Page 26 of Taste of Thorns
I tell my friends about what happened in yesterday’s trial, how I banished Muriel and then ended up with Thorne. I tell them about how I saved him, about the crazy light wielding and for once both my friends are stunned into silence.
“You’re sure about that?” Fly says.
“Yes, Fox saw me do it.”
“Wow,” Clare says, staring down at my hands like any minute now sunlight itself might start radiating from my palms.
“That’s not all.”
I tell them about my conversation with Beaufort and Dray in the kitchen and about my meeting with Madame. Then, because I’m on a roll and I’ve come clean about an awful lot, I go the whole hog, filling in Clare about Blaze’s existence and the fact that the Princes and Professor Fox all claim I’m their fated mate. I tell them everything, except that Thorne helped me in the maze. I don’t want them implicated in that mess.
When I’m finished, Clare looks physically sick, lying back against the cushions and breathing deeply with her eyes closed.
“Are you okay?” I ask her.
She raises her hand. “I … just need a minute.”
I peer at my other friend. “Fly?”
“This is all true? You didn’t hit your skull in the trial yesterday and craft all these crazy stories in your messed-up head?”
“Fly, you’ve met Blaze. You know how weird the Princes have been acting – way more obsessed than three guys our age should be about a girl.”
“And can you do that,” he waves his hand about, “light thing now?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know how I did it in the first place. I didn’t know I could do it. And I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to do it again.”
“My head hurts,” Fly says, rubbing his forehead.
“Yeah,” I say.
Clare lifts her head from the pillow. “There’s really a dragon flying about in the forest?”
“Yep.”
“Jeez,” she says, knocking her head back against the pillow. After a few moments of quiet she lifts her head a second time. “But what are you going to do about all this, Briony?”
“The dragon?”
“All of it.”
“I don’t know. What do you think? Is Beaufort right? Do you think Bardin is working with the Hardies? Do you think they are behind everything?”
“Most definitely,” Fly says, nodding his head violently as Clare says,
“I think that would be unlikely.”
Clare swings her head innocently between me and Fly.
“Madame may be scary, but she’s the deputy head of this academy. She’s esteemed, revered, respected in this realm. Why would she risk all that by siding with usurpers? You should tell her what happened in the trial, Briony. You should tell her about your powers.”
“Are you kidding? She already attacked Briony.”
“That must have been some kind of misunderstanding.”
“It didn’t feel like one,” I mutter.
“We should work out what’s going on before broadcasting around the entire realm that Briony has weird-ass powers,” Fly says. “Especially as someone elsehasbeen manipulating the trials.”
