Page 55 of Thorn Season (Thorn Season #1)

T his must have been how predators felt, waiting in darkness for their prey.

At the click of footsteps, I lazed back in the armchair, winding the string of imitation rubies between my fingers. Sabira shuffled into her bedchamber, her leather bodice gleaming from the shadows. She emptied her pockets, and coins clattered onto the vanity.

“A big haul tonight?” I asked.

Sabira jumped, cursing. Before she could flee, I angled my face toward the watery light.

She grasped her chest. “Alissa!”

I let her catch her breath before pursing my lips in appraisal. “I wonder... will you still address me so informally once I’m queen?”

Sabira stiffened. She looked over the scene, from the string of fake rubies to the little open jewelry box on the table beside me.

“How did you get in?” Her voice quivered. “You have no right—”

“Would you know a fine blade if you saw one, Lady Sabira?”

She blinked. “Excuse me?”

“You’re a lady of Parrey, the military province, home to the finest bladesmiths in Daradon. Surely you can identify a high-quality blade?”

Her eyes narrowed. “I know fine blades.”

“I thought so.” I draped the fake rubies on the table.

“It’s the same for me and jewels. I grew up around craftspeople, you see, who gifted my father with all manner of bejeweled trinkets.

He knew I was fascinated by them, and so he gave the gifts to me.

Little Magpie , he used to call me.” I lifted the jewelry box and lowered my voice.

“I could identify real jewels by the time I was ten.”

I brought the box down hard. Sabira flinched as the red gems smashed to pieces.

“If only people could be so easily judged,” I said.

She swallowed. “What do you want?”

“I want to know why someone who rinses the gentry in the Games Hall every day can’t afford real rubies.”

“My winnings are my business.”

“Rightly so. Too many nobles parade their fortunes these days. Take Rupert, for example. The scotch collections; the summer homes. It raises the question of how he’s funding such purchases.

” I ran a finger down the velvet armrest. “Luckily, Rupert’s not the only Creakish man with a low tolerance for drink.

If you ply his bookkeepers with enough whiskey, their tongues grow embarrassingly loose. ”

Sabira’s forehead glistened, her curls frizzling around her temples. I should’ve refilled the lanterns before she’d arrived, to better see every flutter of her panic.

“Apparently,” I said, “Rupert has received a quarterly income from an anonymous benefactor for the last seven years.” I looked toward the jewelry box. “Is that around the same time you started wearing these... baubles?”

I flicked a fake sapphire ring off the pile. It pinged against the dresser, and Sabira flinched again.

“That’s enough,” she said weakly. “Remove yourself from my chambers.”

“Of course.” I stood and brushed past her. “Which exit should I take? The one in the lounge, or the one in your closet?”

As Sabira staggered back, I noted the telltale scent coming off her—the one I hadn’t recognized the first time.

Her leather-armored bodices, stored so close to a hidden passageway, had absorbed that distinctive musk.

“Surely you remember that door?” I asked, smiling. Then, trusting my intuition enough to take the risk, I said, “It’s the one Wray Capewell employed to visit you during your stays at the palace.”

Sabira’s eyes went wide—the look of someone caught—and I tried not to show my triumph at the confirmation.

I’d suspected it when I’d realized the passage in Carmen’s closet led to these chambers, but there had been too many gaps I’d needed to fill before confronting Sabira.

And now I knew: While I’d been right about Wray’s affair, I’d been wrong about his lover.

He hadn’t journeyed into Henthorn that night for Nelle.

All along, it had been Sabira.

“Tell me,” I goaded, “was it difficult to kill your own lover?”

“How dare you,” she said, breathing fast. “Get out.”

“This will be much easier if you answer my questions.”

“I don’t answer to children.”

“Very well.” I continued for the lounge. “Maybe you’ll answer to Briar.”

Her voice lashed out like a cane. “Wait.”

I turned slowly, head tilted.

“You know what Wray was,” she said, her voice guttural. “How could one noblewoman have killed a Hunter?”

“During the throes of passion, I expect.”

“For what possible reason?”

“Wray was a stern, diligent man. He must have been infatuated with you to have shirked his duties. I imagine he told you everything, from the number of Wielders he’d killed to the object he carried.”

Sabira shook her head in disbelief. “The compass ? You think I cared about that thing? I loved him .”

“The worst things we do are often to those we love.”

She opened her mouth but seemed to choke on her words.

Her expression hollowed. Then she sank to the bed, her leather creaking.

“Parrey is so far from Vereen that we could rarely sneak moments together. But we always met when I was in Henthorn. We arranged to see each other the night of Erik’s coronation, when the festivities would make it easier to go unnoticed.

But Junius ambushed me in the Games Hall.

He was young and arrogant, and I relished the challenge.

I came up half an hour late, pockets full of his gold.

Wray was on the bed. The blood—” Her voice broke.

She gulped. “The blood was everywhere. I tried to stanch it, but it was too late.”

“You moved the body. Why?”

“For the same reason Wray and I hid the affair: Capewells don’t allow love matches.

Love makes Hunters weak. Briar would have blamed me for his death, and she would’ve slaughtered me.

” Sabira shuddered. “But Wray was too heavy. Rupert was the only one who knew of our affair. I trusted him, and I called on him to help move the body.”

“Through the palace passages?” I asked, hoping I didn’t sound too eager.

“Yes,” she said, and I silently exhaled. “I knew the passages well by then. We smuggled him to a Henthornian alley, in an area well known for its sympathizers...”

“And you left his body atop a drainage gutter,” I finished. Not to stop the blood from running into the street, as Garret had said. But to hide the lack of blood. To make it seem as though Wray had been killed in that alley.

And to erase any evidence linking him to Sabira’s palace chambers that night.

Sabira nodded. “When news arrived of his death, I went on as if I’d hardly known him.

As if”—she gave a ragged laugh—“I hadn’t given my heart to a dead man.

” She fondled her emerald ring, the only real jewel she’d kept.

Then her gaze hardened. “Weeks later, Rupert made his first request for payment. He knew about the Capewells—the Creakish supply their dullroot—and he knew I feared them. He threatened to expose where he’d found Wray’s body. ”

“And reveal that he’d helped cover up the murder?”

“You know better than anyone where the king’s favor can get you. Even then, Rupert was Erik’s pet. He knew Erik would pardon his crimes before Briar discovered his involvement.”

I nodded, unsurprised. When I’d first entered these chambers, I’d startled at the sheer abundance of fake jewelry along with the absence of personal luxuries.

I’d fleetingly compared Sabira’s style of living to Rupert’s lavishness, and realized the imbalance was too large—too strange .

Then I’d remembered Tari telling me about Sabira’s dislike of Rupert, and I’d gone digging for more information with the Creakish bookkeepers.

Again, my theories were confirmed. Sabira had trusted Rupert. And the bumbling, liquor-pickled man I’d once seen trying to carve a turkey with a butter knife had been cunning enough to leverage that trust against her.

“I started accumulating mercenaries for protection,” Sabira continued.

“But between their fees and Rupert’s blackmail, my gold was depleting.

I couldn’t dip into the family coffers without rousing suspicion, so I continued with the gold I won at Aces.

” She nodded to her jewelry box. “Then I sold the jewels.”

“And that must have kept you afloat,” I said, “until Rupert demanded more gold this season.”

Sabira looked up, stunned.

I smiled bleakly. “The news of an Ansoran coming to court didn’t sit well with Rupert, did it? He feared a change in the winds. Perhaps he worried that Erik’s favor would shift to another. Either way, he demanded too much of you. So you tried to debilitate him.”

“How do you—?”

“His spoiled rum,” I said. “The case came from your own distillery. I heard your merchant eager to palm it off to Rupert on the first night of Rose Season. You spiked the drink with wayleaf, correct? But wayleaf is a tricky substance, and knowing more of cards than poisons, you made the dose too weak. Rupert was confined to his chambers for two days, but nothing more sinister came from your efforts. His resilience frightened you, and you surrendered to his demands once more.” I made a flourish toward the coins on her vanity.

“Hence your renewed ferocity at the Games Hall.”

“It was the only way,” she said tightly.

I didn’t agree; I believed there were plenty of ways to get around Rupert’s blackmail. But I wasn’t here to counsel or judge her. I was here for one thing alone.

“Was the compass on Wray’s body when you found him?” I asked.

Her brow creased. “I—I didn’t search him.”

I sighed. “I expected as much. Or else you would’ve recovered this.” I fished Nelle’s chamber key from my skirts and dangled it before her.

This key hadn’t belonged to the killer. It hadn’t even belonged to Nelle. It was likely a servant’s copy—one of many—which was why Nelle had never noticed its absence and had never changed her lock.

“I assume Wray stole it from the servants’ quarters,” I drawled. “It must’ve fallen from his pocket when you dumped his body in that alley.”