Page 149 of Thorn Season
During my most restless hours, I dreamed of passageways and trip wires and Briar’s tar-treads when she’d caught Garret and me at Capewell Manor as children. My unconscious mind sent me across booby traps again—avoiding tar, leaping over obstacles—until I felt my dry lips moving in slumber, anxiously counting steps I would no longer need to remember.
Then I would jolt awake to darkness, wishing I’d wrung Garret’s neck more swiftly. I replayed the scene of his betrayal over and over, my specter pulling against the dullroot until I wanted to tear myself to pieces just to get the power out. There was something perverse in its confinement, like the specter itself became a poison I wasn’t allowed to bleed from my system. Soon, it felt exactly as Erik had surmised: like I was suffocating.
This must’ve been what the Hunted Wielders had experienced before he’d killed them. With the compass still in his hands, many more would experience the same. I’d been their only hope, and I’d failed them—just as I’d failed my father.
Father.
The word formed with a knifepoint, twisting through my naval. I couldn’t dissolve the image of Father’s face as it surfaced in my mind.
Then, like darkness blotting out the sun during an eclipse, the yearning for my father overrode every other feeling.
I became bleary and vacant and agitated. I stopped eating more than the crusts off the bread rolls and began sleeping more frequently, exhausted to the bone. At one point, I woke atop a pillow and thought I was in Vereen until the rattling chains plunged me back to reality.
Judging from its citrus-and-lavender fragrance, Erik had plucked the pillow off my bed. Not to keep my head off the stones but to fill my lungs with my own scent. To remind me of who I’d been before becoming his prisoner. A girl set to become the queen of Daradon.
If I wasn’t chained to a wall, I might’ve found it funny. Only Erik could weaponize a feather pillow. But that had always been his way: adding kindness into every cruelty and cruelty into every kindness. A voice in my head—a sage, rational voice that sounded like my father—told me to feed gratefully from that kindness. I’d already seen how gentle the king could be with me. And in a strange way, wasn’t he still protecting me from the Hunters? Would it be so terrible to yield to him?
It would have to be a real surrender, of course. I couldn’t manipulate or bargain or blackmail my way to freedom. Erik would see through me, as he had from the start. Now he would only settle for the truth.
So stop resisting, that wise voice said.Nothing can be worse than this.
And I almost believed it. But then I would see the xerylite ring, and I wondered if that voice actually belonged to Erik, burrowing through my defenses like a worm through soil.
Keil once told me that everyone held some kind of power. Now defiance was myonlypower.
I couldn’t relinquish it.
I was awake when Erik delivered meal number thirty-something. At the sound of his approach, I pulled the pillow from behind my back and wearily pushed it aside. If he realized how much I valued the wretched thing, he would probably take it away.
My stomach whined upon the tray’s arrival, so loud that Erik scowled as he joined me on the floor.
So, this was a talking day. Excellent.
I looked at the food without meaning to. The rolls were golden, the stew thick and steaming, its aroma coating my tongue. To my dismay, he’d even included a slice of lemon cake today.
A stub of a candle sat beside it.
He poured a tinkling stream of water into the metal cup with the same air of serving me wine. I drained it hatefully, returning the cup with aclangto the tray. Then I nestled back into the corner where the two solid walls met and turned my face. Hopefully his voice would act as white noise and lull me to sleep.
“You’re not eating.” Fabric rustled as he shifted closer—a tactic designed to draw me toward his body heat. “If the meals displease you, I could always execute the cooks.”
The words worked as he’d intended; I couldn’t help but react, my breath hitching as I looked toward him.
He wore a victorious little half-smile, humor playing around the edges. A joke.
“If I’d known how easily I could capture your attention, I’d have threatened to slaughter the entire court by now.” Still smiling, he scooted the tray toward me. “Eat. You must remain strong.”
I angled away, my crystal-embedded tulle grating against the floor.
For several minutes, I felt his eyes on me and I tried not to touch mywrists. The skin constantly aggravated me now, chafed raw by the manacles. But I wouldn’t give Erik the satisfaction of nursing the injuries.
Finally, he sighed. “This is futile. Who are you trying to hurt by starving yourself?”
I dragged my gaze to his and said dully, “Isn’t it obvious?You.”
I hadn’t spoken in so long that the words rasped up my throat. But it was worth it for the slow sinking of Erik’s face, the jaw-flicker of irritation. I turned away once more, content.
He didn’t speak again until half the candle had melted into its holder.
