Thornlight by Claire Legrand

Author:Claire Legrand
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2021-03-11T00:00:00+00:00

.24.

The Witch Without a Monster

Through a pair of tinted goggles set in brass frames, Thorn watched Quicksilver’s friend work.

For protection, the witch had given goggles to Thorn and Bartos, until their decidedly ordinary eyes adjusted to the radiance of the Star Lands. It was such a bright country, Quicksilver had told them, because since the War of the Wolves, witches had come out of hiding, and magic was returning to the land.

The Thorn of the past, who had not yet seen her sister burned, nor been sent off to Estar, might already have begun sketching a picture of the place in her mind, and planning what paints she could use to color it.

But the Thorn of now worried her hands in her lap, as if she were molding a shape out of clay, and tried to ignore the strange twists of her gut.

The twists felt almost like nervousness, the kind of nervousness that made her want to scratch and scratch at her legs and arms, but it also felt like something different. Something new.

She’d felt it in the nests of those awful giant birds, when she’d snapped at Bartos—a nugget of something unfamiliar in her belly. A little like hunger, a little like fear, a lot like anger. Hot and snapping and pinching and snaking—and growing.

Now, it felt like not just a nugget, not just a spark, but a fist.

A fist that shifted and burned.

When the fist opened, fingers all sharp and splayed out, the sensation nauseated her.

But when the fist closed, as though ready to punch, Thorn felt . . .

What was it?

She pressed her hands flat against her legs, struggled to smooth her breathing into steady ins and outs, and thought about it.

When the fist closed, Thorn felt ready to punch too. She felt clearer, and sharper, like all her life she had been a scratchy Thorn sketch dusted in pencil shavings, and suddenly someone had shaken free her page. Now she stood out in stark relief against the world—clean and outlined and impossible to ignore.

No, if anyone ignored Thorn when she felt like this, if anyone tossed trash at her while she was sweeping, she’d chase them down the street with her broom, and they’d try to run, but they wouldn’t be fast enough, not for this Thorn with the fist living in her belly—

A pained cough interrupted Thorn’s tumbling thoughts.

Thorn shook her head, blinked, and as the fist in her gut relaxed its clutching fingers, her mind cleared and focused.

Zaf.

Zaf, lying on the bed in front of her, eyes closed, breathing thin and soft, a sheen of sweat painting her pale skin silver.

A young man with fair hair and freckled skin who looked about Quicksilver’s age sat beside Zaf’s bed. His name was Sly Boots—a healer, Quicksilver had said, one of the best in the Star Lands. Thorn sat in a chair beside him, and Noro watched over her shoulder, fitting neatly into the small room in his strange, unicornish way.

On the other side of the bed stood Quicksilver, arms crossed.

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