.

I’d always been tortured by the idea of dying before my father—of having to leave him behind. Why then, as the distance from the mausoleum stretched out like a fraying thread, did it still feel like I was the one abandoning him?

The Verenian nobles were assembled in the gardens when I returned.

My stomach plunged as I saw the Capewells among them—the monsters I’d feared for eighteen years, crawling around my lands like locusts and drinking my father’s brandy.

Some were fair like Briar, others darker-skinned or blue-eyed, with hair straight or braided or shaved close to the scalp.

I’d always known they were a vast family, with branches that stretched across Daradon, but I hadn’t realized how vast until today.

“I couldn’t say no,” Amarie whispered. “They were your father’s only family.”

“I’m my father’s only family,” I replied, and drifted into their midst.

Garret was nowhere to be found but many Capewells approached me, their words dripping with compassion.

A particularly beautiful young woman with glossy blond hair, who introduced herself to me as Mara, toasted to my father and downed her brandy with such enthusiasm that I considered smashing the glass against her forehead.

After an hour, I escaped to a jasmine-adorned gazebo and leaned against one of the poles. Capewells and nobles milled around me, their voices droning like bloated flies.

Then one voice bit out above the rest. “He was a good man.”

“Everyone keeps telling me that,” I said blankly.

“It’s true.” Briar stepped into the gazebo—a shark rising from the churning black sea of mourners, the wind teasing straw-yellow wisps from her braid.

Her neckline swooped to catch the tips of her Hunters’ Mark tattoo.

The same tattoo she’d inked over my father’s heart.

“He never enjoyed the more... challenging aspects of the family business.”

“Family business.” A sharp huff escaped me—the closest I’d been to laughter in days. “That’s a quaint way to describe murder.”

“Careful where you point your finger. I hear you’re growing close to the man who sanctions those murders.”