Page 94 of Thorn Season
Somehow, I ended up in Father’s study. Though laborers had worked here for days under Amarie’s instruction, I hadn’t yet seen the results.
The floors gleamed, sofas restitched along the seams. They’d rebuilt the balcony railing and fit a cleaner glass into the window frame. Even the old-parchment smell had given way to the bite of surface polish.
But nothing was worse than the sleek new desk sitting in place of its predecessor. It reminded me that this wasmystudy now, as ruling lady of Vereen. The title didn’t sit right on my shoulders.
A seating ceremony would take place in the coming months, upon which the Verenian nobles would officially pledge their loyalties to me. The day would spill out with parades and merriment, craftwork and good food, culminating in a rite that should have seen Father handing me the seat of his power, as Rupert had done for his son.
Now I’d have to endure the ceremony alone.
How could the rest of my life seem so small and so gaping all at once?
I ran my fingers over the desk’s shiny surface, on which Amarie had placed two unlit candles—one at each end, to be lit in supplication to the gods of passing. Though she wouldn’t admit it, Amarie truly feared for Father’s place in the next realm. She wanted me to fear for him, to pray for him, too. To believe in the gods who would take pity on his spirit.
I flicked the candles down, one after the other. The gods hadn’t been here when Father had needed them. They had no right to claim this space now.
I turned to the liquor cabinet—another glossy replacement—and poured a measure of brandy. I drained it in one.
A pile of parchments sat in an open box on the floor. The survivors of my eruption. I grabbed a handful and smacked it onto the desk.
Most of the pages belonged to the books I’d ripped apart—texts about specters and the lost art of Spellmaking—but some bore Father’s sketches. One sheet depicted the hilt of a sword—unfinished, I knew, because the pommel was still empty and the drawing stopped a little way down the blade. As though Father had halted suddenly.
I touched the smudges where his hand had grazed the charcoal. Was this the last thing he’d ever drawn? Prematurely abandoned, like the crack we’d only started to seal between us?
I didn’t know what to do with that fracture, still unhealed. How to repair it alone when my grief now oozed into the wound, putrefying it against any chance of closure.
But I knew I didn’t want to deal with it today.
I returned to the paper stack, flipping blindly. The task of finding the mining tunnel records seemed so distant now, as foreign as this bare, polished room that Father had always kept in disarray. He’dnever taken care to hide anything of importance; it would’ve been easy for someone to locate those records.
Especially when Father kept letting the wrong people inside.
I poured more brandy, sloshing it over my fingers.
Footsteps shuffled behind me. The doors clicked shut.
I brought the glass to my lips and said to Amarie, without turning, “Why refill the bottle if you’re going to reprimand me for enjoying it?”
“Go ahead,” a deep voice answered. “This will be easier if you’re drunk.”
The air slowly hissed out of me, fogging the inside of the glass. I turned.
My attacker was an inflamed version of himself—smudged with watercolor bruises, breaths whistling between clenched teeth. Garret’s assault couldn’t have produced that volume of injury; it must have been a Wielder victim, flaring out in defense before they’d died.
The idea hardened my spine. “I thought you wouldn’t warn me again.”
“Who says this is a warning?” The man took a long, creaking step across the hardwood. No silver-tipped boots today. “I was told to offer my condolences. Leave you a parting gift.” He drew a eurium knife from his right side—he’d replaced the one on his left—and angled his head. “You never learned your lesson, did you, girl? To stop sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”
“Apparently not,” I said flatly.
He bared his teeth. “You got what was coming to you.”
I set my glass on the desk and met his stare. “So will you.”
My specter roared forward.
The man slammed into the wall; his head thwacked backward. He spluttered, blinking out the shock. His hand darted down, but I wasfaster. I whipped the dullroot canister from his belt and sent it skidding across the hardwood.
I’d avoided fighting him the first time, fearing exposure. I wasn’t worried anymore. This man had killed my father.
