Page 45 of Thorn Season
I was still exhaling through the strain when Keil’s specter laced between my fingers. A silent, secret request.
I moved before I could second-guess myself.
The din of the ballroom faded as I drifted around marble bends and up staircases, not sure if I was following the tug of Keil’s specter or my own internal pull. As I landed inside an ivory-furnished drawing room, his power receded, leaving the barest tingle on my hand.
Birdsong filtered from an open balcony, gauzy curtains billowing with the rhythm of steady breathing. I waited for my heart to stop pattering, for my specter to stop flurrying from his touch. Then I glided between the curtains, an apple-blossom breeze tousling my hair.
Keil was leaning back against the stone railing, hands in his pockets, eyes gleaming with amusement. Dipped in the light of a caramel sunset and dripping with casual power, he seemed the living embodiment of Ansora—the Sun Empire—where the days were long and lazy, and the summers said to be spun of gold.
I warmed as his gaze trailed over me—a similarly languid appraisal he couldn’t have gotten away with in the ballroom. All twinkling in crystals, I must have appeared different today, too. If he personified Ansora, then I was Vereen—the gem of Daradon.
I straightened, letting the knowledge reinforce me.
“That was quite the performance,” Keil said, smiling softly. “I was going to ask why you didn’t reveal me, but now I see you had a far more entertaining torment in mind.”
I kept my expression hard. If he wanted to believe I’d known about the dullroot glasses, I wouldn’t correct him.
“So, you’re an ambassador as well as a kidnapper,” I said.
“Actually, just an ambassador. That was my first kidnapping.”
“Mine too.”
I waited for him to squirm under my glare. It took longer than expected.
“I have no further dealings with the Capewells,” he said. “My business in Daradon is now strictly political.”
“I should take your word for it?”
“Not if you don’t want to. But... I doubt you would’ve ventured here alone if you feared for your safety.”
“Perhaps I’m carrying a weapon.”
Keil looked me over again, wind rippling his shirt. Without the leather armor, I could make out every hard, streamlined muscle of his torso, and I suddenly wondered which version of him I liked best—
I jolted, flushing at the direction of my thoughts.
This Wielder had brought me nothing but chaos. The best version of him was the version that existed far away from me.
Then he said, quietly, “After our first encounter, I wouldn’t blame you.”
And the memory surfaced—Keil’s hands, trembling toward that wagon. My question slipped out: “Who was it?”
His brow furrowed.
I clarified more gently, “Who did they steal from you?”
He drew upright. His lips parted, but no words emerged. No witty reply or flippant comment.
Though I couldn’t lament my kidnapping, for the Capewells would’ve slaughtered those prisoners without Keil’s intervention, I couldn’t help myself from lamenting my first encounter with Wielders. Or from harboring a knot of resentment toward the people who should’ve been my allies.
But now, seeing the deep pain alongside Keil’s remorse... that knot loosened.
Then he murmured, “My sister.” And the knot unraveled entirely.
This was why Keil hadn’t risked targeting Capewell Manor himself. Not because he was a coward. But because he would’ve been risking her life alongside his own.
“Is she—?”
