Page 52 of Thornlight

“Yes.” Thorn glanced around. “At least I think we are.”

Noro shook his head. “I’m not sure my tears are helping you, Zaf. Do you feel any better?”

“No, but it’s all right.” Zaf smiled weakly, patting his muzzle. “I suppose not even unicorns can do everything, eh?”

Bartos knelt beside Zaf, his eyes shining. “Zaf, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have allowed you to do that.”

“Oh, as if you could have stopped me, Barty.” Zaf’s laughter turned quickly to a cough.

“But I pressured you. I was afraid, and I...” He wiped his eyes with his filthy sleeve. “I’m a soldier. I should’ve been braver. I shouldn’t have let you take the risk.”

And as Thorn listened to him talk, a veil dropped over her eyes. A swift blink of red and black.

She glared at Bartos, and with those angry colors flooding her eyes, she didn’t see her childhood friend anymore. She didn’t see a soldier in a uniform.

She saw only a weakling. A gangly, awkward boy crying into his hands like some kind of useless baby.

“Oh, stop crying,” said Thorn, the words tumbling out of her before she could stop them. “Zaf was wonderful and brave, even though you were screaming at her and screaming at her, and crying, when all the rest of us—”

Thorn’s brain caught up with her tongue, and she stopped talking at once. She blinked in surprise at all of them. The sharp sound of her irritated voice rang in the air, and it frightened her, for she did not recognize it.

Bartos stared at her, color rising fast in his wet cheeks.

It is a rare thing, for a unicorn to look astonished—but Noro looked it, just then. “Thorn,” he said, “there’s no need to snap at him. We wereallafraid.”

Thorn swallowed hard and looked away. “Yes, you’re right. I’m... I’m sorry.”

And shewassorry.

Mostly.

But a small black flame snapping angrily in her chest wasn’t sorry at all. The feeling was strange, unlike any Thorn had experienced before. She thought things she dared not say aloud, things she didn’t understand because they were so prickly, somean.

No one else had yelled at Zaf to use her magic, like Bartos had.

He was a coward, a pathetic baby.

Thorn clenched her fists. She wished they’d lost Bartos as Zaf sent them blazing through the sky. She wished—

“Thorn?”

At the sound of Zaf’s voice, Thorn blinked a few times and tried to swallow, but her throat was dry. The veil over her eyes was gone. The flame in her heart was gone. She felt small and tired and Thorn-y again.

And she could not look at any of her friends. Her heart felt like a heavy stone in her chest.

“I’m really tired,” she said after a moment. “Do you think we can stay here awhile and sleep?”

Bartos rose to his feet, straightening his crusty jacket. “A good idea,” he said, not meeting Thorn’s eyes. “I’ll keep watch.”

As he moved away, Thorn arranged sheets of grass around Zaf’s body. Noro settled beside them; Zaf rested her head on his belly and sighed.

“Are you all right?” Noro asked Thorn. He was watching her in that unsettling, unblinking, unicornish way of his, like he could clearly see all the cruel thoughts stewing in her head. It was the first time he had looked straight at her since telling her he knew about the stormwitches. A lump formed in Thorn’s throat.I miss Brier,she thought miserably.

I miss home.

“I’ve never heard you talk like that before,” Noro said gently, “not even when Brier teases you.”

Thorn glanced at Bartos, who was leaning against a tree several paces away. He ducked his head to wipe his eyes again.

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