Thorns (8 page)

I ran. When I reached him, I held up the cuff. “You forgot this.” I was breathless.

He watched my face carefully. “It’s for you.”

“Oh.” I dropped my eyes to the leather bracelet, turning it over and over in my hands. It was smaller than his, and daintier. I was startled by the gift, and touched. I didn’t know what to think or say. “It’s beautiful. Thank you.”

And it was. Delicate tooling lined the edges, and the snow blossom adorning the middle was the pale blue of a morning sky. I traced the painted petals with one finger and felt Adam’s gaze lingering on my face.

“There’s a reason beyond vanity for wearing it,” he said, faintly amused. “I’ve discovered drawings work better than the real thing at warding Watchers away.”

“I should embroider one on the back of my cloak, then,” I muttered.

Adam looked thoughtful. “Not a bad idea. Wear the cuff, though. You’ll be safer when you venture out in the darkness. I make sure my own are protected.”

“Venture out in the…darkness?” Was he expecting me to have his boldness, to go out alone in the night?

“I was going to leave you a note in the barn,” he said. “I must go, but we need to speak further about the Thorns. Think of this as your first assignment. A test.”

My stomach squeezed at the words
first assignment
. I waited for him to continue. Snow fell around us, and I realized how cold I was without my cloak.

“You have to be sworn in, taught the rules,” he said. “Joining isn’t as simple as saying it.”

“I know,” I said.

He didn’t smile, but I saw faint amusement in his eyes at my impatience. “Meet me tomorrow at dawn. Follow the path to the charred oak and then go fifty paces. I’ll meet you under the stingweed.”

“Under the stingweed?”

“It’s a test,” he repeated. “I want to see if you can figure it out.”

“Adam—” There was so much I didn’t understand still.

His eyes softened slightly. “Until then, remember the signal. I will keep in touch, sometimes by note. It is our main method, although it can be exploited, so be watchful. I’ll always transcribe mine with the blossom.”

I thought of my parents. They’d been betrayed by such a note, when Cole had lured them out into the Frost. I shivered. “I’ll always look for it.”

He smiled faintly. “Be safe, Lia Weaver.”

I watched him slip into the barn for the children, and then I returned to the house before my siblings awoke.

THE SACK FILLED with our quota of yarn thumped against my knee as I hurried down the path for the village. The sun speared the forest around me with beams of dazzling sunlight, banishing the memories of the night before—the Farther children. The Watchers. Adam. Joining the Thorns.

It all felt so unreal.

I hadn’t said anything to Ivy or Jonn yet, and the familiar rat of apprehension gnawed at my stomach. Would they be angry? Or would they support my wishes to follow in our parents’ footsteps on such a dangerous path? I’d been quiet to the point of near silence at breakfast, but they’d probably interpreted my reticence to speak as reluctance to take the quota into the village or leftover turmoil from the night before. And I’d let them think whatever they wanted—my mind was reeling, my stomach was twisted in a dozen knots, my fingers shook as I fumbled with my cloak strings. I was still in an emotional snarl myself, and I had to sort it out in my own head first before I could even think of explaining anything to them.

The sunlight playing over the snow turned the path ahead into a diamond-encrusted road. Bluewings swooped and fluttered overhead in the bare branches of the trees, and a tiny part of me danced too, because a tiny part of me had ignited with hope. If the Thorns succeeded in driving out the Farthers, the Frost would be ours again.

Gabe’s name took shape in my thoughts, but I pushed it away. Even if the Farthers left, he wouldn’t be able to come back. He’d gone through the portal. He was gone, and the ache I felt whenever I thought about it made it hard to breathe.

I rounded the curve in the path, and the Farther soldiers swung into sight. Was it just my imagination, or were there even more of them than before?

Steeling myself with a deep breath, I hurried again for the gate to the village.

Ann waited for me in the town square, her cloak and hood standing out in a shock of red color against the grays and browns and blues around her. When she spotted me, her eyes fluttered closed, and she pressed a hand to her mouth.

“You’re all right,” she gasped as soon as I’d reached her. She grabbed me and hugged me hard.

“What’s wrong?” I said, pushing her back so I could peer into her face. “What is it?”

“Three men are missing, and they think Watchers…” She grabbed my hands as if she had to be sure I was real. “Your farm is out there all alone, without walls or weapons, and when you were running late for the quota delivery, I was afraid you weren’t coming. Ever.”

Dread spread through me. “Men are missing? Who?”

There hadn’t been a Watcher-caused death since Cole. Sometimes a bear got some unsuspecting Hunter, or a snow panther sprang on a Trapper when he wasn’t vigilant. But Watchers… Usually we were more careful. But it happened, and every time it did our smiles grew a little thinner and we drew our cloaks a little tighter.

“Two Fishers and a Farther soldier. The men were out after dark bringing in extra fish for the soldiers, and the Farther soldier was overseeing their work so they wouldn’t take any for themselves.”

Fishers. They usually kept to themselves, living at the edges of the village or in the forest, preferring to spend most of their time along the black waters of the river or on the ice that covered the lake. Like any forest-traveling Frost dweller, they knew the risks and shouldn’t have lost their lives, but thanks to the Farthers… I couldn’t speak at first, I was so incensed. Then another thought washed over me. If I hadn’t insisted Adam stay the night, he might be missing, too. I felt ill. “And their families…?”

“They’ve organized search parties, but everyone knows they aren’t going to find anything,” Ann continued in a hushed voice. “So people are already gathering with the families to mourn. They’ve even moved quota to tomorrow, because everyone has been in such turmoil and half the men are searching the woods.”

Nobody held on to hope long when it came to those who went missing in the forest. If the Watchers didn’t kill them, the cold would. A night of exposure was all it took in our harsh world.

I scanned the streets around us. White-faced people whispered in doorways and hurried past with their cloaks pulled tight around their shoulders. The soldiers on the corner were smoking, and the ends of the cigs glowed like tiny fires.

“What have the soldiers done about it? Officer Raine? Aren’t they supposed to be protecting us?” Derision dripped from my voice.

She took a deep breath. “He’s furious, of course. He’s insinuating that the whole thing might be our fault.”

“Our fault?” I demanded. “He can thank himself for stirring up the Watchers. How does he think he can pin this on us?”

“Well,” she said, “let me show you.”

I followed her across the street to quota yard, where she stopped before the gate and pointed. My mouth fell open.

An angry torrent of painted words streaked across the far wall like a splatter of gore.

This is what happens when you try to conquer the Frost.

And

Farthers beware…the monsters like the taste of your blood.

And

Don’t go out after dark, Mayor.

The ugly sentiments made my stomach curl and my hands shake. People were dead. The Frost was dangerous. But this…this disgusted me. And they mentioned the Mayor… I looked at Ann. She was wide-eyed, white-faced, absorbing it with me.

“Have you heard of the group calling itself the Blackcoats?” she whispered.

My stomach dropped like a stone. Did I dare tell her they’d tried to recruit me against her? “I…I’ve heard of them.”

“They’re a group who say they oppose the Farther occupation—violently if they have to. They hate my father. And apparently, they’ve taken this incident as an opportunity to threaten Raine.”

“And your father.” I stared hard at the letters again, the way the paint dripped like black blood, the way the R in
Mayor
smeared sideways against the stone, as if the vandal scrawling it had been interrupted and forced to flee.

She grabbed my arm and tugged me gently away from the yard and its bold-faced defacement. “I’ll be all right. It’s Raine we should be worried about, not these vandals.”

I tugged at the scarf around my neck as my blood boiled with anger. Was Leon insane, making such a bold and stupid gesture? He might as well have spit in Raine’s face. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.” She scanned the streets, chewing at her lip. She seemed uneasy despite her reassuring words. “Let’s go to my house—our cook made too much food last night. I thought you could make use of the leftovers.”

My cheeks burned, but I was not too proud to refuse charity when we needed the food. “All right.”

We reached the top of the hill out of breath and took a path through the snow-filled garden to the back door. Ann slipped off her red cloak and hood, and I removed my shabby one.

“Raine’s here,” she warned. “So we must be quick. You wouldn’t want to run into him today.”

We stepped into the kitchen. The cook glanced at us and then away with the practiced expression of disinterest that the staff of a wealthy family was always so good at affecting.

Ann went to the cupboard and took out a basket. “Here,” she said. “Lots of day-old bread, and pastries, and a little smoked fish.”

A voice echoed through the door. My skin prickled as I recognized it.

Officer Raine.

Ann’s eyes met mine, and a shiver ran down my spine as I saw the calm and quiet despair in her gaze. She made no effort to shield me from the angry words filtering through the door. She simply handed me the basket, and then we both stood without speaking, listening.

“…Tear this disgusting little smear of a town apart until we find the vandals responsible for those messages!”

A quiet, unintelligible murmur—the Mayor’s voice.

“I don’t care if you have to arrest every single villager!”

Another murmur.

“…Then I will make them talk!” His voice dropped to a dangerous purr, but I could still hear him clearly through the door. “If I find out any person in this village has been helping
anyone
who opposes me, I’ll hang them from the highest tree in the Frost. Do you understand?”

The Mayor didn’t reply. The kitchen hummed with silence. My stomach plummeted to my toes as the words echoed in my mind. Sweat broke out across my palms, and my heart hammered.

He would kill me if he knew what I was.

I stole a glance at the cook. Her plump shoulders stooped as she bent over the sink, scrubbing a dish. Tendrils of hair stuck to her damp neck. She gave no indication that she heard anything.

“Perhaps you should get home,” Ann said quietly, observing the expression on my face. I nodded.

I’d heard all I wanted to hear.

~

The falling snow from the night before had almost completely erased the evidence of the Watchers in the yard and around the farmhouse. Bathed in white, the house looked pristine, almost tranquil. Snow was redemptive like that—it smoothed away the flaws and painted everything in a clean coat of white, and it made the world seem new and beautiful again no matter how bad the night before. Perhaps that was how we survived in a place like the Frost. We let the snow bathe the tragedy away and moved on with our lives as if it hadn’t happened.

The snow might cover tracks in the snow, but I couldn’t as easily remove the memories in my mind. Avoiding the house, I stopped at the barn to give myself time to gather my thoughts and emotions. I completed the chores methodically, my mind scattered in a thousand pieces as my hands brushed the horses and fed the chickens. Adam, the Watchers, the Farthers, Ann, Everiss, Jonn, and Ivy…I was too connected, too distracted by my loyalties. It broke all the rules I used to follow.

But what else could I do?

I found the note pinned against the wall of the barn as I exited it, the paper fluttering in the wind like a captured butterfly. I plucked the scrap of white from the wall and smoothed it against my palm to read it.

The words scrawled across the paper made my heart freeze and then thud in staccato:

Those who aren’t with us are against us, and there are more dangers than Watchers in the Frost.

It was from the Blackcoats. I was sure of it.

My hands shook as I put the note in my pocket and tried to think. Someone had been prowling around the farm. Leon? That toothy-grinned girl, Onna? I hadn’t noticed any footprints on the path, but of course the snow had fallen and covered everything. Anyone could have come and gone.

I finished the rest of the chores and returned to the house. Ivy and Jonn looked up from the fire as I put away the food Ann had given me and returned to the main room. I smoothed my face into a mask of careful indifference and told them about the missing men.

They didn’t say much—what was there to say? People died here. It was what happened.

We did not speak much as we worked, and the crackle of the fire on the hearth punctuated the silence.

Finally, my brother cleared his throat. “How is Everiss Dyer’s family coping with the arrest of their father? Did you see them in town?”

“I didn’t ask. I’ll be sure to ask Ann when I go back tomorrow. I have to take the quota.”

His gaze lingered on my face, as if he were looking for something else behind my eyes. I blinked and glanced away. I had no plans to tell them about the note. Those threatening words had been intended for me, and me only. The Blackcoats had no quarrel with Jonn and Ivy, and they were already worried enough about Raine and the Farthers.

A pang of terror struck me. Had Ivy gone to do the chores earlier? Had she seen the note?

I scrutinized them both as they returned to their work. Ivy’s face seemed clear of duplicity, and I knew how bad my sister was at hiding her feelings, so I was reassured.