Page 64 of Thorn Season (Thorn Season #1)

I was dozing when tawny light flushed the insides of my eyelids. I instinctively kept my eyes closed and my breathing heavy. Erik never bluffed; he would serve me in darkness until I ate.

Which meant he wasn’t here with a meal.

I tensed. I hadn’t drunk more water since throwing the cup, and the little I’d had must not have contained enough nightmilk to produce a heavy slumber. I would have to feign sleep as Erik dosed me with dullroot.

Or I could resist. I had no weapons—not even the heels of my shoes—but I had my nails. I could claw him, perhaps draw blood.

But then what?

Erik was far larger and stronger than me, and I couldn’t bear the indignity of thrashing beneath him as he forced the dispenser through my skin. My head was still stuffy from crying, my body still limp. I didn’t have the fight in me. Not today.

Maybe not ever.

There was a clunk as he placed the torch in its holder. The clatter of keys. The cell squealed open, and my pulse quickened.

He crouched, breaths lapping across my face. My own breathing became shallower as I prepared for the pin. Don’t move, don’t move.

A hand touched my shoulder—warm, soft. And smaller than Erik’s.

“Alissa.”

I jolted upright so fast that my vision spun. But there she was, clear and bright as the rising dawn.

“Perla?” I reached for her doll-like face and saw my fingers shaking.

She grabbed my manacle, making me gasp. And I knew this was real.

I knew what she was going to do.

Before she could unlock the manacle, I shoved her off and scrambled away. “Don’t,” I croaked.

“It’s all right.” Perla raised her palms. “Erik’s occupied. But he won’t be for long.” She leaned forward, her black cloak shifting.

I flattened myself against the wall and shook my head. “Stay away.” Fresh tears burned my throat.

Because of all Erik’s ploys, this was the cruelest yet. This taste of hope—of freedom —before he ripped it away again. And to deliver it through Perla , the girl whose plans I’d torn apart. The girl who probably considered my fate well deserved...

“Just tell him it didn’t work,” I moaned, burying my head in my skirts. “Tell him I didn’t fall for it.”

The tears were streaming now, the dam ruptured from my last bout of crying. She would probably tell Erik how I’d sobbed as she’d dangled the keys before me.

Perla didn’t speak for several seconds. Then I heard her shuffle closer.

“This isn’t a trick, Alissa. I need you to trust me. Because if Erik finds me here, he’ll have both our heads.”

The voice didn’t belong to the Perla I remembered. This voice resounded low and firm, without a trace of uncertainty.

Sniffling, I lifted my head.

Her face was a contradiction: the dark brows scrunched in pity, the pink mouth tight with impatience. But her large eyes were the strangest of all—cunning and kind and full of strength. I’d never seen that expression on anyone. I almost balked at its intensity.

“But you hate me,” I said numbly.

Her brows puckered further. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

This time I didn’t protest when she seized my wrist.

“We really must hurry,” she said. “I could only find the spare keys to the cells.”

She assessed the three locks in the manacle, then reached into the back of her hair. She pulled once, twice, thrice—dark wisps falling around her cheeks—and produced a strange set of jagged hairpins.

It wasn’t until she began tinkering with the first lock—producing the first loud click —that I truly awoke to what was happening. And I had the sudden urge to capture this scene and somehow show it to Lye. Because these weren’t hairpins.

They were lockpicks.

“You’re freeing me,” I whispered.

Perla smiled wryly. “Still sharp as ever, I see.”

She plunged into another lock, pins twirling between deft fingers.

“You know what I am,” I said.

“You can say Wielder . I promise not to flee.”

“How long?”

“Since Erik’s coronation. I saw you swiveling a coin in the gardens and led my mother away so she wouldn’t see. You were never careful.” Perla’s eyes flicked up, hard but not unkind. “It seems you still aren’t.”

You think Erik won’t notice? she’d asked when she’d caught me after an evening with Keil. She hadn’t thought we’d been spending time as lovers, I realized. But as Wielders .

And it hadn’t been a threat.

“You were warning me,” I said over the scrape -and- clink of lockpicks.

“Not very well, apparently. I suppose you thought tempting a Wholeborn king into taking a Wielder bride would be poetic.” She shook her head. “It’s a miracle you hid your specter from the Capewells. I don’t know how you expected to trick Erik.”

“Th-the Capewells?”

“The Hunters,” Perla clarified, as if telling me something I didn’t know.

“They’re in another meeting with Erik now.

They seem to be in a tug-of-war with him—lingering in the council room every night, like they want to be here in case he changes his mind.

But they always leave angrier than they come. I think they’re losing.”

So, Briar still wanted my head. And Erik was holding her off.

I shuddered just as the first manacle came apart in Perla’s hand. The air kissed my raw skin, and I could’ve cried again.

“There’s a horse by the servants’ door,” Perla said, starting on the second manacle.

“Ride to Backplace. A coach is waiting at the western corner, and it’ll take you to the Byrds’ private harbor in Avanford.

We have a ship that can navigate the waters into Bormia.

The coachman will give you the citizenship papers you’ll need.

“Now, this is important, Alissa. The coach will depart at midnight with or without you. If it waits longer, the city guards will grow suspicious. Do you understand? You must reach Backplace by midnight.”

“I—I understand,” I lied. It was too much to remember in my muddled state. Backplace. Citizenship papers. Passage to Bormia...? I was still dazed at the fact that she could pick locks . “How did you do all this?”

She gave a crooked smile. “My father was a naval soldier in his youth. He passed a few things on to me, including his connections.” Her smile turned sour.

“Mother’s the strategist. She’d been preparing my older sister, Petra, to secure Erik’s hand in marriage.

But last spring, right before her eighteenth season, Petra and I fell ill.

Mother fasted for days, imploring the gods to spare at least one daughter—her darling, favorite girl.

The gods had a dark sense of humor. They saved me instead.

After Petra died, Mother tried selling me off as Erik’s bride in her place.

But I wasn’t going to become a vicious king’s toy. ”

If Perla had looked up, she would’ve seen my face falling slack. I was remembering her fear when Erik had aimed my arrow at her foot; her wobbly reach when he’d offered her a turn. Then the incongruous stability of her grip, clenching strong around the bow.

Like she’d wanted to make a swing with it.

An invisible hand wiped the haze off my mind like steam off a window.

How often had I seen Perla clinging to the shadows? How often had she startled me with her silent presence? She hadn’t been cowering. She’d been listening, noticing. Performing.

From the start, she’d thought to save herself by acting too dull for Erik’s consideration. When I’d arrived, she’d tried to save me, too.

She was still trying.

“How did you know I was here?” I asked, awed.

“Erik told the court you’d contracted blueneck fever to explain your disappearance. He even brought a high minister to pray for your recovery.” She scoffed. “A court of educated nobles, and nobody realized you’ve already had blueneck fever.”

“You realized.”

“Well”—she tugged at her neckline—“I recognized the scar.”

Between her breasts sprawled the bruise-like discoloration I knew from my own bosom—though hers was a richer blue, suggesting a more recent sickness. The same sickness that must have taken her sister.

She returned to my manacle and released the final lock. The iron clunked to the floor.

I stared at my wrists, bewildered. Free.

My knees creaked as Perla heaved me up. I swayed, and she hooked an arm around me.

“When did you last eat?” She looked toward my untouched tray.

“I’m not sure. I don’t know how long I’ve been here.”

“Rose Season ended twelve days ago.”

I winced. Of course Erik had been worried. Over twelve days, I’d eaten a fraction of what I should have.

Perla propped me against the wall and grabbed a bread roll. “Eat fast. I can’t carry you if you collapse.”

Each bite slid like a rock to my hollow stomach. As I finished, I caught a glimmer from the shadows. The xerylite ring—tucked in the corner from when I’d flung it away.

Following my gaze, Perla straightened. “Is that a...?” She trailed off, studying the cell anew: the pillow, the hearty meal, the dignified chamber pot with fresh linens on the side.

Then she looked at me and seemed to realize I hadn’t a scratch to show from my time as Erik’s prisoner.

She asked, incredulous, “What does he want?”

I didn’t have an answer.

She fetched the ring and dropped it into my pocket.

“I don’t want it,” I said, about to take it out.

“Sell it,” she said, then lifted the torch and led me away.

I tottered awkwardly in my broken heels, but Perla didn’t grouse, even when I took a whole minute to climb the stairs. At the apex, she produced a key and unlocked the iron door.

The wash of lantern light assaulted me. Through half-closed lids, I surveyed a small armory, its cracked walls adorned with all manner of weapons.

The rest happened quickly.

Perla produced a pair of riding boots and laced me into them. She took a knife from a display case—a short, decorative weapon with a latticed handle—and cut away my crystal cape. “Successful prison escapes don’t involve sparkly fugitives,” she said, kicking it aside with a scratching sound.

Prison escapes. Fugitives.

This was all becoming violently real.

My pulse ratcheted up as Perla fastened a belt around my waist and sheathed the knife. “Keep this close until the dullroot wears off,” she said.

“How long will that take?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.” She undid her cloak and threw it around my shoulders.

Then she began removing her pearl rings.

“The crew at the harbor will only sail for the Byrds. Tell them you are Lady Perla, and use these as evidence.” She dropped them into my pocket like she had with the engagement ring.

I gaped. I didn’t know what it meant to offer up jewelry in anything except submission. But there was power in the gesture—so much that it humbled me.

“Why?” I asked.

She must’ve known what I was really asking because her voice softened with something like gratitude. “Because I know, that day on the fields, you weren’t going to let your arrow fly.”

I swallowed an unexpected rush of emotion.

Then Perla gave a dry little smirk—an expression I was beginning to recognize as her true face—and added, “Besides, who else was going to get you out of there? These courtiers couldn’t cut a fish out of a net.”

She guided me to the exit.

Fresh air swept over me as Perla steered us through the palace, cool moonlight shafting in intervals down the empty halls. Most of the nobles must have left after Rose Season because our footsteps clicked over a permeating silence.

Perla stopped at a branch of hallways. “You know your way?”

“Yes. Thank you ,” I said, with all the feeling left inside me.

She glanced around the narrowest corridor. “The way is clear. Be well, Alissa.” And she dashed in the opposite direction, leaving me with the childlike feeling of wishing she’d stayed.

But with a fortifying breath, I pushed ahead.

Minutes later, I tumbled through the servants’ door and inhaled the evening air, savoring its cold bite. The steed was tied to a spoke in the grass, his saddlebag bulging. I clutched the reins and paused to gather my bearings.

This was it. I would live freely in Bormia, as my parents had envisioned. I would finally be happy.

Then why did it feel so wrong?

The moment I’d summoned the question, the answer struck me. However rotten I’d become these weeks, I hadn’t yet become a coward.

But this act would make me one.

I wouldn’t just be abandoning my province. I’d be abandoning everyone . Because Daradon wasn’t enough for Erik; he wanted to forge his own blood-begotten empire. He would grow wild with ambition, slaughtering all who stood in his way... and somehow, the compass would lead him there.

This compass doesn’t point to Wielders. It points to specters. Wielders just get in the way.

I shivered, suddenly understanding why those words had terrified me. Because, on a physical level, there was no distinction between Wielder and specter; specters only sloughed away after Wielders’ deaths, remaining as shreds of raw power.

A power that only the ancient Spellmakers could harness.

I remembered the feeling of violation when the compass had targeted me. The sudden foreignness of my own specter, as if it were being pulled beyond my reach...

Was that the compass’s true purpose? To grasp the power of a specter before death rendered it intangible?

Did Erik wish to somehow exploit that power?

The horse neighed, but I didn’t mount. I’d glimpsed the clock in the servants’ hall: thirty minutes until midnight. I could reach Backplace in fifteen minutes, riding hard.

That left fifteen minutes to spare.

My specter squirmed, echoing the truth now writhing inside me. The truth that I would carry this gift of freedom like a bitter stone in my heart if I didn’t stop Erik now, while I had the chance.

So I whispered to the horse, “Wait for me.” Then I turned back toward the palace.

Because the compass had been there all along.

And I wasn’t leaving Daradon without it.