Page 154 of Thorn Season
“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 voicesoftened 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 abandoningeveryone. Because Daradon wasn’t enough for Erik; he wanted to forgehis 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 tospecters.Wielders just get in the way.
I shivered, suddenly understanding why those words had terrified me. Because, on a physical level, therewasno distinction between Wielder and specter; specters only sloughed away after Wielders’ deaths, remaining as shreds of raw power.
