Page 67 of Thorn Season (Thorn Season #1)

Erik caught me as I fell, my skirts creating a tent around us. He pulled me into his lap, and I yelped as he gathered my tender wrists in one hand. Then he slid his other hand into my pocket and retrieved the compass.

That quickly, it was over. This had all been for nothing.

My first night in the cell, I’d decided not to beg. So, I hated myself now, more than I’d ever hated anyone, as I looked the king in the eyes and whispered, “ Please. ”

Erik sighed. He tucked my head under his chin and began stroking my hair. I was shivering all over.

“You’re the last person I ever wanted to hurt.” His voice vibrated against me. “I hope you know that.”

“Please,” I said again. The word hitched on my sob.

Erik just cradled me closer, shushing me as I wept.

I didn’t know how long I remained enfolded in his arms, my tears soaking his jacket. How long my specter heaved in great waves under my skin, each smack crashing out into another sob.

But in the cold whimpering aftermath... the last weight of dullroot glided off my power. My specter stilled inside me with the sensation of bated breath.

Slowly, I unfurled a tendril.

It trembled in the open air, straining against a strange, internal grip. Strange, because the poison had run dry; I knew it had. So I couldn’t understand why, as my power dragged itself toward the fallen knife gleaming in my periphery, Erik had worried about the dullroot wearing off.

My specter was too weak. This tendril could barely cling around the latticed ridges, let alone lift the weapon.

I sagged from the attempt.

“All cried out, my love?” Erik cupped the back of my head and gently angled my face for his assessment. He caught my last tear with the pad of his thumb and brushed it against my cheek.

Then he released my wrists. With his eyes still on me, he would see if I reached for the knife.

He curved his arms under my knees and around my back, ready to carry me away. He would put me back in manacles. He would flood me with dullroot again.

This was my last chance.

As his muscles tensed to lift me, I directed that strand of my specter toward my pocket. Toward my mother’s coin. My specter buckled under the little weight, but I lifted the coin as high as I could endure. Then I did what I’d always done.

I set it twirling.

Erik’s head whipped up at the glimmer, his attention narrowing on the coin. The moment his eyes turned, I stretched my hand out behind him. My fingers connected with the knife handle.

Then Erik stood to get a closer look, carrying me up with him. The coin swiveled harmlessly in his eyeline, bobbing with every splutter of my power. He exhaled—with something like relief. He opened his mouth as if to laugh at the feeble display.

And I rammed the knife into his back.

His breath snagged. He looked down at me wide-eyed, with the expression of someone betrayed.

Then the king’s blood warmed my fingers, and the fight rushed back into me.

I yanked out the blade, and Erik’s roar shook the walls. He dropped me. I cried out as I tumbled, losing the knife. My forehead smacked the floor. Blood dribbled into my lashes.

But up ahead, I could see the light of the kitchens. I clambered forward, breathing fast.

His sticky hand seized my calf. “It will take more than that,” he growled.

As he hauled me back, I looked over my shoulder so I would know where to aim. Then I drove my heel into his nose. He bellowed again, spraying red. I wrenched away with a final kick.

In a hot, heaving scramble, I pushed to my feet and staggered ahead.

I charged into the kitchens and light stunned me, the blast of fresh air drying my sweat. His breaths echoed a few paces behind, relentless.

I whipped around. Cleavers, carving knives, kitchen shears—all gleaming for the taking. But as the passage door swung wide, I darted to the shelf of nightmilk vials beside it. If I could smash them at Erik’s bare feet, release the sedative into his wounds—

I reached out too late.

Because his hand snapped around my throat— squeezing —crushing in harder when I tried to claw him away.

He slowly drove me back—away from the nightmilk vials, the passageway, the kitchen blades.

He loomed over me until his ice-glazed eyes reflected my own terror.

Until his face—as cold and hard as marble—was all that would ever exist. And as my lungs spasmed, burning for air, I realized I’d never seen him truly angry until now.

Not at the Opal, not in the dungeons, not in the ballroom after I’d struck him.

This was the king’s wrath. A wrath so fierce—so blind—that he really would kill me, whether he meant to or not.

And he would send with me every life that had ever fueled my own.

Tears scalded my eyes as I saw Lady Fiona, signing her name onto my birthing papers; the blurred faces of every Wielder my father had condemned; my mother’s smiling face, rendered in Father’s hand; my father, wrapping his arms around me, kissing the top of my head.

Father again, teaching me to swim.

Father, stirring honey into his tea.

Father, looking up from his book, eyes creasing at a joke I’d made.

My specter was corkscrewing tighter and tighter inside me now—but not to hide. This was the rapid recoil of a backswing. The inhale before a scream.

I saw myself at seven years old, threading strands of my power through the eye of a needle while holding the rest within.

I saw the spectral waves heaving free around my father’s body—the layers I hadn’t known existed because I’d kept them within for all those years.

The dullroot had left my system; it wasn’t the poison tethering my specter now, thinning it out into fragile ribbons. It was years of habitual control. It was instinct, rekindled by my fresh fear.

It was me .

The greater the power, the greater the need for release.

I remembered the compass’s needle, shuddering to maintain its hold on such a power.

And as Erik’s face fragmented in my vision, as I weakened in his hold, I painfully unclenched the long-calcified fist inside me.

My body shuddered.

Then the room shuddered with it.