Chapter 53
53
T here was no king sitting in the heart of the tent. But instead, a bloodied and bruised Jasper, sobbing, and a horde of Cimmerians standing along the far wall.
Harlow was right. It’d been a godsdamn trap and never once had I thought to use magic to find him .
Thorne burst into the tent mere seconds behind me, his eyes wild, chest heaving. He took in the scene. For a heartbeat, the world held its breath. Then he exploded into motion. He lunged forward, the sword a blur of silver as he sliced through Jasper’s bonds. With a grunt, he hauled the terrified man to his feet and shoved him towards me as the Cimmerians sprung into action. Jasper stumbled, nearly falling.
“Run, Paesha!” Thorne roared, his voice raw with desperation and something else, something fierce and primal. “Get him out of here!”
No.
No!
My world shattered. The air between us heavy with unspoken words and unfulfilled promises that would never be kept. Every inch of space felt like a chasm widening with each racing heartbeat. Thorne turned, our eyes locking for what felt like the last time, the weight of his sacrifice sinking into my chest like a blade.
“No.”
But he was already moving. His body slammed into the oncoming wave of Cimmerians, the sword arcing in the dim light, a storm of fury and strength that wouldn’t last. Harlow and Archer had hands on me before I knew what was happening, dragging me away as I screamed. And screamed. Begging to go back. For them to let me go. To try to save him.
I would have given it all away. All of me, to rip myself free and run to him, to die at his side, if that’s what it took. But Harlow’s grip tightened, and Archer’s arms dragged me away.
“No!” My voice broke. Tears burned my eyes. My chest ached as if it might collapse in on itself. “Thorne! We need more time,” I screamed. “We need more time.”
But he didn’t turn again as the flap to the tent dropped between us.
I jerked, twisting, and turning.
Archer’s fingers dug in. “Paesha, stop! He’s buying us time. We have to use it.”
“He’ll die! You know he will.” The words tore from my throat, a sob catching on the jagged edges.
“He knew the risks. This was always a possibility.”
Jasper stumbled along beside us, his eyes wide with shock, his breath coming in short, panicked gasps. Still he ran.
Still I fought.
Still we moved.
The clang of metal on metal and the shouts of fighting men faded behind us as I was dragged away from the camp, crashing through the underbrush. Branches whipped at my face, thorns tearing at my clothes as Archer and Harlow pulled me through the forest, away from the camp, away from Thorne. My heart shattered with every step, the pieces scattering behind me like breadcrumbs, marking a trail back to the man I think I could have let myself love. The man I was leaving behind.
Finally, when my lungs burned and my legs threatened to give out, Archer barked out orders. “Pack up the horses. There’s one for you too, Jasper.”
“I’m not leaving. You pack your horses and run like cowards. Go ahead. That man walked through fire for me, and I’ll be damned if I won’t return the favor, even if it means I have to burn the whole camp to the ground. Piss off every god from there to Etherium. Call down Death from his dark court and beg for revenge. I will do it.”
Beside me, the old cook was a blubbering mess, his body shaking so badly he could barely grip the saddle horn with his one good arm. Archer and Harlow worked with grim efficiency, their movements quick and purposeful as they packed up our meager supplies.
“Why are you here?” I ground out, frozen in place, as I stared at Jasper. “Why the fuck are you here at camp?”
“I… I know the boss told me not to, but I was down by Nightshade Row. There’s an old Silk that gets an order from the grocer every three days and she throws out what she doesn't use. I was?—”
“A damn fool. How are we supposed to trust you? How the fuck are we supposed to accept that we just traded you for him ? Why should we believe you’re not still bound to the prince? You offered yourself up as bait, didn’t you?”
Jasper’s old eyes fell to the ground.
Archer slid a careful arm over my shoulder. “Hey,” he whispered, voice low and slow, as if talking to a wild animal. “We know he’s free, remember? We watched Farris kill a Cimmerian over it. We saw him disobey a direct order. He was never bait. We’d have had to know he was here for that to be true. The prince always hunts someone and you saw how pissed he was at Jasper. He was probably going to die up here. I know you’re upset, but don’t take it out on him.”
I swiped away a tear and dropped to my knees, staring back at the camp, willing Thorne to come racing up the hill. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.” Mostly.
Archer dropped beside me. “You stay, I stay.”
“Well, if you’re both staying, I am too,” Harlow said, turning to Jasper. “You can take the spare horse back, if you want.”
I could feel his eyes on me. “I… I think I’ll stay. If that’s okay, Miss Paesha?”
My emotions were a torrent of anger and sadness. There was nothing logical in this moment. Lashing out at Jasper. Begging to go to my own death. Threatening to anger every god out loud. Thorne had pinned me against a wall, shoving his hand over my mouth the last time I’d done that. And I think I fell for him in that moment. I think I’d been falling every day since.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, not bothering to look at him as I stared straight ahead. He’d been beaten, bruised, lost his fucking arm… he’d been captured, tied up, beaten again, by the looks of him, and I’d been terrible. Terrible to an old man that’d been nothing but kind to me. But a whispered apology was all I could manage.
I stared down at the camp below, the midday sun casting long shadows over the wreckage of our escape until the tents looked like tombstones. The few guards that moved were too far away to make out clearly. They were searching, no doubt, for signs of us. For him.
For Thorne.
I pressed my palms into the damp earth, the coolness grounding me in the moment, but it did nothing to stop the ache.
“He’s not coming back,” I whispered, my voice a raw rasp of finality that tasted like ash on my tongue. “We left him.”
Harlow dropped beside us, her lips drawn into a tight line, her hands resting on the hilt of her knife. “Do you think they saw us run up here?”
I didn’t move. Didn’t answer. Couldn’t. My eyes locked on the tattered tents, every part of me begging for one last glimpse of him. One last sign that he’d— A flash of movement. There, near the largest tent, a figure staggered through the wreckage.
No. It couldn’t be.
“Paesha…” Archer’s voice was low, cautionary, but I barely registered it.
I rose on unsteady legs, my heart slamming against my ribs. The figure moved with purpose. Steady. Determined. Gods, I knew those broad shoulders. I knew them like I knew my own heartbeat.
“Thorne?” I breathed, the word barely a whisper, as if speaking it too loudly might break the moment. He was alive.
I didn’t think. Didn’t care about the distance or the eyes that might spot me. Consequences be damned, I launched myself down the hill, my feet slipping and sliding on the loose earth, the world narrowing to a single point. My pulse roared in my ears, breath coming in sharp gasps as I tore through the branches snapping beneath my boots.
“Thorne!”
And then I was there. I crashed into him with all the force of my fear and relief, throwing my arms around his neck, pulling him to me as if I could never let go. His arms closed around me, solid and strong, and I clung to him, burying my face against his chest.
Thorne’s arms tightened around me, holding me close as if he, too, feared I might vanish if he let go. I breathed him in. His heart pounded against my cheek, a furious rhythm that matched my own.
“You’re alive,” I whispered. “I thought…”
Thorne’s hand came up to cradle the back of my head, his fingers tangling in my hair. “You said we need more time. I couldn’t deny you that.”
But the moment was fleeting, shattered by Archer’s urgent shout from the hilltop. “Move your asses, they’re coming!”
Reality crashed back in with the distant shouts of the guards. We ran, Thorne’s hand gripping mine, our feet pounding against the earth as we raced up the hill. My lungs burned, my legs ached, but I pushed on, fueled by a desperate need to put as much distance as possible between us and the horrors of the camp.
Archer and Harlow had the horses ready, dancing nervously, ears flicking back and forth at the commotion rising from below. Thorne practically tossed me into the saddle before swinging up behind me, his strong arms encircling my waist as he grabbed the reins.
We tore out of there like Hell Hounds were snapping at our heels. The horses’ hooves thundered against the ground. The wind whipped at our faces. Low-hanging branches snatched at our clothes, leaves blinding us in a whirl of green and brown. But we didn’t slow. Didn’t dare.
I clung to the saddle horn. It was only when the horses began to falter, their sides heaving and lathered with sweat, that Thorne finally reined us to a stop in a small, sheltered clearing. I slid from the saddle on shaky legs, my heart still racing.
Thorne dismounted beside me. His hand immediately found mine and our fingers laced together as if afraid to let go. Archer and Harlow and Jasper gathered close, their faces drawn and haunted in the dappled forest light.
“We’ll stop only long enough to let the horses rest. We’re going to have to push them hard. We’ll tell everyone we were ambushed by the Lord of the Salt on the road and lost everything. Jasper, you can’t be seen returning with us. You’re going to have to hide outside of the city until I send someone to come get you. And then you bunker down. You can’t go back to the house. You might have to room with Tuck at his place for a while.”
I couldn’t help but circle the burning questions in my mind as Thorne processed our next moves. Questions I was too afraid to ask. To speak aloud as if it would shatter this common devotion between us. But how had he done it? How had he faced over twenty Cimmerian guards and walked out of there? So far, he’d said nothing of his identity. Wasn’t concerned at all about the fact that he’d been seen. Which meant he’d either killed them all or… no, there was no alternative. The few guards left standing were only those few that’d been left outside and could have never seen our faces, only our backs.
We rode through the night, the darkness broken only by slivers of moonlight filtering through the clouds. Thorne’s solid presence at my back was a comfort, his arms a protective cage around me as we swayed with the horse’s gait. The adrenaline of our narrow escape had long since faded, replaced by a bone-deep weariness, but still, we pressed on.
As the first pale fingers of dawn began to paint the eastern sky in delicate shades of pink and gold, the air grew lighter, and I settled into a state of cautious relief. We’d made it through the night.
Ahead, rising from the morning mist, the outline of the city walls took shape. Stirling. And I never thought I’d be so happy to see a city I hated more than anything. We left Jasper and all the horses behind as planned and crept into the city with nothing but each other. The Parlor was a welcomed sight. Our bed, heaven, as we both crawled in, bodies leaden.
I drifted into a fitful sleep, my mind still reeling from the events of the past day. At first, there was only darkness. A blessed emptiness that promised respite from the chaos and terror. But then, slowly, insidiously, the nightmare began to take shape.
It started with a sound. A steady, rhythmic ticking, like the beating of a monstrous heart. Filling my ears, growing louder and louder until it drowned out everything else. I stood in a vast, shadowy hall, the walls lined with countless clocks of every shape and size. Grandfather clocks loomed like ancient sentinels, their pendulums swinging in eerie unison. And everywhere, that incessant ticking pounded against my skull.
As I moved deeper into the hall, the clocks began to change. Their pristine faces cracked and splintered, oozing thick, crimson blood that dripped onto the floor in glistening puddles. The ticking grew erratic. Grating. A cacophony of broken gears sank into my mind and squeezed until I couldn’t breathe or think beyond the pain.
I stumbled through the nightmarish hall, hands pressed over my ears in a vain attempt to block out the maddening ticking. But as I moved, the clocks began to change, twisting into grotesque imitations of the people I’d met here.
Harlow’s face appeared on a small, delicate mantel clock, her usually vibrant blue eyes now dull and lifeless, staring accusingly at me from behind a cracked glass face while crimson tears leaked, leaving glistening trails down her beautiful cheeks.
Beside her, Archer’s likeness sat within a towering grandfather clock, his features contorted in a silent scream, mouth stretched abnormally wide in agony. His hands, once so steady and sure with a blade, were now gnarled and broken, reaching out from the splintered wood as if pleading for help that would never come.
With each step, another familiar face appeared. Tuck, Jasper, Rosy, Briony… even Thorne, face twisted in pain on a cuckoo clock with a little bird that burst from his chest, a blackened, twisted thing with razor sharp talons.
The ticking grew to a sickening crescendo, the jagged, inharmonious sounds clashing and crashing against each other in a maddening symphony. I clapped my hands over my ears, trying desperately to block out the noise, but it seeped through my fingers.
And then, with a final, resounding clang, the clocks stopped.
Silence fell over the hall. Suffocating. Thick and heavy, it pressed down on me until I could scarcely draw breath. My heart raced, the only sound in the sudden quiet. One by one the figures fell, like marionettes with their strings cut, until the hall was littered with the bodies of everyone I’d grown to care about in Wisteria. Glassy eyes stared sightlessly at the vaulted ceiling, mouths frozen in silent screams.
As I stood there, a small figure emerged from the shadows at the far end of the hall. Quill stumbled forward, tiny hands outstretched, grasping at the air as if trying to reach me, her wild curly hair matted with blood.
“You left me! You promised you’d protect me, but you left me! And then you fell in love. You forgot him and fell in love with another. Will you forget me too? Mother?”
Guilt and anguish ripped through my chest, stealing the breath from my lungs as I tried to move, to run to her, to gather her small, broken body in my arms and beg for forgiveness. But my feet were rooted to the ground.
I fought and fought until a deep voice, an urgent voice of steel and reason cut through the nightmare, yanking me back to reality.
Thorne looked down at me wide-eyed. “Okay?”
I nodded, ignoring the tear that slipped free as I gulped down air.
“That’s the first nightmare you’ve had in a while.”
“Because I’m running out of time,” I whispered, ignoring the fact that Vesalia was the real culprit behind that special fucking brand of torment.