Page 6 of Thornlight

Brier’s spirits lifted. She urged Noro into an easy trot. When she was eight years old, she’d spent a few weeks practicing this gait on one of the queen’s shaggy work ponies. The royal horse masters had used the beast to teach Brier how to ride before she was matched with Noro.

Never again would she sit on a horse’s back, jostled aroundlike a sack of feed. Noro’s trot—the least graceful of his gaits—was so smooth it felt like skimming across the top of rippling water.

“And what good would telling Thorn do?” Brier asked as they made for the crackling air where the lightning bolt had flashed. “She’d sit around and worry about it until she made herself sick, and for no reason. The storms will come back.”

“And if they don’t?” Noro sailed over a shallow ravine and landed quietly on the other side. “You’ll be at the thick of this, Brier, whatever happens next. And I don’t care to see you bearing the weight of it alone.”

Brier pulled heavy plated gloves from her pocket. “You’re worried for me, Noro?”

“Constantly,” he replied. “Gloves on?”

Torn between pride and delight—Noro didn’tneedto worry about her, she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself; but, oh, to be worried about by a unicorn was a precious thing few people enjoyed—Brier said shortly, “On and ready.”

Noro let out a low hum. “We’re close. I can smell it.”

They flew over a ridge of rock and emerged onto a grassy plateau bordered by sheer black cliffs. Above loomed the mountains, draped in cloaks of cloud.

And in the middle of the plateau, a single bolt of lightning waited.

Noro stopped short. One of his long white ears pricked forward; the other swiveled backward.

Brier’s heart pounded as she watched the bolt hovering a few inches above the ground, threads of energy spinning around it. The bolt shivered, as if it was ready to fly apart into a thousand pieces.

No one knew lightning better than a harvester, but this was like no bolt Brier had seen before.

Lightning ran and raced, jumping from cliff to cliff like a snow lion. Only unicorns were fast and nimble enough to chase it. Lightning was wild and untamed, and did everything it could to avoid capture.

It certainly didn’t stand aroundwaiting.

“What the thunder is this?” Noro whispered. One hoof pawed at the rocky ground.

“You’re acting horsey, Noro,” Brier said automatically.

Noro’s leg stilled. He cleared his throat. “Thank you.”

“Why is it just standing there waiting for us?”

“I have no idea.”

The bolt of lightning shimmered and twisted. Brier had theoddest, most distinct feeling that it wasstaringat them.

“Perhaps we should leave it be,” Noro said slowly.

“And lose a harvest?” Brier scoffed. “Not on my watch.” She clapped her hands. The thin plates of bindrock lining her gloves crashed together with a tinny clang. “Let’s go, now!”

Noro could have disobeyed, if he’d been free to. He was certainly strong enough to fling Brier off his back. He could have run away through the mountains and left all trace of humans behind.

But Noro wasn’t free. Since the moment they’d met four years ago, when he’d been so charmed by Brier that he’d momentarily lost his senses and allowed her to ride him, they had been bound. Brier’s will was his will. Once, long ago, when witches still lived in the Vale, the Old Wild would have been strong enough for Noro to resist the call of any human.

But the Old Wild—the oldest, wildest power in the world, the power that stretched from horizon to horizon and lived inside every tree and human and beast—was not what it had once been. It was quieter, weaker, harder to find. This was what Noro told Brier and Thorn when they dared to beg him for a story about the Vale of years long past.

Nevertheless, Brier felt a tingle of the Old Wild rush through Noro as she ordered him forward—a moment of quiet rebellion. Not because he didn’t love her, but because he was a creature meant to live free.

His body shuddered; his horn sparked. Then he rushed at the lightning bolt, faster than a snow lion, deadlier than a diving hawk.

Brier’s eyes watered. She threw up her gloves, sifted her fingers through the air. The bindrock plates soldered to the fabric sizzled and thrummed. But it was Brier’s fingers, Brier’s blood, that did the real work.

Some girls were born with a talent for singing or sword fighting, or for art, like Thorn.

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