Page 44 of Thorn Season (Thorn Season #1)

I t was strange, being bereaved. The courtiers who’d gossiped with me ten days ago were now grave-faced and formal, heads dipping as they passed me in the palace gardens.

Only Carmen treated me the same. She still wore black in solidarity, though all manner of brilliant jewels adorned her wrists and fingers. The wretched girl couldn’t last an hour without a splash of color.

“Nobody would blame you for withdrawing from the rest of Rose Season,” she said for the third time today. Though she’d embraced me as soon as I’d returned to the palace—and I’d wanted to crawl out of my skin at her touch—she’d been encouraging me to leave ever since.

“It’s too painful to be home right now,” I said. “I need space to heal.”

It was the same dismal excuse I’d fed Amarie when she’d begged me, teary and trembling, to remain with her in Vereen.

As if the days after the funeral hadn’t been excruciating enough, having to watch her weep into her tea, or wander aimlessly about the parlor, or dissolve into a guilt-ridden mess whenever she walked past that linen closet.

The closet from which she hadn’t tried to escape while her oldest, dearest friend had bled out several floors above.

You couldn’t have done anything to save him , I’d told her without feeling, too depleted to ease anyone’s pain but my own. Then, for the second time in a month, I’d ignored her pleas to stay. And I’d left my home—left her alone inside it—without turning back.

Carmen nodded now, curls bouncing. “After my father died, I couldn’t set foot in the dining hall. That was where he choked, you know.”

Choked.

I almost laughed.

“I heard they caught the man,” she went on. “That must offer some comfort, at least.”

The circulating story was that a Verenian citizen had attacked Father for raising the tax; the town guards had caught him breaking into the house again after the funeral, and they’d executed him on sight.

Though a hideous little tale, it would give the copycats a reason as to why my attacker hadn’t returned to them—hopefully without implicating me as the one who’d broken his neck.

Maybe I’d offer Carmen’s mother the same fate if I found the compass in her hands. Or maybe I’d poison her and blame it on choking, in echo of how she’d killed her own husband.

Maybe I’d make Carmen watch.

“Yes,” I said, nails biting into my palms. “It gives me great comfort.”

We were rounding a hedge of blue hydrangeas when footsteps clacked toward us.

“Lady Alissa,” Tari said, panting, her braid swinging. “A delivery arrived for you.” Her gaze flicked to Carmen, then back to me. “From Vereen.”

Carmen turned toward me, smiling tightly. “You should tend to that.”

I walked back through the palace alone.

Every part of me ached, from my bruised throat to the constant pull of my specter.

My loose hair kept catching the shell of my ear where my cut was scabbing over.

The most alive I’d felt since discovering my father’s body was the night I’d killed his murderer.

I didn’t know what that said about me, but I didn’t really care.

Keil was leaning against my door when I arrived, looking more solemn than I’d ever seen him. I’d almost forgotten he existed. The rosy memory of Budding Ball didn’t seem to belong with this version of me.

“My lady.” He bowed low. “I haven’t seen you since...” He swallowed, wincing. “I wanted to—I mean, I came to offer my condolences.”

I’d never seen him stumble over his words. It was a rather pathetic look on him.

“Thank you,” I said dully.

“I wanted to attend the funeral. But I thought, considering my past with your father, it wouldn’t have been appropriate.”

Because their only interaction had been through a ransom note.

“No, it wouldn’t have,” I said.

Hurt flashed in his eyes. And I realized I wanted to hurt him—this man who, by always remaining half a step behind me in his hunt for the compass, had conveniently hidden himself from the keeper’s notice.

The copycats had warned me to stop searching.

They’d killed my father when I’d continued anyway.

And Keil was still standing here, golden and glowing and alive .

Hadn’t he been handed enough at birth, in the form of his freedom? Did he have to win in this, too?

“Was that all?” My specter writhed as I retrieved my key and shifted toward the door. “I have business to attend to.”

But Keil wasn’t finished.

“I know what it’s like to lose parents,” he said quietly. “It’s one of the hardest things a person can face. If you ever need to talk... I would listen.”

I paused, craning my neck toward him. He stood close enough now that I could smell his soap-and-linen aroma, deepened with a note of leather.

I wanted to wring the scent from my lungs.

“Why would I go to you, of all people?” I asked. “Wasn’t I your captive less than a month ago?”

Keil balked. “I thought—”

“Thought what? That I’d forgotten? Or that you mean anything more to me than an unspent favor? Allow me to unburden you of your delusion.” My eyes narrowed, and I went for the kill. “You were only worth toying with when it was entertaining. I’m no longer entertained.”

I savored every moment of watching Keil’s face fall, so much raw pain there that it overflowed, feeding the pit inside me.

I was about to turn when I noticed the dark change in his expression. His attention had caught on the high neck of my dress. The fabric had rumpled when I’d twisted toward him, baring the bruises beneath.

Keil slowly raised his fingers, dazed, but stopped short of the tender skin. His eyes met mine, and fury rippled across his face. “Who?”

I tugged at my neckline and unlocked the door.

He lashed an arm across the threshold, barring my way. His knuckles whitened on the doorframe. “Who?”

A long breath hissed between my teeth. I dragged my focus back to him and asked, low and vicious, “What would you do about it, Wielder ? Hit them with a party trick?”

A muscle flickered in his jaw.

Then he lowered his arm, chest heaving, eyes burning a hole through the fabric around my throat.

I didn’t spare him a second glance before I slammed the door between us.

Before leaving home, I’d instructed Amarie—during one of her drier-eyed moments—to locate a copy of the mining records from what remained of Father’s files.

It would be difficult, she’d said, and not just because she didn’t know if multiple copies existed.

But because she was still struggling to organize Father’s belongings after my specter had destroyed the study.

Heron kept journals. I should have at least found the pieces of them by now.

Hadn’t she realized she’d already erased away every trace of him in that study? Why bother salvaging a few journals only to burn those, too?

But a few days after I’d set her to the task, Amarie found a map of the xerylite mines, unscathed on one of Father’s bookshelves.

Tari and I unrolled the parchment across my bed, weighing the edges with silver candlesticks.

“The coordinates Junius gave me sit closest to this complex.” I tapped the location, tracing my finger to the tunnel’s access point. “The fields above stretch for a mile.”

Tari coiled her braid around her wrist, unusually quiet.

“What?” I asked.

“It’s just...” She sighed, sounding both pitying and exasperated. “You can’t honestly think this is a good idea. Kevi Banday delivered eurium weapons to these tunnels and never returned. Those same weapons were used to attack you and—”

“And kill my father,” I finished. “What of it?”

Tari grimaced. “You believed these copycats wouldn’t kill Wholeborns, but they’ll kill anyone who gets in their way.

They could’ve gone after you first, but they went for your father.

They wanted to hurt you. And if you continue down this road, they will do to you what they did to him.

” She took my hand, squeezing gently. “It’s not your job to stop them. ”

I held her gaze, unmoved. “So I should let the Capewells find the compass first? Garret is finally desperate enough to tell Briar everything I’ve learned at court, and he’ll no longer be inclined to keep it from her hands—to keep her from consulting it around me. ”

It should have devastated me to lose him like this, when I’d been so close to having him in my life again. But right now, I hated him too much to feel the loss.

Tari shook her head. “Garret wouldn’t—”

“Garret is a coward and a traitor,” I snapped, pulling away. After years of hostility between them, she chose to defend him now —after learning he’d orchestrated my kidnapping?

Tari looked down, guilty. “I just want to make sure you’re thinking this through.”

Didn’t she understand that this was all I could think about? All that roused me into waking each morning?

“Do you know what today is?” I asked. “It’s the fifth of the month.

We should’ve been in Vereen this morning, playing Double Decks with Marge and Lidia, drinking hot lemonade.

But Marge was killed, remember? These copycats found her and poisoned her and hit her until she bled.

” I rolled up the map and turned. “I won’t let them slaughter anyone else. ”

Tari’s gentle question halted me. “Is that the only reason you’re doing this? For Wielders like Marge?”

My specter swelled—an internal admission of what I wouldn’t say aloud. That although I was hunting the compass for all the Wielders of Daradon, I was hunting the keeper for myself.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “Kevi Banday was murdered on Verenian soil. So, yes, this is my job.” I strode away. “You don’t have to do it with me.”

The next evening, Tari and I rode from the hidden servants’ gate, the eurium knife smacking at my belt.

Inky darkness spilled all the way to the Verenian grasslands, the humid air rustling my blouse collar.

We tied the horses to the trees and continued on foot, my limbs pumping with energy and purpose as we drew closer to Kevi Banday’s last location.