Page 62 of Thorn Season (Thorn Season #1)

O h, gods—how, how, how—

I didn’t know if I’d spoken the frantic words or if Erik had sensed them from my hysterical breathing, but he answered, still smiling, “Wielders believe they can easily hide within society, that a specter’s invisibility protects them.

But they rarely consider how they look when they Wield—the exertion they display, the intent on their faces. ..”

He angled closer, and my heart lurched at the hunger in his stare.

“The first time I truly saw you,” he said tenderly, “was the day you killed that sympathizer at the Opal. I heard the sounds he made; I knew that someone, somehow, had wrapped a hand around his throat. So, I searched the crowd, and I found you —guilty and impassioned, shaking from the effort. I watched, entranced, as you drew his life away. And I thought it was the loveliest thing I’d ever seen. ”

The chains clinked with my trembling. A person changes after their first kill , Garret had said. He’d been right in sentiment but wrong in chronology. The man at the Opal had been my first kill, and his last breath had ripped something vital from inside me.

Now my specter screamed to break the king, as he’d once forced me to break myself.

“Why didn’t you kill me?” I choked out. “Why didn’t you burn my body beside his?”

Erik’s eyebrows turned up in puzzlement. “When you unearth a treasure, do you seek to destroy it? Or possess it?”

You would be my finest conquest , he’d once said.

I shook my head, stomach turning. “You sent your man after me.”

“I had to. It was both fortunate and frustrating when the Capewells involved you in their hunt for the compass. While your mission had brought you closer to me, I couldn’t have you nearing the truth quite yet. That man was your deterrent.”

“He could’ve killed me.”

“He’d been rougher than I’d ordered, yes. But you should know I don’t tolerate insubordination. You must have seen his punishment for yourself.”

I blinked, remembering my attacker’s bruises—not products of a Wielder’s defense, as I’d believed. But of the king’s reprimand.

Erik’s tone became almost playful. “Don’t you see why I sent him a second time?”

I stared blankly. My attacker had been remorseless with his violence and eurium blades. He’d almost won our battle. He would’ve won if that dullroot canister—

I made a strangled sound. The canister had been so much lighter than I’d expected.

Because it had never been filled.

“You meant for me to kill him,” I said, horrified.

Erik’s smile was full of affection. “And did you enjoy it?”

“You were playing with me.”

“I was offering you a gift. After your father’s death, didn’t you yearn for a way to ease your pain? Didn’t I give it to you?”

Nausea doubled me over. A parting gift , that man had said, not realizing the king had all but wrapped him up for slaughter.

I braced my palms on the cold floor, eyes burning again.

I’d believed I could direct Erik like a blade in my hands.

But I’d been the blade and he’d been the compass’s needle, pointing my way—firing my wrath like the arrow he’d almost launched at Perla on the fields.

There’s still time to learn , he’d said that day, disturbingly tender.

Because he’d meant it in relation to my bloodlust. My willingness to loose the arrow toward another human being.

All along, he’d been leading me like a puppet toward violence. Toward murder .

And I’d let him.

“Don’t despair, my love.” He clicked his tongue in sympathy. “That man may not have killed your father, but he’d harmed many others.”

“At your instruction!” I whipped my head up, dizzy and shivering. “I saw those tunnels. I know you made them suffer. What could you have gained from their pain?”

I imagined Marge as I’d last seen her, overflowing with laughter. How could anyone want to take that joy apart and splatter it inside a prison?

My voice cracked as I asked, “Do you truly hate us that much?”

Erik’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t mean to compare yourself to them?”

“They’re my people.”

Those words must have rankled him; he clenched his jaw, cheek fluttering. “Are they?” he asked darkly. “What have they ever done for you?”

My voice fizzled out. I had no answer.

“Exactly,” he said. “Do you think they would attempt to save you in reversed circumstances? I assume that was the intent behind your initiative—to scour Vereen for more prisons. A wasted effort. The Wielders of Daradon are like rats with blades strapped to their backs. Inept. Lethargic. Overwhelmed by having to drag around their own power. If you’d seen your people as they were—crawling in filth, weak by their own design—you would realize that you are far above them. That you and I are above everything.”

The loathing in his voice spilled over—inflaming his skin, curling his lip. It was a loathing beyond reason. Beyond remedy.

“You and I,” I said coldly, “are nothing alike.”

Erik’s hand shot around the back of my head.

I startled, jolting back—but his fingers fisted through my hair, tugging until I gasped. I’d seen enough of his cruelty that it shouldn’t have shocked me. And yet it did.

“Some describe specters as just another limb,” Erik said, his face close to mine. “So tell me: Does dullroot produce the sensation of having your hands tied behind your back? Or does it feel more akin to suffocation?”

I craned away, eyes pricking as the hair pulled against my scalp. My hands scrambled uselessly against him; the manacle-chains were too short to shove him off.

“Let go,” I said, chest heaving.

“Make me. Strike me away. Thrust your power past the surface.”

I slammed my specter to the underside of my skin, twisting against the dullroot until it hurt.

But it was like trying to separate water from salt without the heat to boil it off.

I couldn’t tear through the poison as I’d torn through Goren’s specter.

I could do nothing but whimper and then curse myself for making the sound.

“You can’t do it, can you?” Erik chuckled—a mocking gust that stirred the hair from my face.

“And how does that make you feel? Sick to your very marrow, I suspect.” He leaned toward my ear, his nose grazing my temple—the exact spot he’d kissed mere hours ago.

“Do you see now how we are the same? It’s because we are both repulsed by weakness. ”

“No,” I snarled, straining away. “I am repulsed by you .”

“You think so?” He yanked me close again, making me hiss. “Then you’re still lying to yourself. How many other Wielders do you suppose were at the Opal that day? How many watched while the sympathizer who’d been campaigning for their rights was peeled raw?”

I stilled. I’d always blamed the Wholeborns—the so-called sympathizers—for what had transpired at the Opal. Even after Garret had revealed the great number of Wielders in Daradon, I hadn’t imagined how many must have witnessed that man’s torture.

Or how many could have ended his agony.

“Through their inaction,” Erik said, his mouth moving hot against my ear, “every Wielder in that crowd handed the burden of mercy to a fourteen-year-old girl. And in doing so, they planted within you the first seed of resentment toward your kind. A seed which, under proper nourishment, I knew could flourish with a destructive force.”

I tried to shake my head, but Erik’s grip wouldn’t allow for my denial; the movement lanced me with pain.

“You’re wrong,” I breathed, hearing my own wretched uncertainty.

Erik must have heard it too, because his laughter rippled across my neck.

“I see how you ache, remember? Don’t you know why it hurts you, far more than others?

Why you must constantly battle against the strain?

” He inhaled against me, and on the cool exhale, whispered, “The greater the power, the greater the need for release.”

Goose bumps prickled me all over.

I remembered the dense petal-peeling sensation of reaching into my specter. The waves that had poured out upon discovering Father’s body—the startling layers of a power I’d never wanted to explore.

Because I’d been too afraid to embrace the core of myself.

“My only error,” Erik said, “was in overestimating how much nourishment you would actually require... before you unleashed yourself.”

His free hand drifted to his ribs—to the place I’d injured when I’d struck him in the ballroom—and fear gripped me for one knife-sharp second. But as he drew back, I saw none of the icy anger I’d anticipated. Only heat.

“I’d dreamed about your specter.” His thumb glided down to caress my cheek.

“How it would feel on my skin. How it would taste on my tongue. But”—his thumb stilled, pressing under my cheekbone—“the unveiling was ill-timed. Though it was everything I’d imagined—fierce and full-bodied—yours was not the power I’d wanted to ignite that evening. ”

A sharp, plunging feeling.

Our world is on the precipice of an immense change.

And thanks to their ambassador’s violence that night, the Ansorans—the greatest power-players this side of the world—were exactly where Erik had wanted them: in his debt.

All along, he’d been trying to provoke Keil .

“You increased the Huntings to draw Ansoran attention,” I said thinly. “You lured them here.”

“And your outburst could have destroyed everything for us. In that moment, even your own exquisite fury couldn’t match mine.

” He drew my head back slightly, baring my throat.

Something glinted in my periphery. Then Erik lifted Keil’s dayglass shard into my eyeline and said, “How fortunate, then, that Ambassador Arcus sacrificed himself for you.”

I shook so hard that my breaths kept catching over themselves. He’d seen the fire-sparking glance I’d shared with Keil. But this dayglass shard—the shard I’d forgotten under my mattress, which Keil had entrusted to me—proved we’d shared more than glances.

Erik gave a cutting smile. “I recognized his script on that letter.” His thumb slunk under my jaw, across my throat.

“I know he helped you assemble the final piece of your puzzle. What I want to know is this...” He halted over my throbbing pulse—reading me in its rhythm.

His face darkened with a look both savage and razor-shrewd.

“Did you let that Wielder brute touch you?” His voice rumbled low, his thumb juddering with my wild, treacherous heartbeat. “Did he put his hands on what is mine?”

Mine.

That word fractured my terror. I wrenched back, driving my knees between us until he either had to rip my hair out or release me. Mercifully, he chose the latter.

I skidded to the back wall, skirts ballooning.

“I know why you do it,” I panted. “Why you poison us and chain us. Why you keep us long enough to torment and degrade. It’s because you fear us .”

Erik’s lips twitched. “Do I look like I fear you?”

“You look like a monster. And all monsters are afraid of something.”

The corner of his mouth fell, and I braced for him to grab me again. To heave my head back all the way this time and smash it against the wall.

Instead, he pocketed the dayglass and took out something far worse: a large, oval xerylite rimmed with sparkling diamonds and centered on a silver band.

The engagement ring.

“A king shouldn’t fall to one knee,” he said quietly. “But I would have for you. There would’ve been music and merriment. I’d have danced with you all night, then carried you upstairs in my arms.” He shook his head sadly. “The time for splendor has passed... but the sentiment remains.”

He set the ring on the floor—reminding me of Junius, relinquishing his jewelry in submission. And I realized why my plan to corner my attacker wouldn’t have worked.

Because Erik had never wanted my head. He’d only ever wanted my hand.

“I’m a Wielder,” I breathed. “I’m everything you despise.”

“I could never despise strength. You were the only one fearless enough to Wield your power at the Opal. The only one worthy of such a power.” His brow creased in a perfect imitation of compassion.

“You worried about my finding out, and it kept you from warming to me. So, isn’t this a relief—that I’ve known you and have wanted you anyway?

You’ve always been safe with me, Alissa.

Nothing shall ever harm you at my side.”

His voice rang deep with such emotion and sincerity that I might have once believed him. But just like Erik had known me since the Opal, I had known him .

I would not forget again.

Erik smiled ruefully, seeming to read my answer.

“You’ll need to digest what you’ve learned.

But you must appreciate, I cannot undo these chains until you reach a.

.. favorable decision. The Capewells will prove troublesome now that they know your secret, and only together can we manage them.

Together, we can carry all the power in the world. ”

He slid the ring toward me, silver scraping the stones. For the second time tonight, he said, “Take as long as you need. I’ll wait.”

I stared at the ring, dazed. “I will never marry you,” I said weakly.

Erik lifted a hand to my cheek and I recoiled—because I knew it would be a tender touch, and that was somehow worse than a cruel one.

At my reaction, he dropped his hand. The torchlight swooped golden against his blond hair and gilded his outline. All painted in the glow, with his sculpted face drawn in sorrow, he appeared celestial—a portrait of a god in mourning.

“I hate to see you like this,” he murmured. “Promise me you’ll think about it.”

He left the ring on the floor and stood. The door squealed shut behind him.

“I promise,” I whispered, and his eyes met mine between the bars. “I promise,” I went on, “that I’ll be the one to kill you. I promise I’ll enjoy it. And I promise that your death will be as painful as the deaths you have granted others. By all the gracious gods, Erik Vard, I swear it.”

A formal oath. As binding as any wedding vow.

Erik’s face was unreadable as he took the torch and left.