Page 46 of Thorn Season (Thorn Season #1)

M y specter roared toward the surface but I tugged it back. I had to breathe. I had to think.

“You said it was empty!” Goren yelled.

“It was,” Osana replied in disbelief. “She must have come in after us.”

Another bout of scrambling, and Tari released a cry of struggle. I reached for the knife at my hip.

“What’s your name?” Dashiel coaxed.

Tari cursed in Bormian.

“What did she say?” asked Osana.

Lye grumbled, “I shouldn’t repeat it.” Then his voice curled out softly in Tari’s native language.

“I speak the common tongue, fool,” she snapped.

“Then answer the question,” Goren said.

Tari didn’t get the chance to.

I stepped from the shadows and stood behind the smallest figure. I gripped the knife steadily, my thumb on the handle’s spine as Keil had taught me. And I pressed the blade to Osana’s back.

She stiffened. The whole room stiffened, the three men training their attention on me.

“Lockpicker,” Lye breathed.

Goren’s eyes flashed. He had Tari’s arms pinned behind her—the tallest girl I knew, and she looked impossibly fragile in his hold.

Dashiel straightened. “Lady Alissa.”

Tari’s eyes went saucer-wide. “You know them?”

“Release her,” I said to Dashiel. “Now.”

“And if I don’t?” Goren answered instead.

I pushed the knife as far as I dared, and Osana hissed.

“Release her,” I repeated.

Lye glanced between us, one hand hovering over his bandolier. Then Dashiel let out a relenting breath, and I automatically reduced pressure on the knife.

Osana spun. She twisted the knife from my grip and slammed me against the curved wall so hard that my teeth rattled. She barred my throat with a forearm, and pain lanced across my bruised skin.

“Let her go,” Dashiel boomed.

“Do you know what your family did to the Wielders in that wagon?” Osana growled. “Maybe I should demonstrate.”

My eyes watered as she increased pressure on my neck. I kicked at her, but she knocked my knee down with a slam of her specter. Tari screamed my name.

Then the pressure lifted.

I gasped, hands flying to my throat.

Lye hauled Osana off me, his torch juddering. “She’s not our enemy!”

Osana whacked his hand away and squared up to him. “Tell me that again when her knife is pointed at your back.”

The knife.

I lunged toward it too late, cursing as Osana grabbed my arm. The knife lifted off the ground and landed in Dashiel’s palm.

Tari’s mouth flopped open. I saw the moment she realized: these were the Ansoran Wielders who’d kidnapped me. The Wielders who were hunting for the compass.

And who now knew, without a doubt, that I was hunting for it, too.

Dashiel looked between the bonestone knife handle and the symbol on the wall. His voice betrayed nothing as he asked, “Where did you get this?”

Tari pulled against Goren’s hold. “She doesn’t answer to you.”

Goren yanked her back. “Shut up.”

“She’s right,” I said, pulse thumping. “You’re trespassing through my province. How did you even find this place?”

Osana squeezed my arm. “How did you find it?”

“It’s a Wielder prison,” Goren said. “Her ancestors probably built it.”

I whipped my head toward him. “You really are exceptionally stupid.”

Lye barked a laugh. “I knew I liked her.”

Goren glared at him. “Find some rope,” he said. “We’re taking them both.”

“Is that your solution to everything?” I demanded. “Kidnap?”

“Get a gag, too,” he added flatly.

Lye shifted on his feet. “I don’t like this. And neither will Keil.”

“Keil will have to deal with it,” Goren snapped. “There are more important things at stake here than his little sweetheart.”

“ Excuse me—? ” I began, seething, but Lye talked over me.

“So, we keep them for weeks?” he said. “Until it’s done? Call me unreasonable, but I think people might notice they’re missing.”

I felt a prickle of uncertainty at Lye’s odd phrasing. Until it’s done.

“Goren’s right,” Osana said. “She’ll run straight to the palace with this, and it will all have been for nothing.”

“She won’t do that,” Lye insisted. “Keil said—”

“Look at her!” Osana shoved me toward him. I stumbled, and Lye had to whip the torch flames away from my face before catching me awkwardly with one arm. “Has Keil been thinking clearly? Or has she been batting those lashes at him?”

Lye glanced down at me and winced, as if he didn’t want to admit she was right.

“That’s enough,” Dashiel said. I was inclined to agree. So I aimed a tendril of my specter toward the low ceiling and corkscrewed through the earth. These tunnels were unstable; a minor displacement would offer enough distraction to grab Tari and run.

Dashiel stepped closer, and Lye’s warm hand settled on my shoulder—in defense, rather than restraint. Dashiel noted the gesture and frowned at Lye before looking back to me. “If we could only talk, my lady.”

“We’re not talking.” My specter burrowed deeper into the ceiling. “You’re going to leave my province now , and I will allow you to keep your lives.”

“Generous of you.” Goren jostled Tari’s arms. “But I think you’ll tell us anything we want to know.”

My specter flared, about to redirect toward him. I painfully tugged it back.

“Alissa,” Tari said, voice strained.

“And I think”—my specter juddered with my growing agitation—“that if you don’t release my friend, you’ll be sorry you ever set foot inside this kingdom.”

“Alissa—”

“We handled the other Capewell just fine. I’m sure we can fend off a pretty noble girl who doesn’t want to scuff her boots.”

“Goren,” Dashiel warned.

My specter shook inside the earth and I couldn’t subdue it. A pitter-patter drummed over the floor.

“Alissa!”

All heads snapped to a wide-eyed Tari, whose attention was fixed above—on something that made her legs tremble.

For one stunned second, I thought she could see my specter as I did—a vein of power feeding upward, frantic wavelets running along its length.

Then thunder growled through the tunnels. Not thunder , I realized, looking higher. To where the earthen ceiling had cracked from the pressure.

Lye’s hand slipped off my shoulder. “It’s collapsing,” he whispered.

I hadn’t just destabilized this portion of the tunnels. I’d destabilized the entire complex.

My specter flinched out of the earth. A mistake. Because, like yanking a blade from a wound, soil hemorrhaged from the opening.

Urgency whip-snapped through the group. Goren discarded Tari and ran toward the noise, Dashiel close behind him.

“Get them out of here!” Dashiel called over his shoulder.

Osana pushed us forward, Lye leading the way. The rumble chased us through the tunnels as our boots pounded the earth, our breaths rasping. I tripped, and Osana grasped my elbow to steady me.

Lye halted, and Tari slammed into his back. Another earthen mound blocked the path ahead. He ran his torch over the area. Then the mound shuddered— shifted —as an invisible force threaded through it.

He rounded on Osana. “You’ll bring the whole thing collapsing around us!”

“There’s no other way out,” she said, the rigid set of her shoulders marking her exertion.

“It’s true,” I said, panting, remembering the map. “There’s only one exit.”

Earth spurted from the mound, and we shielded our faces. The walls shook around us.

“Help her,” I said to Lye. “She can’t hold it alone.”

“I don’t need help,” Osana said.

Tari threw her hands up. “We’re about to be buried alive, and you’re being proud?”

“ I don’t need help ,” Osana repeated tightly, straining against the weight.

I swiveled to Lye, about to throttle him into Wielding his specter, when I noticed the strange mix of helplessness and acceptance shadowing his green eyes.

I staggered back. “You’re a Wholeborn,” I whispered. “Aren’t you?”

His eyes crinkled, suggesting a grim smile beneath the mask. “You can’t tell right now, but it wouldn’t be fair for someone so handsome to also possess the power of a specter.”

I swallowed and turned to Osana. “Can you bear it alone?”

“I have no choice.”

As if reading my thoughts, Tari groaned. I loosened the internal grip on my specter, and it rushed up, rushed out —

Too fast.

I panicked, yanking it back before it reached the Ansorans. My breath snagged sharply, and Tari shot me a questioning look.

I squeezed my eyes shut, blocking the distractions. But my specter rioted along my bones now, swelling under my skin; I couldn’t get a grip on it.

A low grumble sounded, and I opened my eyes to find a hole forming through the mound. Osana was panting between her teeth, and guilt stabbed at me. I’d caused this. But I didn’t dare add my wild power to her efforts now.

Once the gap widened enough, Lye nodded toward me. “Go.”

I pushed Tari forward first, then scrambled after her. As my hand brushed Osana’s power, my specter churned toward the surface again. I swallowed it thickly, a sharp pain splitting behind my brow.

The Ansorans clambered after us and the wall caved in, spraying earth in every direction. I blinked grit from my eyes.

“It’s this way.” Tari strode forward when another roar shook the walls.

“Move!” Lye dropped his torch and sprang.

They crashed to the ground before the ceiling collapsed between us. Powdered earth flurried, washing everything in foggy brown.

“Tari!” I lurched forward.

Osana’s strong hand held me back. “Get in my way and I’ll leave you here to rot.”

The earth parted again under her power, but slowly— so painfully slowly .

“Can’t you go faster?” I said.

“You’re welcome to get your nails dirty, my lady. ”

I glimpsed Tari through the growing gap, tangled around Lye and struggling for purchase. I labored through, then dragged her close to my side, feeling her long limbs for injuries. She looked dazed but unhurt.

Osana breathed heavily behind me, holding the torch. “Let’s go.”

We staggered ahead until the exit appeared, and I could’ve sobbed with relief.

Lye grabbed my waist with both hands, ready to hoist me upon the ladder. I shoved him away and pushed Tari forward instead. She climbed with wobbling legs, and I didn’t exhale until she’d hiked over the lip.

Lye gave me a leg up, and I was halfway to the top when another rumble sounded.

A crack in the ceiling barreled toward us. Osana trembled—sending another wave of power out to meet it.

I paused, foot dangling.

“Keep moving, lockpicker,” Lye called, arms outstretched beneath me.

“She can’t hold it.”

“Neither of us can help her. Just go!”

I hurried through the climb and hauled myself up, grass scratching my palms. Tari was on her knees, hacking up bile and grit. I had no strength to go to her.

Lye and Osana collapsed after us, wheezing under their masks. Osana’s hood had fallen back, revealing a loose bun of dark braids.

Lye rushed to Tari. He thumped her back, eliciting a barking cough. “That’s it.” He rubbed a circle between her shoulder blades. “Get it out.”

Tari spat onto the grass as her breathing evened.

Lye looked to me, eyes wide with concern. “You all right?”

I gulped, shaking. I was not all right. Not as my specter settled inside me with an unfamiliar heaviness. The heaviness of gas-rich air before a spark set it alight.

An axe shot up from the hole, and gloved hands clawed after it. Goren’s immense muscles shuddered as he hefted himself out. Dashiel emerged a moment later, and the entry collapsed with a boom , soil gushing from the sunken hole. As if they’d been the last force keeping it open.

Dashiel ripped away his mask and sucked in the clean air.

I stilled.

It took me a second to fit the face to memory. The deep brown skin, the broad jaw and full lips, the rough scar etching his chin.

“It was you,” I breathed. “Carmen met you at Backplace.”

Goren looked toward Dashiel and growled. “Fool.”

I stood, ready to wring him for answers, when Tari touched my shoulder.

“We need to go,” she said. Her face was dirt-stained, her eyes still watery from heaving.

A more powerful guilt twisted my stomach. Tari had never let me face trouble alone. And tonight, it had nearly gotten her killed.

She was right; we had to go.

But Dashiel staggered upright and stood before us, one palm raised as it had been the day he’d cornered me in the parlor. “Please, my lady. Can we talk?”

“Don’t let them leave,” Goren said.

But they were all exhausted, their specters frayed from carrying the walls of a collapsing mine. My power was unspent. Even in its current state—bloated and unsteady—I could take them all.

“Get out of our way,” I said slowly.

“Please.” Dashiel went to step closer. I slipped a thread of my specter under his boot before it met the ground. He lost his balance, stumbling.

I shoved Tari forward and ran.

We made it twenty yards before a fierce tendril snatched my ankle. I hit the ground, palms scraping, arms reverberating as they caught my fall. I knew instinctively that the thick, undulating power belonged to Goren. He wrenched me back, and I dug my nails into the dirt.

Teeth gritted, I reached for my specter. I would not let him drag me through this field.

But then Tari was at my feet, a blade glinting in her grip.

“Hold still.” She thrust her hand out blindly, jolting when she met with Goren’s specter. She kept her palm there for guidance, then swung the blade down.

The phantom grip released me. A roar sounded, and I glanced around to see Goren collapse in agony.

Tari lifted the eurium knife and smirked. “You didn’t think I’d leave without it?”

We were riding before their voices could reach us, the ropes we’d used to tie the horses snapping in the wind.