Page 73 of Thornlight

Maybe, at the beginning, when the magic of those ancient warring witches had slammed into the Vale, the Break had been a simple gash cut from the world by magic. A chasm of sheer walls and a smooth, forever drop. Cub couldn’t remember much from the day he first fell.

Most of what he could remember were all the years after—years of climbing and roaring, and being knocked down and yanked down andpusheddown by the wicked else-hand clamped around his throat.

Wicked.

Wicked.

Yes, the else-hand was wicked. It carried dark power inside it. It did not belong in a place where the Old Wild had once lived.

If I don’t belong in this world,the else-hand’s cruel magic often whispered to Cub,then neither do you, beast.

Cub tried not to listen to the else-hand when it spoke. Not listening was difficult. The else-hand was clever and knew just the right awful things to say.

But Cub had survived the breaking of the Vale. He had survived the deaths of his mothers. If he could do that, then he could do this.

So he told himself, every long and sunless day.

The else-hand was full of angry magic, but that was all right.

Cub was angry too.

As he climbed furiously skyward—sky, oh,sky, it had been too long since Cub had laid his eyes upon it!—the else-hand punched and kicked him.

The cursed magic inside it felt desperate. The small human queen at the other end, up above, was not as strong as the old witch had been. The else-hand was fraying, like ancient rope. It was brittle, like thin glass. Its dark power had been leaking for years, and now it spilled out fast as darting shadows, racing over Cub’s body and up the Break and out into the world like a million skittering spiders.

But Cub kept climbing. He was only a tiny bit afraid. His anger gave him strength. So did the things he could remember.

He told himself the story his mothers had given him, about the birth of the stars.

Once there had been two worlds: one of light, brilliant and jubilant, and one of darkness, lonesome and lacking.

The world of light had so pitied its twin that it had carved out pieces of its own self with a cold silver knife fashioned from a comet’s tail. When the world of light shook loose its wounds, a thousand thousand brilliant embers cascaded down and stuck there, spangling the velvet dark.

Thus,whispered the world of light to its sister,you shall never be truly alone, for I will always be with you.

This, Cub’s mothers had taught him, was how the stars were made—a gift from one sister to another.

Cub liked this story. His anger was bright in the darkness too.

The else-hand punched him. He fell, slammed his chin against a rock, then scrambled up and kept climbing. His huge paws were thunder.

Die,the else-hand hissed.Fall. Never get up. Stay forever in darkness, foul beast.

But Cub didn’t listen. Brilliant stars of anger showed him the way up.

One morning—or maybe it was night, Cub couldn’t say—he awoke from a restless sleep and thrust his cold, cracked snout into the endless dank air of the Break, preparing himself to climb.

Then he sniffed, and realized something:

He was no longer alone in this miserable dark place of shadows and rocks that had become his home.

Someone was nearby.

Someone new.

He heaved his great body off the slab of stone he’d claimed for his bed and followed the sweaty scent in the air. He knew that smell; he had smelled it on his own crusty skin for as long as he could remember.

It was fear.

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