Page 121 of Thorn Season
They wrenched him up again.
“Stop,” I whispered.
One of the guards drew a knife from his belt. Carmen turned her head, shoulders shaking.
“Stop,” I pleaded again.
Junius was sobbing now, and Erik was laughing. Just like last time, he was laughing.
Not again, not again, not again.My specter would gush from me in a flood andI couldn’t do this again.
The guard sliced Quincy’s tunic, baring his chest. Somebody screamed.
Erik said, with a terrible half-smile, “Begin.”
“No!”A spasm jerked through me, and my control snapped like a breaking bone.
But my specter wasn’t a flood as I’d imagined. It was a fist.
And its only target was the king of Daradon.
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My specter connected with Erik’s body and launched him into the crowd. I heard the low, gruesomethudas he hit the marble. Then my specter smacked back into me—violent as a punch—and I heard nothing. Just the roaring in my head. My own ragged breathing in my ears.
Distantly, I knew people were shouting, scrambling to tear through the exits as the guards tried to corral them. Quincy had crumpled in a heap, and Junius was stunned frozen in the guards’ arms. Carmen’s horrified gaze kept flicking from me to the space behind me.
I turned to see what she was looking at, and my knees nearly folded.
Keil was staring at me, eyes wide and mouth parted, a pained understanding finally settling on his face.
I could never be happy as a Wielder, I’d once told him.Not in the ways that mattered.
And here it was. The secret I’d been keeping. The root of every bitter thing inside me.
Keil shook his head, so much sorrow in his eyes. So much regret. No guards stood between us now. He took a step toward me.
Silence descended abruptly, and I whipped around to where Erik had landed. To where that coiffed blond head emerged from beneaththe cape... and the king slowly rose.
Blood oozed down his temple. His left arm dangled uselessly at his side. He lifted his face, and the air went out of me. Because that wasrage—raw, unbridled rage smoldering in his eyes.
And those eyes were fixed solely on me.
I staggered back just as Keil’s broad shoulders appeared before me. Positioned squarely between me and the king.
Erik’s fury sputtered—almost inrelief—before it rekindled twofold. “You,” he growled.
The voices started up again, now mixed with cries of outrage. Carmen covered her mouth in disbelief.
“Forgive me, Your Majesty,” Keil said, calm and determined. “I couldn’t sit back as you tortured that man.”
What is he doing?
If Keil took the blame for this, Erik would slaughter him. He would doworsethan slaughter him.
I stumbled forward, ready to shove him aside, when Keil’s specter snapped around my waist. He squeezed tight, and my words broke on a gasp.
“Is this your empress’s famed hand of friendship?” Erik said, seething. “To plant a wild creature at my court? To demonstrate the baseness of your kind?”
