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  “Won’t keep it long,” he said. “Go.”

  “You go!” she yelled at him and turned back to what she had been doing.

  The guards were the first order of business. She attacked the first one rather hastily, so eager was she to get the deed done. He was startled by the suddenness of her appearance, but not as poorly trained as she had thought, and put up a good fight. She was able to disarm him only after a few minutes, and when she turned to the next one, she was surprised to find that Sir Merundi was holding him at sword point already.

  The older man, whom she knew very little, gave her a calm smile. He had a lived-in face that looked as though it needed to be shaken out and given a brisk airing, but it was friendly.

  “Princess Irae,” he said, warmly. “How good to see you again.”

  She looked from him to Thorn, who shook his head and shrugged.

  “Karyl was in charge of finding out who was loyal,” he said. “Perhaps they weren’t all in the ranks of the guards.”

  Her uncle, who had sat forward, arms resting on the sides of the throne, said, calmly, “I knew it.”

  They turned to him at last.

  “That is, I had a suspicion,” he said, unperturbed. “Serhiy said something about your scent being a little too clean. I never pay much attention to Serhiy when he says things like that, but I’m beginning to think I should start.”

  Vibrating with anger, finding that her breath was coming only shakily, Irae came to stand before him.

  “It is too late to start anything, now,” she said. She lifted her sword to point it at his throat. “Come down from my throne.”

  “I don’t see why I should,” he said, lifting a laconic hand and examining his nails. “You may stab me, if you like, if it would make you feel better. You know that I can’t be killed.”

  “I have no intention of killing you.”

  He smiled, and it looked as genuine as the sun. It caught at her heart with curved fingers for a moment, till she shook her head to clear it.

  “Oh, no?” he said, softly. “What then?”

  “I’m going to take back my throne,” she said.

  “But I’ve kept it in the family,” said her uncle, and he smiled again, as though he couldn’t help himself. “Look at what I’m doing. Making jokes at a time like this. It is good to see you, my dear.”

  She frowned, taken aback, and risked a glance at Thorn. He looked bemused, and almost as flustered as she felt.

  “Don’t say that,” she said. “Don’t say things like that.”

  “But it’s true,” he said. “All I have is you, you know. It’s never a bad thing to lay eyes on family. When your father was here — well perhaps it’s better that he isn’t. Watching his only child, his dear daughter, racing in waving a sword. He was a classic royalist, you know. To see his daughter fighting against the crowned king?” He shook his head and tsk-tsked at her, as he had when she was a child.

  Irae blushed a brilliant scarlet

  “How dare you even mention him. My father—”

  “Your father,” said her uncle, with an air of kindly benevolence, “whatever his strengths, was a hothead who didn’t know how to get out of a problem if the solution didn’t involve chopping people’s hands off.”

  “He taught me everything I know!”

  “Which is why,” said her uncle reasonably, “you would be such a terrible queen. It’s for the good of the country, really, that I step in and take over.” He turned to Thorn, to appeal to him. “I suppose she’s told you I’ve said and done terrible things to her. Well, the facts speak for themselves. Look around you. She grew up in this castle — the servants, the officials, all of them have known her since she was young. How many stood up for her, when I took the throne?” He shook his head sadly. “None but her old nanny, and a little kitchen maid, and a misguided guard. None of whom I see here. But you know what I do see?” He spread his arms and held out one to Irae; his eyes turned plaintive and pleading. “I see a girl who has come home to the only family she has left. Perhaps she doesn’t even understand her own reasons for doing so. Perhaps her own desire for power, her insistence on what she sees as rightfully hers, will interfere with her having the love of her family and her people. But it needn’t be this way, Irae. no one is stopping you from coming home, if that is what you really desire.” He gestured, beckoned with his hand, fingers curling upwards rhythmically. “All will be forgiven, dear heart. Come home to me.”

  Irae found that she could not quite breathe — everything was wrapped up in the motion of her uncle’s fingers, in the open, empty palm that he offered her. Her heart twinged, thumped, and she fought the urge to burst into tears. Not here, not now. Not this close.

  But it would be so easy. To come home, to take up the close bond she had once had with her uncle, to know her family again. This castle had been home. To sleep in her own bed — to put an end to the danger and the horror of fighting — to stop fighting —

  There was a glint in her uncle’s eye that she could not read, and a glint on his finger. Her father’s signet ring. The sign of a royal, of a ruler.

  It had belonged to the November King — it did belong, by rights, to the December Queen.

  There was a cough from behind them, from the advisor Sir Merundi, but when she looked back at him he only offered her a weak smile.

  She could breathe again, all of a sudden, and she turned to Thorn to see him watching her, a curiosity in his eyes. She met his gaze, this strange man, that familiar face which had grown strangely dear to her over the last few weeks. He was strong, but she could see his doubt.

  “I don’t —” he began.

  She put her hands on his arm, not clutching as she wanted to, but carefully, cautiously, not touching him below the sleeve, just a light weight on the cloth of his shirt.

  “Do you trust me?” she asked him.

  Thorn looked into her eyes, then, so deeply that she felt like a well, from which he pulled endless buckets of water. She thought she would be empty by the end of it, that he would have all of her, and she would be nothing, have nothing left. But finally, he nodded, slowly, and took a deep breath, and let it out.

  “Yes,” he said, “I trust you.”

  “Then don’t believe him. He has done nothing but lie to you since you walked in the door. He has lied to me my entire life. There is no good in him.”

  Thorn hesitated, still, and his eyes drifted back to the king, who was waiting, with his eyebrows lifted.

  “I don’t believe that,” he said.

  Irae flinched.

  “What?”

  “I don’t believe that there’s no good in him at all. I don’t believe it of anyone. I just — I need you to know that I disagree with you.”

  She blinked at him.

  “Very well,” she said. “I — I don’t quite know why this has to be discussed now.”

  “It doesn’t have to be discussed now. I just need you to know, so you will understand why I am not going to Forge him on this.”

  From his pack he pulled the Anvil of the Soul, for which they had fought and stolen. She heard the intake of breath from the king, and from Merundi behind them — this was not the Anvil that had been stolen from the castle, but they looked enough alike that they probably would not have been able to tell without a closer examination. Which she was determined that they would not have.

  “Thorn,” she said warningly.

  “Irae,” he said. “No. No. I believe you that things have to change. I believe you that you have the right to the throne. But the last time you asked me to Forge, I did nothing afterward but regret. And I will not put myself in that position again.” He reached out to take hold of her arm, the arm that did not hold the sword, and she was surprised to feel him trembling. “This is what I need,” he said.

  She hesitated, then nodded.

  “What you need,” she said. “Only, be quick.”

  He looked up at the king, who had started up from his throne at the sight of the
Anvil and now was watching them both with dawning uncertainty in his eyes. Thorn cracked a ragged-edged smile at him.

  “Hello,” he said. “I think you might become a goat.”

  The king sat down again, very quickly, as Irae pressed forward with her sword still out. She cast a glance behind her, cautiously, at Merundi — an unknown factor. Very curious — but he was still holding the guards off with his sword and gave her an encouraging smile.

  Thorn advanced up the few steps to the throne and stood over the king. He held out his hand.

  The king lurched away from it, suddenly in a panic.

  “I can’t be killed,” he warned him.

  “I am not going to kill you,” said Thorn. “I want you to live. I just want you to change.”

  He put his hand on the king’s chest and narrowed his eyes. Irae found herself watching him closely, watching his concentration; the edge of her sword wavered and drifted down to rest on the arm of the throne, but her uncle did not even struggle, even then. He was watching Thorn too and seemed to find it difficult to talk.

  Finally, he managed it.

  “Will it hurt?”

  “No,” said Thorn. “It won’t. I promise.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I have it on good authority.”

  He pressed his hand flat, and it began to glow.

  “You will still be sorry,” said the December King, his voice faint.

  Thorn closed his eyes.

  “Very possibly, yes,” he said.

  The glow lit the room.

  They say that there are those who are cursed from birth, those who carry the marks and disfigurements of a disease they don’t have; those who bear abilities and powers beyond human comprehension. They say that these should be chased from human society, that they can only bring destruction and pain and despair; that they have no place with those of us who are healthy and normal and righteous in mind.

  Thorn sat at the back of the crowd. He didn’t want to touch anyone. He didn’t want to be touched. There were too many people here. Why were so many people here?

  Because people loved Irae.

  He supposed he could understand that.

  But those who are outlawed, those who spend their lives without human companionship, those who live alone in the woods — sometimes they understand more about being human than those of us who are surrounded by privilege and love.

  These were her people; she called them her friends without even knowing them. This was astounding to Thorn, who wasn’t entirely sure about labeling people friends even when he had fought at their side, been rescued by them, and heard them snoring all through the night watch. But perhaps it was good. Perhaps he could learn from it.

  He doubted it, but that didn’t mean it was impossible.

  We are here because of those who fought for me, for the kingdom. We honor them — those who have fallen in death, and those who rise up, even now, and throw off the curse under which they have lived.

  Honor, thought Thorn, was a strange thing. He had never been given it. He didn’t know what to do with it. He wore it uncomfortably, just like sitting here in the crowd. But as he watched the small figure on the dais, he knew that regardless of what honor actually was, or what it actually meant, he did not want to give it up.

  People can be wicked, said Princess Irae, but they can also be good. The human conscience is an amazing thing. When my uncle, the so-called King Lev, took a look at what he had done, when he realized what had happened, he could not live with it, and so he put himself in exile, and sent the message for me to return.

  She paused, and he could hear her quickened breath.

  We honor the dishonorable, she went on, when they do what is right. And so, we remember the exiled, and give recognition to the cursed, and we rejoice at a new, bright chapter here in Ainsea.

  There was a small nickering from the general vicinity of Thorn’s feet. He looked down and nudged at the goat with his boot, but gently.

  “Quiet, you,” he said.

  What were a few lies between friends, after all?Off in the distance, he heard the lonely cry of a fox, alone in the woods; and at the edge of his hearing, the thunderous beat of the wings of an eagle, rising into the rarified air.

  Serhiy, against all his expectations, woke up.

  Waking up was not easy. Or rather, it was easy, but he didn’t like it. And this was different, for him, because he usually attacked waking up with the same enthusiasm with which he embraced all aspects of life, especially the areas that involved making others feel pain. But today he was feeling pain, himself, and for some reason that wasn’t nearly as much fun.

  His head hurt. Well, everything hurt. But his head was what he noticed immediately, and that was probably the biggest of his problems. The pain leaped out at him like a panther in the woods, wrapped both arms around him and dug into the back of his skull with all ten claws. Twenty claws. This panther had too many claws, and it wasn’t scientifically possible.

  He was surrounded, too.

  He was surrounded, he couldn’t help but notice, by people who looked absolutely harmless. They wore desert-stained clothing and had scruffy beards and long hair, except for one, who was evidently a woman. He thought there might have been three or four of them, except then he blinked and there were clearly fifteen or twenty-five.

  Perhaps clearly was too strong of a word.

  At any rate, they were having a discussion over whether he should live or die.

  The woman was in favor of him dying.

  “It’s only fair,” she argued. “He killed Crau, there’s no denying that. If someone kills, they deserve to die themselves. That’s justice for you.”

  “May I remind you we live in the desert with no one to tell us what to do?” said one of the men. He was short and squat, but his voice was loud. He raised a hand. “Justice is what we say it is,” he said, and clenched his fist dramatically.

  “Fine,” said the woman. “I say him dying is just.”

  Serhiy wanted dearly to tell them to go and argue somewhere else so he could concentrate on his pain in peace, but he had a gag in his mouth. He was tied down, too, he realized, which he thought was a bit rich because there was absolutely no way that he could get up and move, the way he was feeling. They were safe from him; he was no danger to anyone Well. Perhaps he could have been a danger to someone, if he really tried. But he didn’t feel like trying. It hurt to try.

  “Awake, now,” said another with a harsh, raw voice.

  They crouched over him and peered down as though they could flay him with their eyeballs.

  “What are you?” said one. “You’re strange. You’re odd. You look like a human, but —”

  “Murderer,” said the one with the raw voice.

  “No, it’s more than that.”

  “Isn’t that enough?”

  “He is different,” said the female, rubbing at her throat. “I can taste it.”

  “It’s obvious, isn’t it?” said the loudest of the men. He glanced around the circle, and Serhiy could hear his distaste at his colleague’s slowness. “He is an animal, Forged into a human. You can trace his lines and see the original shape.” He fluttered his hand just over Serhiy’s profile. “Fox, most like. Common, ordinary, everyday garden variety fox. Just walks on two legs now.”

  “Or he will, when he recovers,” said the woman.

  “If he recovers.”

  “If justice doesn’t prevail, and we don’t kill him.”

  The loud man shook his head. “No. He’s a fox. No one blames a fox for killing, do they? It’s just their nature. Just like it’s our nature to experiment with change.” He put out a hand and touched the pad of his index finger to the tip of Serhiy’s long nose. He put a little pressure on it, and a fresh wave of pain surged through Serhiy. “I reckon we could get a great deal of information out of him,” he said thoughtfully. “I reckon — we could even write a book.”

  This, improbably enough, sent a shimmer of excitement
through the others, and one rushed off to get a sheaf of papers, while another located a bundle of writing utensils, which he came back bearing in one cactus-like fist. They crowded around Serhiy again. He could feel their enthusiasm lift him, waft him up as though into the air. Perhaps he was getting lightheaded, but he was almost excited about this, too. A book! They were going to write a book about him!

  He couldn’t even read, he thought absurdly.

  But the loudest of the strange little-bearded men was close to him again, and he was holding a pencil, with which he dabbed delicately at his tongue to wet.

  “Now then,” he said, happily. “Where shall we begin?”

  End of Book 2 – Please Read This

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  Fired

  (Thorned: Book 2)

  Liam Reese

  © 2018

  Disclaimer

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and events are all fictitious for the reader’s pleasure. Any similarities to real people, places, events, living or dead are all coincidental.