Page 19 of Thornlight

“And you know what this means.”

Thorn hesitated even longer. “I’m not sure.”

The queen laughed. It was a sound with nothing inside it. “But you’re the girl with lightning in her veins. The girl who could save the kingdom from the Gulgot.”

Thorn wanted so badly to scratch her itchy arms and thighs but bit the inside of her mouth instead. Her thoughts went to her art, which always made her feel better. This time, she imaginedherselfas the art. She had been cut open along the seams, and metal plates were inserted into her body before she was sewn back up again. Instead of veins full of tears and nerves, she had veins of lightning, and skin of secret steel.

It would make a good sculpture. Cut-open tin cans for themetal skin plates, and thin streaks of silver paint down the arms and legs, and ribbon scraps for the hair, and—

“If our storms are fading,” said the queen at last, “then you must find others for us.”

Behind Thorn, Bartos cleared his throat urgently.

“Brier Skystone,” said the queen, “you will leave Westlin with a squadron of soldiers. You will journey across Estar and scout for lightning in the mountains on our eastern border, where the storms may be healthier and more plentiful than our own. You will bring back proof—a harvest to fill no less than two hundred eldisks.” The queen’s eyes slid to Noro. “Your horn can handle that, I hope, Norojedzia?”

Noro bowed his head. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

The queen nodded, her gaze moving back to Thorn. “You will not be allowed to return to Westlin until you have completed this task. And then you will guide the other harvesters back east, tell them where to hunt, show them where to go, teach them how to handle the eastern lightning, if it is different from our own.”

A soft, high-pitched buzz was building between Thorn’s ears. To Estar? To the impassable eastern mountains? Past the war and past the Gulgot, and to the farthest border of their country?

To find lightning that might not exist, andharvestit?

She opened her mouth to protest. She wasn’t the girl with lightning in her veins! She wasn’t, shewasn’t!

“And if there is no lightning in the eastern mountains?” Noro took a step forward, his voice hardening. “What will happen to us then?”

A tiny shadow moved across the queen’s face. The ruler of the Vale had power over the unicorns, but that had not always been true. Not when the Old Wild was still strong and everywhere. Maybe the queen knew the same stories Noro did. Maybe she knew that, when the Old Wild was strong, a unicorn would have killed a queen for giving him orders.

“Then you will not be allowed to come home,” the queen replied. “You will stay in Estar, use your knowledge of lightning to extend our weapon stores as long as you can, and fight the Gulgot until your very last breath.”

All sound in Thorn’s world narrowed to the frantic pounding of her own heart.

“You will leave from the Fall Gate at midday,” said the queen. “My guards will see that you are properly supplied.”

Then the queen retrieved Princess Orelia and glided swiftly out of the room.

.8.

The Whispers Down the Mountain

Brier awoke from a fevered sleep to hear a bright horn blast cut through the sky.

Her eyes flew open. Curled up on her pillow was Mazby, also wide awake.

“The Fall Gate,” he whispered.

Brier was up and running toward the bedroom window on wobbly legs. Her chest smarting with pain, she shoved up the foggy window pane.

A whoosh of wet, green-scented air flooded the room. Brier squinted out into the midday drizzle. A glint of somethingsparkled in the distance. At the edge of the city, where the great Fall of the Sky raced foaming down to Estar, the towers of Castle Stratiara pierced the clouds.

And there, between the castle and the cliffs, was the Fall Gate, and that familiar blast of horns meant the gate was opening. Either soldiers were going down to war or coming home.

Every time the horns sounded, no matter where she was or what she was doing, Brier would freeze, and wonder, her heart pounding. And she knew, when the horns sounded, that Thorn, wherever she was and whatevershewas doing, would be frozen just the same.

Someday soon, the horns would mean that their parents’ three-month rotation at the Break was over, and that they were at last coming home—until the next rotation, anyway.

Or until the Gulgot crawled free of the Break at last.

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