Thorns (4 page)

“Inroads?”

Onna smirked. “You’ll be perfect for when we target the Mayor. You know his daughter. We can sneak you in their house. Maybe you can even go after her, too. I’m thinking public humiliation—”

“Hold on.” I took a step back and drew in a quick breath. “What does Ann have to do with any of this?”

“She’s related to the traitor scum,” she said. “So she’s guilty by association.”

“You must be joking.” A flush crept up my cheeks, and heat pooled between my shoulder blades. “Ann doesn’t agree with what her father does. And she has no control over who her parents are any more than you can help being a Blacksmith.”

“Save the pathos for someone who cares,” he sneered. “Ann Mayor has been hobnobbing with the Farther officers since they came here, along with her father. If you aren’t willing to teach her a lesson, then you’re out.”

“All right,” I snapped. “Then I’m out.”

They all stared at me. Leon opened his mouth, but didn’t say anything. Clearly they hadn’t expected me to say that.

And clearly they didn’t know me at all.

“Ann Mayor is my best friend.” I stabbed a finger at Leon. “She has nothing to do with the Farther occupation, and she has no control over her father’s actions, and I will not hold her responsible for the injustice that happens. And if any of you mess with her, you mess with me. Got it?”

Leon’s eyebrows drew together in an angry slash above his nose. “I think you know the way back to the road.”

“I think I do.” I pushed past Onna.

“Wait,” Leon said sharply.

I paused.

“If you walk away from this now, then you’ve made an enemy.”

“Then consider me your nemesis,” I growled.

I stared at him until he looked away. I was too angry to speak, so I didn’t. I left him standing at the entrance to the alley as I headed for the Frost, and I didn’t look back.

MY BLOOD WAS still simmering from the sting of Leon’s comments when I got home, so I shoved the fish and cornmeal at Ivy without a word and went to the barn to check the animals. I brushed the horses’ coats with short, hard strokes as their accusations ran through my head. Ann had no control over her father’s choices, and she wasn’t responsible for what had happened to the village. If people thought I was going to blame her for the Farther occupation, they were dead wrong.

I finished with the horses and threw the brush into the tack bucket so hard a puff of dust plumed up where it hit. With a growl of frustration, I wheeled to check on the cow.

And ran straight into Adam Brewer’s arms.

“Brewer?” I jerked away and leaned against the stall door, rubbing my suddenly shaking arms. I hadn’t heard him enter. Was he unnaturally quiet, or had my anger so absorbed my attention that I’d grown careless? “You startled me.”

His eyes flicked to mine. He was calm, composed, and unreadable as always, but I sensed a hum of tension in him, a disquiet that made my skin prickle in answer. When he looked at me, I felt like he saw more than I wanted him to see. It unnerved me.

“I called your name,” he said, his voice a rich whisper uncurling in the near-darkness.

I brushed away a lock of hair that had fallen into my eyes. It was something to do because I was suddenly too restless, too aware of the air surrounding me. Why did he have that effect on me?

“What are you doing here?”

“When I saw you today, it seemed like you wanted to speak to me. And I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”

“Talk to me about what?”

But I had a feeling I already knew.

“When your parents were killed, they left a hole in the net of Thorns operatives.”

My fingers found the wall, and I leaned against it. My legs had begun to tremble.

“You kept the brooch,” he said, “but you gave me no definitive answer about your intentions.”

I thought about the secret room beneath our feet filled with maps and documents. I thought about the location of the farm, far from the village and surrounded by forest. Of course they wanted me to work for them. It was perfect.

But what about my family?

“The safety of my siblings is my top priority,” I managed.

Adam’s eyes softened. “The work we do is dangerous. I won’t pretend it isn’t. But you might find that refusing to fight back against the Aeralian occupation is even more dangerous in the end.”

“Is the Farthers’ occupation of the Frost the Thorns’ top priority?”

“No. But the defeat of the Aeralian dictator is, and if he is unseated, then your occupation will end, too.” He paused. “But you forget—this is my home, too. And I will defend it with my life.”

He was not native to the Frost, but he still seemed a part of it all the same. He’d lived here for years.

I considered his words. On the one hand, it was dangerous work with an uncertain end. But on the other, it was my parents’ work, and it was noble. I believed that.

Adam was waiting for my reply.

“I don’t know,” I said, although the words themselves felt like a surrender to destiny. I lifted my eyes to his and I held his gaze even though doing so made my stomach drop to my knees. “But I will make a decision soon.”

He accepted this answer. “If you need to communicate with me, hang a lantern by the tree line. That’s the signal.”

I remembered. We’d done the same the night Gabe had traveled through the portal. “I’ll remember.”

He nodded. He was still looking at me.

One of the horses snorted, and I turned to soothe him. When I turned back, Adam had vanished. The barn door was slightly ajar, and a cold wind fanned my cheeks.

I sighed.

~

Adam Brewer and his Thorns, Leon Blacksmith and his Blackcoats, the Farther soldiers and their consulate plans—the stress of it all pounded a headache behind my eyes as I settled down to work on quota with my siblings, but I did my best to act calm. Jonn seemed to sense my frustration, for he silently patted my arm a few times, a gesture that only made me seethe. Why did he always seem to think I was a glass bowl waiting to be broken these days?

Scowling, I filled the kettle with fresh snow from the yard and returned into the main room to hang it over the fire. Ivy’s shoulders tensed as I drew close to her. We were still in a disagreement over quota.

Jonn studied both our faces before settling on mine, and I could read the warnings in his eyes. He jerked his chin at Ivy, urging me to speak, and I suppressed a sigh. Irritatingly sensitive or not, my twin always knew how to coax me into softening.

“I’m sorry,” I said, trying to sound gentle. “You’re right. I haven’t been in a very good mood lately.”

“Nobody is,” Jonn added, ever the peacemaker. “The Farthers are making everyone tense.”

My sister’s eyes shimmered. She grabbed her yarn and bent over it. “Tell me some riddles?”

He glanced at me, silently urging me to participate.

I searched my mind for a riddle. “Uh…what brings danger and strife, but also relief and life? We are…uh…we are prisoners of it, yet protected by it.”

“Snow,” she answered immediately, with a sniff of triumph. She knew that one. It was one our father had told us often while we’d worked the quota as children.

“What tells stories with its fingers and keeps hunger at bay with its hands?” Jonn asked.

“A Weaver,” Ivy said. “Because we spin yarns and fulfill our quota. Something harder, Jonn.”

He pursed his lips, thinking. Then he smiled. “What, when kept sharp, may win you a wife, but when dull, may cost you your life?”

Her forehead wrinkled. “A kitchen knife?”

“How would a kitchen knife find you a wife?” I demanded.

She scowled. “I don’t know. What’s the answer, smart one?”

“Wit.”

She stuck out her tongue at me, but the mood in the room was easing from icy to warmth. “You only know it because Da always told you all the answers to all the riddles.”

I rolled my eyes. “Hardly true.”

“Well, here’s one she doesn’t know the answer to,” Jonn said. “What woven secret will keep you warm?”

She pondered the question. “I don’t know.” She glared at me as if it were my fault. “What is it?”

I threw up my hands in exasperation. “I don’t know, either—which just goes to show that he didn’t tell me everything. Da always teased us with that one, remember?”

“Ma used to say it was love,” he said.

“Well, I think it’s yarn,” I muttered.

“Yarn isn’t a very romantic answer,” she said.

“The riddle isn’t ‘what
romantic
secret will keep you warm.’”

“Still—”

“I don’t think there is a single answer,” Jonn interrupted. “Da loved to tease, and he liked to see us try to puzzle things out. Especially smarty over there.” He nodded at me. “Drove her nuts not knowing the answer to every riddle.”

I snorted to show my derision at such a claim.

She smiled hesitantly, and the mood in the room warmed.

The kettle began to squeal, and I got up to make tea. “Keep working,” I said when Ivy showed signs of slowing.

She stuck out her tongue, and as quickly as that the mood was ruined again.

Jonn shook his head at me, and I bit back a sigh of frustration.

My mind returned to my conversation with Adam in the barn, and apprehension gnawed at my stomach.

He wanted an answer, but I didn’t know what to tell him.

I was working myself to the bone just trying to make ends meet and keep my family from starvation. How could I do anything else, dire as things were?

~

That night, I crept out of bed and dug in my drawer for the Thorns brooch that had belonged to my parents. The silver branch glittered like ice in the near darkness as I turned it over, and in my mind’s eye I saw Adam’s face as he handed it to me two months ago. “You’ll need it,” he’d said.

And yet, so far I’d done nothing.

I closed my palm around the piece, feeling the sharp sensation of the cold metal against my hand, thinking hard of my ma and da’s faces. Pain filled my chest and burned at the back of my eyes. With a hiss of frustration, I shoved it back in the drawer beneath my socks, threw back the quilt, and padded to the window that overlooked the yard below.

The moon cast a silver glow over everything, and through the frost on the glass, the forest made a black smudge against the stark white of the snow. I pressed my forehead against the chilled glass and breathed out slowly.

I didn’t know what to do.

The shadows shifted and rippled, and I caught the faintest glimmer of red light glancing off the snow. A Watcher? Or simply my imagination coupled with my exhausted mind?

I stared at the spot where I’d seen movement until my eyes ached as I strained for the sound of claws against the snow, but the night was silent.

My sister’s breathing filled the room in a steady rasp, and my mind spun a memory of Gabe bundled in quilts by the fire, his hair damp against his feverish forehead and his mouth moving as he mumbled deliriously. My throat squeezed at the thought of him, and I shifted restlessly on the window seat.

When shivers overtook me from the cold and my own loneliness, I returned to my bed and huddled under the quilts until dawn.

~

By the next mandatory Assembly, my thoughts were still in turmoil. Dark clouds clotted the horizon and plunged the Frost into a state of near-twilight as I ran on the paths, my every sense attuned to the sounds of the forest. Nothing except a few bluewings stirred in the trees, and I reached the Cage out of breath but unscathed as always.

Ann waited for me by the gate. A thin line of red traced her cheek, the mark accentuated by her pale skin.

I frowned at the mark. “What happened to your face?”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” she stammered, brushing her fingers over the place. But it smudged red. I grabbed her shoulders and turned her toward the sun so I could see better.

“You’re
bleeding
.”

“It’s nothing.” She pulled free and smoothed her dress. Her expression was carefully guarded. “Just a little rock, that’s all.”

A ROCK? My pulse hammered, and my fingers curled into fists. I took a deep breath to steady myself. “Did one of the soldiers—?”

“It wasn’t a Farther,” she interrupted.

I snapped my gaze to the street. I saw a few sullen-looking children skulking around one of the shops, but none of them held stones. They wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“Who, then?”

She shook her head. “Let’s just go. Please. We’ll be late.”

I let it drop because she was right, we were going to be late, but I wasn’t done with the topic. I hooked my arm in hers and together we hurried for the Assembly Hall.

Villagers streamed through the carved blue doors to the hall, their faces haggard and their bodies bundled in cloaks the colors of snow and frost. We slipped through the crowd without speaking and into the building. The air had already grown hot inside, and the room buzzed with low, urgent voices. Everything smelled faintly of sweat and damp wool. We took seats at the back.

A knot of soldiers strode past, and the presence of one man in particular made everyone shiver and turn their faces away as he limped past.

Officer Raine, the Farther officer in charge of the occupation.

His iron-gray cloak swept the floor behind him, and the decorations on the chest of his uniform glittered in the pale sunlight as he strode through the crowd. His uniform strained across the front of his chest, and the gloves on his hands were dirty. His left leg was weak from an old injury, and he lurched with every step he took.

Outwardly he looked benign, almost sad.

But the glint in his eyes made shudders run over my skin like a thousand tiny spiders.

Officer Raine’s gaze raked over the villagers as if looking for signs of dissent. He reminded me of a cat hungrily eyeing a nest of mice. His lip curled, and he snapped his fingers for the soldiers to flank him.

I stared at the floor until he’d moved on.

After Raine had taken his place beside the dais, the Mayor entered. Farther soldiers followed at his back, hanging back a little to make it look as though they were guarding instead of escorting him. But I knew the truth. He was their prisoner, and he dared not defy them. His skin looked almost gray, and deep shadows ringed his eyes.