Page 8 of Thorn Season
Father tensed, but my specter was already rousing inside me. No wonder Briar looked so distressed.
“The ambassador is a Wielder?” I asked, breathless. “It’s been confirmed?”
“No,” Father said, his voice even flatter than his expression. This must be why he’d kept the news to himself. He’d wanted to avoid raising my interest, my hopefulness. He surely knew how much I wanted to meet another Wielder.
And he knew how dangerous that could be.
“All we know,” he continued, “is that the Ansorans requested an invitation for this year’s season. Their empress is known to be particularly vicious when affronted, and our king thought to preserve international relations.”
“Withvermin?” Briar spat.
Father flinched, and I almost flinched with him. The way most people saidWielderwas usually insult enough. But now I imagined Briar spitting the wordverminat Marge and had to breathe deep to settle the spectral tug inside me.
A specter was said to be a natural extension of a Wielder’s physiology—a gathering of power not only governed by its Wielder’s intent but also deeply attuned to their subconscious. Their most primal and instinctive impulses.
Which was why, right now, my specter strained with my desire to yank Briar away by her hair.
“I suppose you know vermin better than anyone,” I said, heat clawing up my neck, “after so many years of scavenging around court.”
“Alissa,” Father warned, inching further between us. Rankling a Hunter was exactly what Ishouldn’tbe doing.
But even in her agitation, Briar seemed vaguely entertained. “Your daughter’s tongue grows sharper each year, Heron. You should train her to keep it inside that pretty mouth before it gets her into trouble.” She smiled at me, and there it was—the only secret we shared, dripping like acid into the silence.
Because this was the exact smile she’d given me ten years ago, after she’d whipped her palm across my face.
Back then, I’d been too afraid of her to tell Father what she’d done. But she was no longer the greatest monster I knew.
I opened my mouth, but Father spoke first, his expression hard. “Be quiet, Briar.”
I startled, pride swelling in my chest. Father never risked standing up for himself against the Hunters. But he would always stand up for me.
Briar glanced at Father’s silver brooch: a circlet of penny blossoms,the Paine emblem. At court, jewelry meant status. Rubies glittered from every corner, emeralds winked under crystal chandeliers, pink diamonds dripped from my own earlobes. And while Father’s brooch sparkled with dark blue xerylites—coveted gemstones native to Vereen—Briar’s only adornment was the Hunters’ Mark over her heart. The tattoo she wasn’t allowed to reveal.
Her cheeks became blotched again—an angry, resentful red. “My lord,” she conceded with a mocking air, her entire face puckering as though from a nasty taste.Lemon pith indeed.
Father turned to me, eyes shadowed. “Why don’t you go and find Carmen?”
With a glare at Briar, I departed. But as the ball raged around me, I didn’t search for my friend. I began examining each garment for a rising sun, the Ansoran insignia.
I had to find the ambassador.
I wouldn’t return here until the last night of Rose Season, and he might have left by then; I couldn’t lose my only chance at meeting another Wielder. I wouldn’t expose myself, of course. Despite Father’s fears, I wasn’tthatreckless. But maybe just knowing of another Wielder’s specter would be enough—more than I’d had with Marge.
I hastened, growing giddy with anticipation, when Lord Rupert of Creak planted a mustache-tickling kiss on my knuckles and started rambling about the vineyard he’d acquired in Avanford.
“Oh, you’re not serious.” I scrunched my nose just so. “Avanish wine is horribly tart.”
“Tart?”Rupert adjusted his monocle. “Why, Fiona adored the stuff, gods rest her!”
I internally winced at the mention of Father’s late wife, a Creakish noblewoman I’d never met, but whose name I exploited with my everybreath. Lady Fiona’s death had occurred so shortly after my birth that Father had been able to pass her off as my mother without raising suspicion. If these nobles discovered I was actually the bastard child from Father’s secret love affair, they would want me stripped of my title.
And if they learned my birth mother had been aWielder, they would want me dead.
“I’ll make a connoisseur of you yet, dear girl,” Rupert continued. “I’ll send you a case for sampling. That ought to change your mind.”
He puffed up as though he’d won the argument, and I slipped away as a Parrian merchant approached him, eager to offload a case of rum.
After twenty more minutes of searching, I collapsed against the dessert table and downed a flute of sparkling wine. I was raising another, surveying the crowd, when a familiar voice said, “He’s not here.”
