Page 126 of Spark of Sorcery
“I think they must have been trying to kill you,” he says.
“It wouldn’t be the first time.”
“They will regret it,” he says and for the first time I’m not sure that threat is an empty one – hyperbole from some jacked-up shadow weaver high on his own importance.
Thorne means it.
He leaves me in peace after that and although I know the other Princes plus the professor are lurking somewhere outside the room, their mumbled voices carrying through the door, I am alone.
Alone with my thoughts. Which are many and varied and tangled like Rapunzel’s locks on a bad hair day.
I’ve never believed in fate or destiny, mystic powers or star-determined forces before. I thought I knew how the system worked even if everyone else insisted on walking around with the wool pulled over their eyes.
The powerful decide where we end up, which Quarter we serve, how our lives will pan out. Whether we’ll live a life of luxury in Onyx, comfortably in Granite or in misery and poverty in Slate. Nothing to do with fate.
Now I’m doubting everything I believed.
It can’t be a coincidence that the stone called me to it and that fate has deemed me the mate of the Princes and possibly also Fox.
Fox? Plucked from obscurity in Slate and given a life as a shadow weaver, given powers, given immortality.
My head spins again and I close my eyes and try my best to arrange my tumbling thoughts.
If this is fate, or destiny, or something written in the stars, then why me?
I open my eyes and stare down at my hands. Small and weak, my fingertips calloused, a scar slicing across my palm.
Unless …
Unless for the first time in my miserable existence fate has decided to lend me a helping hand. I want to find out the truth about my sister and fate has given me four strong shadow weavers to aid me. Four strong shadow weavers and a dragon.
I can’t exactly see how that’s helpful right now but maybe I have to trust that it is.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Thorne
“You must really like her, huh?” Briony’s best friend asks me as he scurries along by my side. We’re making our way through the forest, returning to the area where Dray first picked up her scent.
I glance at him and then back to scanning the undergrowth.
“I mean, I bet you wouldn’t normally go traipsing through woodland looking for a girl’s lost pet. It doesn’t really seem like your thing.”
“Do you always talk so much?” I mutter.
“Only because you don’t speak at all.” I stop, searching the undergrowth for something I recognize. He stops beside me, hands on his hips and runs his gaze over me like I’m under inspection. “You just sort of grunt and glare a lot. Notthe best of conversationalists, but you’ve been spending a lot of time together so I’m betting she finds that hot.”
“I’ve been helping her with the dragon.”
He sniggers, laughing even harder when I glare at him. “Is that what kids are calling it these days?”
“If it’s code for something else, do you want to explain what you’ve been doing with her?” I growl.
He takes a little step away from me. “I’ve said this numerous times, it’s actually becoming tedious, but she is not my type. And judging by the guys she is into, I am not hers either. Sheesh, you guys really need to rein in the possessive and obsessive vibes.”
“Maybe she likes that too.”
He smiles. “So he does have a sense of humor.”
