Page 96 of Thornlight

The Lightning Girl Speaks

At the sound of Thorn’s voice, the world around Brier spun and slowed.

Zino and the stormwitches, pale and lightless, their power exhausted, were being herded and bound by the queen’s singed guards.

The hot stormy scent of lightning lingered in the air, making the hair stand up on Brier’s arms.

And Celestyna Hightower, queen of the Vale, was dragging her sword across the floor with one hand—and dragging Brier along by her shirt with the other.

Brier fought the queen’s grip, kicking her feet against thefloor, and twisted around to see a sight so beautiful that tears sprang to her eyes.

Noro ran toward her, his hooves striking hard against the tile. Unicorns’ hooves were only loud when they wanted them to be, and Brier shivered to hear their sharp, ringing song. The faint dawn light spilling through the throne room’s tall windows made his mud-streaked coat glow a bright silver.

And Thorn, wide-eyed and filthy, clung to Noro’s back.

“Thorn!” Brier gasped, reaching for her. “No! Run!”

The queen tugged sharply on Brier’s collar. “Ah! The second little liar returns.”

“Let her go!” Thorn cried.

Only a few frantic minutes ago, Brier had stupidly thought their plan of ambush a good one. Some ambush that had been. Not long after they had entered the castle, thirty feather-capped soldiers surrounded them.

Brier was a fool. She’d brought the stormwitches to their deaths, and she’d betrayed her harvester friends, and for what? For nothing.

“Not another step, Thorn Skystone,” hissed the queen, backing them both slowly toward the nearest wall, “or your sister will die.”

Then the queen unlatched one of the tall glass doors in the throne room’s eastern wall and kicked it open.

From across the room, Zino cried out in alarm. Mazby, trapped inside a royal soldier’s coat, squawked and screeched.

A blast of cold wind caught the door. It slammed back against one of the stone pillars supporting the throne room ceiling, and the glass shattered. So many tiny shards went flying that Brier’s frantic mind thought:snowstorm.

The glass peppered her hands and neck with tiny smarting cuts. The howling wind slapped her cheeks, sucked every scrap of air from her lungs.

Queen Celestyna stalked onto the narrow terrace and shoved Brier’s cheek against the railing. The queen was strong—too strong for such a small person. Her burned fingers hissed near Brier’s ear.

“It’s a long way down, Brier,” the queen called out. “Let’s hope your sister doesn’t do anything foolish.”

A blast of wind raced up the side of the castle, making Brier shudder right down to her bones, and her eyes opened against her will.

The drop was so vast that Brier didn’t know whether to cry or laugh—the long white wall of Castle Stratiara, the even longersheer drop of the Westlin cliffs, and beyond that...

Brier let out a hoarse cry.

The Break was getting bigger, and darker, like a scrawled line of black ink bleeding across thin paper. Tiny flashes of light zipped through the smoke and shadows. Was that spark of light an eldisk thrown by her parents? Or that one, maybe?

Then Brier heard the sounds of struggle—shouted voices, the thump of fists against flesh, Noro’s angry trumpeting cry.

Then, silence.

“Who are you?” the queen asked sharply.

Tears streaming down her face, Brier twisted in the queen’s grip and saw people she didn’t know.

A pale young woman, a few years older than her and Thorn, with a braid of brilliant red-and-silver hair and a bleeding lip. A young man beside her, maybe a little older, with luminous fair skin and glossy dark hair, his expression mutinous. The soldiers flanking them had wrenched their arms around their backs.

Huddled at the man’s feet was a frail girl, who looked to be Brier’s own age. White skinned and white haired and milky-eyed, she seemed ready to blow away in the wind.

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