Page 78 of Thornlight

“Brier,” purred Mazby, his eyes heavy with sleep, or maybe pain, or maybe from missing Thorn. He trilled softly. “I hurt my wing.”

She pressed her face against his silky feathers. “I know, and I’m sorry. You’re so brave, Mazby.”

“The bravest grifflet there ever was?”

“And ever will be.”

With Mazby in her arms, Brier found it easier to speak. She looked at the harvesters she had betrayed. “Do you have a warm place to keep them, until we decide what to do? And food?”

Zino shrugged off his fraying coat and wrapped it around Brier’s shoulders.

“I promise you, Brier Skystone,” he said solemnly, “that your friends will be warm and safe.”

Brier nodded. The warmth of Mazby against her chest was not nearly enough to soothe her troubled heart.

“Follow me,” she said. “I’ll help you find the others.”

.30.

The Stolen Prince

Thorn crouched in a cluster of shimmering iridescent ferns and searched the forest for her prey.

They’d been walking west from the city of Tavarik for three days. There was no time to waste; Prince Ari Tarkalia and his abductors would already be far ahead of them.

Thorn had closed her eyes whenever they stopped to make camp, pretending to rest just like the others, but she didn’t see the point of resting. Instead she would lie in a tight knot, hands bunched into fists, jaw clenched. If they could just keep going, keep pushing onward, instead of stopping every few hours tonap like a passel of weaklings, maybe they’d have caught up with Ari by now, and then—

“There,” whispered Bartos, who knelt nearby, hand at his sword. “I see them.”

Tracking the Vale soldiers had made Bartos seem like himself again. His eyes were clear. His washed cap was bright and clean atop his big ears.

Thorn followed his gaze. A group of five huddled a few hundred feet away in a small copse of trees boasting heavy crimson leaves the size of Thorn’s torso.

The five people wore brown jackets, long and hooded, and carried small packs slung round their shoulders.

One of them—a stout, fair-skinned woman with cropped brown hair—threw back her hood, took a swig of water from a leather canteen.

Bartos sucked in a sharp breath.

“That’s Emmi,” he murmured. “She trained me in sword work.”

The web in Thorn’s belly stretched fast, climbed rough and hot up into her lungs.

Curling her fingers into the mud beside her boots, Thorn gazed hungrily at Emmi’s throat. The woman was part ofwhatever secret plan Queen Celestyna had concocted to sneak into the Star Lands and steal a prince.

But if anyone was going to bring a witch back to the Vale and save everyone from the Gulgot, it should be Thorn.

Shewas the brave one.Shewas the one with real power inside her. Anyone else would just muck things up.

Thorn could imagine it: her hands, wrapping around Emmi’s throat. First Emmi, then the other four soldiers. ThenThornwould be the one to bring Prince Ari and Quicksilver to the Vale. They would think she had saved them, they would think her their friend, and then she would give them to the queen, and the royal healers could carve them open and find whatever magic they were hiding. Because surely they were lying. So what if their monsters were dead? They just didn’t want to share their magic!

And then she, Thorn, would be given jewels and titles and a great glittering sash, becauseshewould have been the one to capture the witches of the Star Lands and save the Vale.

Or maybe,whispered a hungry, cruel voice in Thorn’s mind,maybe we don’t give the witches to the queen.

Maybe we throw them in the Break. Give them to the Gulgot.

Wouldn’t they taste nice?

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