Page 48 of Thorn Season (Thorn Season #1)

A fter that long-ago day at the Opal, I’d expected a new fog of terror to settle over Daradon as it had settled over me.

There were whisperings, of course. Pieces of the tale that had stowed out of Henthorn with vendors and travelers to worm across the provinces.

But soon, the stories changed. They said a sympathizer had attacked the courtiers—or attacked the city folk—or a helpless elderly woman—and our great ruler had fearlessly taken action.

In some stories, Erik had run the man through with a sword.

In others, he’d defeated him in hand-to-hand combat.

But in every story, one thread remained the same: Erik had emerged a hero.

Then the autumn winds had blown across the kingdom as if in a unified sigh of relief.

If anyone wondered why the locals had let the Opal fall into disrepair, they knew better than to ask.

The world forgot; people moved on. And months later, when I was still jolting awake every night, washed in tears and sweat, I realized it was a torture of its own—having to hold on to what everyone else had let go of.

Again, the world was moving forward. And I didn’t know how to move with it.

Since my father’s death, a slow rage had started simmering in my blood, and it was feeding the force of my specter.

The power constantly pulled at my bones now, swollen with my pent-up emotion, until the Lady Alissa who performed the motions of day-to-day activity felt like a wooden shell around me, directed by the puppet-strings of obligation.

And my specter, for the first time in my life, felt like the true core of myself rather than an extension: writhing and agonized and volatile to the touch.

Each night, I had to let the power ripple around my bedchamber to ease the ever-growing ache. By day, I clenched it tight like a fist and gathered up a smile; it was the only way to get the nobles talking to me again. Apparently, my grief was more palatable when tempered with a positive outlook.

Maybe that was why I accepted Erik’s next invitation to dinner: because he was the only person who demanded my candor. “You mustn’t pretend with me,” he’d said, low and sweet. “The others, I understand. But not me. I shall never balk at your sorrow.”

So, I let my smile drop. I let myself be authentic with the first man I’d ever feared. And in the comfort of my misery, my restless power began to settle.

On his balcony, Erik poured my wine and fed me sugar-dusted cranberries. When the night cooled, he took my gloved hand and said, “I want to show you something.”

He led me through the palace and into a perfumed gallery, where each past ruler of Daradon stared down from their own wide arch.

The two-tined crown was painted everywhere, spiking from foreheads like straight, silver horns, its sapphire embellishments rendered with exact detail over the generations.

I spotted King Hoyt, the creator of the Execution Decree, beside his blushing consort, whose murder at the hands of her former Wielder lover had roused Hoyt into spiting every Wielder in Daradon.

With intolerance already rising at the time—along with more and more stories depicting specters as uncontrollable—many believed that King Hoyt’s tale illustrated the highest act of romance.

I’d always thought it was a horrifying indication of what powerful men could get away with in the name of love.

Erik’s portrait hung inside the largest silver frame. The rendering was handsome—strong-jawed and sultry, with the crown elongating his bone structure—but inaccurate. The artist hadn’t captured the cruel light in his ice-blue eyes.

“It doesn’t feel like you,” I said.

“No?” He smoothed his jacket, the silver embroidery kissed with lantern light. “I think it captures me rather nicely.”

“Your face, maybe, but not your essence.”

He gave a heavy-lidded smirk. “What do you know of my essence?”

“I know enough.”

Chuckling, he strolled toward his mother’s portrait. I’d met Queen Wilhelmina once during childhood, when she’d scrutinized me with beady eyes and pinched my cheeks until they’d hurt. You should use rouge, little petal. Brighten up that pretty face.

I shivered at the memory and glided beside Erik, whose expression had turned cold.

“Do you miss her?” I asked.

“Not particularly. She was... difficult .”

And she must not have valued her own consort, Erik’s father, as his image was nowhere to be found.

Erik sighed. “We’re not here to discuss my mother. I said I wanted to show you something, didn’t I?”

He reached toward her arch, his hand seeming to disappear behind the trim. Then he tugged and the arch creaked open, emitting a breath of fusty air.

Erik smiled at my expression. “The palace is rich with concealed rooms and passageways. How do you think the previous monarchs hid their affairs?”

I lifted an eyebrow. “Have you appointed me your mistress already?”

He laughed softly. “Never you.”

I followed him into the concave room. It was unfurnished, with crumbling stones, cracked flooring, and a heavy sheet covering one portion of the wall. Dust whirled in the cool air, furring my tongue with each inhale.

“You’ve been lying to me,” Erik murmured. My specter jolted, but he continued evenly, “You consider my proposal with a fine lady’s restraint, but I see your eagerness. I see you aching for the power you know you deserve... and I’m the only person in this world who can quell the ache.”

A sense of foreboding crept over me as he drifted toward the sheet. He clenched up a handful. Then he whooshed it down.

Dust billowed and fogged the room, gritting my eyes. I was clearing my throat from the musty stench when the gray haze parted.

And I locked eyes with my own painted stare.

The artist had depicted me with a generous hand—reddening my lips, darkening my lashes, setting my cheekbones aglow. A crystal bodice dived knifelike down my chest—a severe rendering of my usual style—and my hair was twined back, lone tendrils curling toward my collarbone.

Mounted on my head was the two-tined crown, encrusted with diamonds and sapphires.

The dual spikes shot skyward and the center plunged low against my brow, mimicking my neckline and evoking the helmeted look of a warrior. I looked glorious and forbidding—iced with jewels and bronzed with fire.

I looked more powerful than I’d ever felt in reality.

“I don’t understand,” I whispered, alarm now swelling inside me.

Because only blood-royals wore the two-tined crown. Never consorts. Never me .

Erik’s profile cut a sharp shadow across the portrait, like a cloud blotting the sun.

“Immense power cannot be held by a single entity. The weight must be split—balanced between two—or else it can crush its bearer.” He trailed reverent fingers over the crown’s painted tines, the movement forming a long V.

“It’s why my predecessors left mediocre legacies, remembered for their failures and their tragedies, their vanities and vengeances.

They failed to consider that even our deities must rule in pairs.

But I’ve always known that to have more—to be more—I must choose for myself a worthy partner. ”

His fingers stilled on the brow of my portrait. His eyes glimmered across my painted lips. “I ache, just as you do,” he said quietly. “For gods cannot stand alone.”

Then he turned to me, taking my gloved hands, standing so close that my short breaths fogged the silver buttons of his jacket.

“You would not be my consort,” he said tenderly. “You would be my finest conquest. I would make you a queen.”

My specter heaved; I clenched my muscles to hold it down. This was more than I’d ever expected from him—more than I’d wanted —and my body was responding with the panic of an animal who’d just had a cage dropped over them.

But I forced myself to ask, breathless, “I’d rule by your side? As your equal?”

“You’d be my equal in all things if you would let me make you mine.”

Mine. The word rang hollow in my ears.

“And you’d be mine?” I asked.

“Until my dying day.”

My specter pulsed faster, straining now. This little room was too stagnant, too suffocating. I pulled away and stumbled for the door.

The gallery’s perfumed air hit me, and I gasped in a lungful.

Erik followed, obscenely calm. The arch clicked back into the wall behind him. “Most women wouldn’t run from a declaration like that.”

“Why not Lady Perla or the others?” I asked, almost accusingly. “You could take your pick.”

Erik slunk closer. He grasped my chin and turned my head toward his portrait. “It doesn’t feel like me, you said.” He whipped my face back toward him. “You’re the only one of them who sees me. The only one who ever could.”

He was right. I knew the monster he was because I’d witnessed it for myself.

My eyes flicked to the portrait again, and I gulped, imagining my own beside it.

And suddenly, I knew I wouldn’t have feared that crowned image of me—I might have even embraced it—if not for what it implied.

That Erik’s intentions weren’t built on temporary attraction.

That he’d found within me something he truly desired.

And he would relinquish half his crown—half his power —if I would let him take it.

Slowly, I drew my gaze back to his. Maybe this was more than I’d wanted from him. Maybe the intensity of this gift frightened me more than anything he’d ever done.

Yet maybe this was exactly what I needed. Because now, as I absorbed the enormity of his offer, as I saw the yearning in his eyes... I suspected this monster would give me anything I asked for.

But if I was going to do this, I had to be sure he would.

So I smothered my specter and steeled my spine. Then I turned for the opposite wall, needing the breathing space to summon my next words. “You ordered the Capewells to reclaim their compass, and you are selecting individuals for execution until they do. At what point shall you punish them all?”

Erik’s brows rose. Then he half smiled, crossing the distance between us. “Is Briar sending you to do business with me now?”

“She’d slaughter me if she knew I was asking.”

His eyes flashed. “She could try.” He stopped close, backing me flat against the wall.

His body blocked the light. “The Capewells failed me in losing the compass, and covered it up with seven years’ worth of lies.

They don’t deserve the mercy of a mass sentence nor a mass execution.

Unless they recover what they lost, they shall each feel the consequence of their choices.

And then I will appoint others to take their place. ”

Others to fulfill the Execution Decree , he didn’t have to say. To ensure the continued slaughter of Wielders. Though I’d expected nothing less, I was glad for the confirmation. I needed it to fuel me.

“You’d kill every person with a Hunters’ Mark?” I asked.

Erik tilted his head, taking me in. “Would their deaths displease you?”

“Would my answer matter?”

He paused, considering. I held my breath. Then he said, with his own faint air of surprise, “Yes.”

I exhaled, somehow knowing it was true. And though my victory over the king tasted bittersweet, arriving too late to save my father, I knew I couldn’t waste it.

Especially for the Capewells.

So, I laid my palms on his jacket, my silk gloves snagging on the embroidery. “No,” I whispered. My specter writhed as Garret crossed my mind. But I chained it tight, reminded myself of all he’d done, and tried with more conviction, “Their deaths would not displease me.”

I heard the waver in my voice.

But Erik must not have, because his laughter rumbled against me. “Then why pose such a question? You’re not a Hunter.”

“No?” I angled closer. Wetted my lips. “What if I told you I’ve been hunting here this entire time?”

His pupils flared, eyes darkening. He braced his palms on the wall, caging my head. “And?” he asked gruffly. “Have you captured your prey?”

It was the reaction I’d wanted: a slip of his decorum, this undressing of his desire. Yet my specter squirmed with dread—an instinctual rebellion against what I was about to do.

Still, I craned my neck, my breaths coming out sharp and shallow. “You tell me.”

Erik’s gaze sank from my parted lips to the length of my fluttering throat.

To the space I’d offered, just under my jaw.

His heartbeat kicked up against my palms, slamming in time with my own—though for a different reason.

Then, with leisurely care, as if savoring the meal I’d laid out for him, the king bowed his head.

The hair on my arms rose with the first touch of his mouth. I let him kiss a slow trail down my neck, his hot tongue sweeping like a brand. I shuddered as he approached my concealed bruises, but he fortunately pulled away before reaching them, skimming my lips instead.

“Tell me yes.” His words grazed my mouth, leaving the taste of sugared cranberries.

“Yes,” I exhaled. Because this— he —would be worth the outcome.

Erik whispered my name like a claiming.

Then he was kissing me, rough and fast and fervent. His hands were everywhere, one tangled at the nape of my neck, the other searching the small of my back.

I made myself open for him, tugging him closer even as he held me flush between his body and the wall. I was drowning in him, grasping for dry land each time we broke away for breath but falling short every time.

Somebody gasped.

I jolted; my head smacked the wall. A group of servants stood open-mouthed in the doorway.

My stomach plummeted. Because Tari’s features were screwed in disgust.

“Your Majesty!” One of the girls curtsied. “Forgive us. We didn’t—”

“No need to apologize.” Erik drew back, breathing heavily, his fist still twisted in my hair. “We should have retreated to somewhere private.”

A few girls blushed and turned their heads. Tari’s gaze remained locked on mine.

“I trust you’ll keep this among yourselves,” Erik said.

The girls giggled their agreement and scampered away. It’s not what you think! I wanted to scream after Tari. Instead, I grasped Erik’s shoulders and dragged him back to face me. “This will spread to the gentry like wildfire,” I said, panting.

“Good.” He extricated my hands. “I hope they stew in it.”

Then his eyes slid to my gloves. He wore no ring today—there was no chance of encountering dullroot—and yet sweat slicked my palms as he pinched the empty fingertip of my right glove and dragged it off my skin.

He repeated the motion with the other, baring both my hands, then he planted an open kiss inside each wrist, inhaling deeply the skin I’d always denied him.

“Don’t wear these again,” he murmured, tucking my gloves into his pocket.

He leaned down to taste my mouth once more, nipping my bottom lip between his teeth. Then he pulled back and smiled, like he knew this was just the appetizer.

Like he would gladly wait to devour me whole.