Page 17 of Thorn Season
Don’t show them, Garret had said. But hadn’t the Hunters’ compass already identified me as a Wielder? They wouldn’t have brought me here unless—
A chill stole over me, my specter thinning out in open air.
The Capewells must have been waiting for me to unlock this door. I’d made a mockery of their family dynasty, and now Briar wanted me to sign the confession.
She wanted me to nail my own coffin shut before she buried me.
I could remain and plead innocent, using my confinement as proof. But could I stop them from torturing an admission out of me? The vicious image flashed: Briar shattering my bones—enjoyingit.
If I possessed any chance of returning to Father, I had to take it now.
My specter jittered through the keyhole, producing aclick; the dooropened silently. I paused, listening for far-off movement. Then I bundled my skirts and staggered ahead.
The walls smeared past me, the torch heat drying my eyes. I counted the dead ends—three, four, five. Dirt burrowed into my velvet shoes, chafing my feet.
Six dead ends. Seven.
My breathing was growing frantic when voices trickled toward me.
I stumbled outside an earth-carved room, my shadow wavering. I pressed a trembling hand over my mouth and peered inside. The four Hunters sat around a rickety table, masked and hooded, their matte leather armor absorbing the torchlight.
“It was a mistake,” the largest one said. I flinched, recognizing his graveled voice. The battle-axe ran along his spine, its twin blades curving like wings. This was the Hunter who’d handed me the nightmilk. “We should’ve taken the boy, too.”
Another Hunter scraped back his hood and mussed his buttery-blond hair, the ends falling to his shoulders. “Keil only said the girl.”
“Keil also said she’d be alone.”
“You should be glad she wasn’t.” A husky female voice issued from the smallest figure—the one who’d punched Garret, then held a knife to his throat. “At least we had some fun before we left.” She clenched her fists, brown skin straining over bleeding knuckles.
My legs nearly folded. How badly had they beaten Garret for his insubordination?
For a white-hot moment, rage clouded my fear, and my specter swelled inside me—
“Goren’s just mad he got shoved that hard by someone half his size,” the blond Hunter said. “Bad for his reputation, you know?”
The largest Hunter—Goren—glowered at him, and my spectershrank again at the look. I couldn’t place his name in what I remembered of the Capewell family tree. “The boy could get in the way,” Goren said. “He could stop him.”
The woman chuckled. “Then we’ll start sending little pieces—”
“Great gods, Osana.” The blond Hunter’s eyes went wide. “You have a problem, you know that?”
“Oh, so you’d rather—?”
“Enough.” The last Hunter gave the woman a stony look. Lean and long-limbed, he was the one who’d raised his hand to me in the parlor. “You saw the boy when we took her,” he said quietly. “He won’t get in the way.”
“Dashiel’s right.” The blond Hunter stood and adjusted his bandolier—a sash spiked with black throwing knives. “You don’t fight that hard for someone you don’t care about.”
I swallowed thickly. I couldn’t interpret most of their conversation—couldn’t recognizeanyof their names. But I understood that Garret had fought for me until the end.
It was the second time he ever had. And the second time he’d lost.
“Where are you going?” Goren demanded.
The blond Hunter grabbed a waterskin from the table. “To check on our guest. Make sure the way you drove that carriage didn’t give her whiplash.”
I jumped back and darted around the corner.
My strides were aimless—each frantic breath a rasp of dirt—but I couldn’t stop when the Hunter was approaching my empty cell.
