Page 164 of Thorn Season
But Garret had more incentive.
He pinned Briar under him, crushing her face to the ground. “Go!” he shouted over his shoulder. Our eyes met, and for a split second I saw the boy he used to be. Passionate. Determined. Blazing with love. “Go!” he yelled again as Briar bucked beneath him.
I charged on, and the scuff of their battle continued as the horse kicked down the gate and plunged us into the city.
48
It was long past midnight, and no coach waited for me at Backplace.
Though I didn’t want to stop before leaving the capital, my left arm throbbed and my bloodied hands kept slipping from the reins. So, I dismounted behind a tavern, where textured-glass windows diffused enough murky light to see by. Then I assessed my arm.
I told myself it could’ve been worse; the arrow had skimmed me rather than piercing through. Still, my eyes watered at the sight—the open skin flaps, the gruesome slash of red. The more I looked, the less I believed that this wasmyarm,mywound.
But the pain was hammering now, tethering me to reality, so I rummaged through the saddlebag for something to stop the bleeding.
Perla had supplied me well, with a waterskin, a food parcel, and several items of fresh clothing. I’d learned enough from Tari to know that the wound would fester without a proper cleaning.
A mediocre cleaning would have to suffice.
Biting a mouthful of my cloak, I poured water over the gash. The pain doubled me over. I groaned around the fabric, eyes rolling back. Water ribboned down my arm and splattered my boots. Hot breaths sawed through me for several long seconds.
Once the nausea subsided, I tore a strip from a clean blouse andwrapped it around my arm, using my teeth to secure the knot. Then I rinsed my hands, unbuckled the sheath belt, and peeled off the gown I’d been wearing for twelve days. I transferred everything to the saddlebag—the rings, the shipping documents, my mother’s coin, the compass—and I was buttoning a new blouse when a tavern window cracked open.
I froze at the shock of light. Laughter streamed out with the fatty smell of cooking meat, figures drifting behind the glass. But none turned their heads toward me.
After five heart-racing seconds, I left my blood-soaked gown deflated over a bush. Then I rode on.
If I’d been more alert, I might have worried at the sudden influx of guards sweeping the streets—pulling over coaches and searching citizens at random, their whispers catching on the wind.An intruder. An attack at the palace.
But I was wilting in the saddle, bleary-eyed and aching.
And maybe that was precisely why the guards didn’t spare me a second glance as I rode right past them beyond the city border.
Sunset boat rides along Emberly River were a staple of Verenian summers. Father and I had boarded a streamlined vessel every evening last year, carrying ripe apricots and olive loaves and a palette for his watercolor paints. He’d painted the pink-and-amber sky, losing himself in his art, and I’d secretly wished for a craft worth losing myself in too.
The vessel I was currently trying to board in the dead of night was more beast than ship, and the open sea behind it was a far cry from the crystalline river that weaved around my province. The roaring water muffled the sharp hiss of my words, the misted air plastering my furrowed forehead.
I’d thought, after besting the king of Daradon and escaping the leader of his Hunters, that I’d overcome the last obstacles stopping me from reaching the ship secretly bound for Ansora. The ship that would carry me—and the compass—out of this stifling kingdom for good.
As it turned out, my last obstacle was an overseer named Ed.
And Ed was proving difficult to defeat.
“Your name’s not on the list,” he said, stroking his black goatee. “No name, no entry.”
“I was a last addition,” I insisted for the third time, flapping the shipping documents in his face. “Here. I have all the right papers.”
“You could’ve stolen those from anyone.”
A young man started elbowing ahead of me. At my glare, he retreated.
Ed snapped shut his book of names. “Listen, girl—”
“No,youlisten. See that alley over there? Yes, the one behind the fishmongers, where they throw out the guts? I’ve spent two nights camped in that alley so I wouldn’t miss this ship.” Truth. “I had to sell my steed to avoid attention”—also truth—“and I wasted half my coins on a physician who wouldn’t know how to stitch a flesh wound if it opened its mouth and gave him the instructions.” Another miserable truth. “Soyou”—I slapped the documents against his broad chest—“can either let me aboard or I will let myself aboard.”
A lie.
The only time I’d used my specter over the last two days was to reach for an apple. No longer confined to my internal grip, the power had gracelessly blasted the apple into the alley wall with a force that could’ve dismembered a full-grown man.
