Page 163 of Thorn Season
Then the room shuddered with it.
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Erik was the first to feel the force.
He flew backward, his hand tearing off me, as glasses and trays and kitchen blades clashed out as if from a shockwave.
I wheezed, hurtling against a counter. My power lashed back toward me but didn’t return to my bones. It shimmered around me in a fog, undulating with rampant energy, rolling hot against my skin.
I took a painful, blissful inhale—trulybreathingfor the first time—when glass clinked, and I looked up.
The king of Daradon sat slumped against the wall.
His nose dripped red; the wound in his back gushed freely; his drooping lashes cast shadows down his cheeks.
Because those nightmilk vials had smashed into him, the milky liquid now marbling with his blood.
Through the thick ripple of my power, I held his fading gaze and crunched across the broken glass. I squatted before him, our heavy breaths roaring in the silence.
Then I slipped my hand into his pocket. As I brought out the compass, he snatched the hem of my skirts—a last cumbersome effort. He turned his head just enough to whisper in my ear.
Footfalls pounded in the distance. The guards must have heard the commotion.
So, I left Erik in the pool of his blood and hurried back into the passage, his last words replaying in my mind.
I’d stopped only to retrieve my coin and the knife, and my power was still churning free as I pitched into the night. I couldn’t have it pouring around me while I rode, so I pulled it back inside, preparing for that familiar, stifling ache.
But there was no ache. Just a soft melting against my bones.
I mounted the steed clumsily, wiping the hair from my eyes. Then I kicked him into a gallop toward the hidden servants’ gate. I was scanning the grounds for movement when an arrow whizzed past my ear.
The horse screeched and reared his front legs. I clenched tight, leaning forward to keep mounted. He slammed back on all fours, and my body shook from the impact. I whipped my face from side to side, frantically searching for the archer.
There—a shadowed figure several yards ahead, positioned on the diagonal. As the archer drew another arrow and stepped forward, the glow from the palace spilled over a tailored leather uniform and long straw-blond hair.
Briar.
With a jerk of horror, I snapped the horse’s reins, urging him toward the exit. Cold air rushed down my throat. I reached for my power again but it rolled thickly off my back—an unwieldy cape spilling out in the wind.
Another arrow zipped past, just missing me.
Briar was aiming for the kill.
She sprinted for the servants’ gate, hair streaming, presumablytrying to head me off. We would meet like two lines intersecting on a grid.
No—the horse was faster, but Briar was closer. She would reach the gate first.
And she did.
Facing me head-on, Briar nocked a third arrow. My heartbeat kicked in a wild, desperate rhythm as she pulled the bowstring to her smirking mouth.
Then a figure tackled her. And her arrow whistled, flying wide.
My body jolted, my specter shuddering from a slice of pain.
The horse reared again, and this time I almost toppled off. Warmth trickled down my left arm. I’d been clipped.
I grappled for purchase amid the stomping and shrieking, and saw the figures wrestling in the dark. Briar was stronger than her opponent—more skilled.
