Page 145 of Thorn Season
I was breathing wetly, too tattered to resist as he tipped me up by my chin—just as he had during the fealty ceremony—and forced me to meet his eyes.
“What did I tell you?” His voice was soft, lashes low as he took me in. “Queens do not bow.”
I froze. Because the way he looked at me now, with a wry smile and a growing air of mischief...
That image from the Opal hurtled back to me—flames licking around the man’s red throat, concealing the evidence of my Wielding.
Then another scene, in the ballroom, with Erik’s grip around my elbow.Leave it, he’d said, saving me from touching the dullroot on those glass shards.
Again—always—saving me from exposure.
Now Erik’s thumb grazed my mouth and stilled against my bottom lip. He said, with a note of teasing, “You really needn’t have worn those gloves.”
And I jerked back, air choking up my throat as my specter thrashed inside me.
Because for all these weeks, the king of Daradon had known exactly what I was.
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Oh, 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 foundyou—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. Hewould’vewon 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?”
