Page 118 of Thornlight

“Thus, you shall never be truly alone,” said Orelia.

“For I,” whispered the queen, pressing her sweating cheek into Orelia’s palm, “will always be with you.”

“And this was how the stars were made,” Orelia finished, tears spilling down her cheeks. “A gift from one sister to another.”

Thorn waited, the spoon clutched in her hand. She watched the queen while the clock ticked over the mantel and the mistbirds in the rafters cooed soft and sad, and she waited for movement, for sound, foranythingwarm and real.

But nothing came.

Orelia gave a sharp cry and scrambled out from under her sister’s head, as if she couldn’t bear to touch her now that she was no longer breathing. She scooted to the edge of the mattress, shaking, and clutched the quilt under which the queen lay unmoving.

But Thorn could not comfort her. Not just yet.

For as she sat there, the empty bowl of porridge in her hands, the Fetterwitch’s curse vanished from her body.

Thorn blinked, waiting for more—some kind of violent slap against her ribs, or a wave of sickness that would have her running for the washbasin.

But instead, like a long-awaited sigh, the curse melted tiredly, silently, away.

And in its absence, the first thought that entered Thorn’s mind, as she sat there clear-eyed and clear-bodied, was this:

She was, at last, after everything that had happened, the Thorn of the past once more. Already she felt herself shrinking to the weepy, unimpressive girl she had once been.

She wiped her face. She crawled across the bed toward Princess Orelia and held out her shaky arms.

“Did it work?” whispered the princess.

Thorn nodded, tears standing hot in her eyes—because she was glad, and because she wasn’t. Because she felt small and weak, and ancient as the mountains.

“It’s gone,” she replied. “I felt it go.”

Then Princess Orelia, with a watery smile, dropped into Thorn’s open arms. She knocked her head against Thorn’s chin and burst into tears against Thorn’s chest.

Thorn’s cursed self would not have tolerated such a display. Thorn knew this at once. Her cursed self would have sat there dry-eyed, stewing with disdain, whispering,Revenge. Pathetic. Weak.

But the girl of Thorn’s true heart—a sweep’s heart, a painter’s heart, a twin’s aching, lonely heart—simply held Orelia, and cried for Orelia, and also cried for the queen lying in the pillows behind them, and for all the witches she had killed.

Somewhere in the fog of Thorn’s tears, the door opened. She looked up to see gray-haired Lord Dellier sit heavily beside her and drop his face in his hands.

Thorn gently pulled one of those hands into her own and squeezed it.

Then she closed her eyes and thought words that gave hera sort of strength she had never felt before—awkward and new, yes, but growing:

It is no small thing, to have a gentle heart.

And at that moment, the shadows rolling fast across the plains of Estar vanished like smoke clearing in the wind.

.43.

The Living Wind

Brier watched the white line of distant sky, waiting for whatever came next.

No eldisks had fallen in hours, and for that she was grateful. For one, it meant that Cub wouldn’t be hit by anything, and neither would Brier and her father.

It also meant that Thorn and their mother and Noro had landed safely up above, that their mother had convinced the soldiers of the Vale to lay down their weapons.

But for how long?

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