Page 98 of Thornlight

Maybe what they needed was to see Brier unafraid to speak—even now, with the Break widening fast below her feet.

One of the queen’s mistbirds flew down from the rafters, trilling softly. Brier thought she heard, in the rush of wind through its feathers, a faint whisper:

Raise your voice, lightning girl.

A chill raced down Brier’s arms. She looked at Noro, saw the familiar sad glint in his eyes, and knew what that meant.

It was the Old Wild, speaking to her, and Noro had heard it too.

So Brier sucked in a breath and lifted her chin.

“Thorn,” she said, her voice clear and strong, “tell them the whole truth. Tell them what we have all done.”

Then Queen Celestyna released Brier’s collar, and let her fall.

.36.

The Tumbling Star

As if stuck inside a lonely dark tunnel where everything was still and cold, Thorn watched Brier fall into the Break.

She heard Quicksilver and Ari’s furious shouts, their curses and cries. Noro was shrieking horrible, beastly sounds the likes of which Thorn had never imagined. She turned, slowly, like fighting against a current, to see more guards throwing more ropes around Noro’s neck, and she saw the stormwitches fighting their captors, though they were tired and weak and outnumbered.

One of them, a boy with a white bun on the top of his head, was screaming, and clawing against the soldier restraining him,but the man was too big and solid, and the boy was a skinny thing—like Bartos had been when he first started coming to Flower House to help in the gardens, when he hadn’t had a soldier’s uniform, and when Zaf had still been trapped in a bolt, and when Thorn had known nothing except how to craft art from garbage.

Thorn wanted to scream too. She wanted to scream and run, and smash her knuckles into the queen’s face, and then throw herself over the terrace railing after Brier, because she couldn’t imagine life without... without...

Her knees buckled, but two guards kept her upright.

“Brier,” Thorn croaked. The word felt fat and strange, like her tongue was already forgetting how to form it.

Queen Celestyna stood alone at the railing. Her shoulders were high and square, and she no longer looked angry. Instead she looked afraid, and bewildered.

Thorn pulled and tugged, she twisted her body, but the guards held her fast. She sucked in a deep, ragged breath and screamed Brier’s name. If she yelled it enough, would Brier come back? She would yell it every minute for the rest of her life.

But then, warmth touched her, soft and silken as Noro’s mane.

Thorn blinked, not understanding, not hearing, notbreathing. Zaf had limped close, her white hair falling to her hips, her skin gleaming with sweat and so pale it was nearly translucent. Her breath whistled, as if it were escaping from her lungs through the tiniest of holes.

The soldiers holding Thorn shifted uneasily. Thorn heard one of them whisper to the other, “What do we do? These arechildren.”

Then Zaf suddenly, impossibly, began to glow.

“Zaf?” Thorn gasped. “What’s happening?”

“Thank you, Thorn,” Zaf whispered, “for everything.”

Thorn’s stomach knotted up. “Wait, what are you doing?”

Zaf’s smile was calm. “I have just enough left, I think. The Old Wild told me.”

She kissed Thorn’s cheek—a slight hot pinch, like the shock of skin to metal on a dry winter’s day—and ran away across the glass-strewn terrace. With every step her skin glowed brighter, until she was a girl-shaped bolt lighting up the air. The guards chased after her. The queen’s sword flashed.

But Zaf could not be touched.

Thorn, her cheek stinging, watched Zaf throw herself over the railing and fall, spinning fast, like a star knocked out of the sky.

.37.

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