Thorns by Kate Avery Ellison Read Free Book Online Page A

just have to tighten our belts until we got the weekly rations. I gathered up an armful of dishes and carried them to the kitchen. I dropped them in the sink and leaned against the wall, closing my eyes.
    I needed to leave the signal for Adam to see. I took the lantern down from the hook on the wall and reached for the matches.
    “I need to get something in the barn,” I said, heading for the door.
    Ivy sat white-faced, shaking in her chair, and Jonn was trying to calm her down. They barely heard me.
    I ducked outside. The wind had kicked up again, bringing a flurry of snowflakes with it, and the specks of white danced before my eyes and melted against my lips. Above my head, the Watcher Ward danced and clattered. The sun had shrunk to a glowing coal behind the snow clouds, and a bluish haze bathed everything in twilight.
    Swallowing to ease the dryness that filled my mouth and throat, I lifted the lantern and headed for the trees. When I hung out this lantern, I would signal Adam. He would come. And I would give him my answer.
    Was I really ready to do this?
    My footsteps were wet snapping sounds in the thick silence, and the wind trailed cold fingers through my hair. I stopped by the trees and fumbled for a match, striking it twice before the flame sputtered to life. I hung the lantern on a branch, and the halo of light it cast illuminated a hard circle of white around me but did nothing to penetrate the wall of shadows that signaled the beginning of the Frost.
    Prickles crawled over my skin as I stared once more into the mouth of the Frost, straining to hear and see what lurked beyond, testing my own resolve as I stood there, facing the brink of night and the promise of Watchers. Whispering sounds slid from the trees as the wind whipped through the branches and moaned over the snowdrifts. A mothkat screeched in the distance.
    Somewhere far away amid the shadows, past the safety of the tree line, a branch snapped, and my nerves drew taut as a bowstring. I poised for flight, quivering like a startled doe, bathed in the lantern light and exposed.
    Two figures emerged from the trees. My heartbeat tripled. I reached for my knife as I scanned their faces. A boy and a girl. Both thin, almost waifish. Dark circles ringed their eyes, and their wrists were as slender as sticks.
    “Please,” the girl said, and lifted her arm. I sucked in a sharp breath when I saw the red marks crisscrossing her wrists. Angry, freshly healed wounds covered every inch of bare skin.
    Then my gaze slid down, and I saw what she was holding. A crude pair of sticks tied together with twine.
    The sign of the Thorns.

     
     

FIVE
     
     
    I STARED AT the sticks in her hand as my pulse pounded in my ears and my head felt too light. Was this a trick? A trap? A clever ruse invented by Raine’s men to catch me?
    But no. The sign of the Thorns was secret.
    They must have been sent here, just as Gabe was.
    I looked at their skeletal bodies and their paper-thin rags, and they looked back with the kind of defiance hardened through beatings and starvation. Something in me squeezed so tight I couldn’t breathe. Were children political prisoners now in Aeralis, too?
    “I can help you. You’re going to be all right,” I said, doing my best to use my gentlest voice.
    The girl made a soft sound like a kitten’s mew. It might have been a sob.
    “This way,” I said. I took a step back and looked over my shoulder to make sure they were coming.
    After a moment’s hesitation, they followed. The girl held tightly to the boy’s hand.
    Thoughts ran circles in my head. They were Aeralians; the features were obvious, as were the clothes. I recognized the slick, synthetic fabric and the strange cut of the shirts. Had they crossed into the Frost themselves? Who had sent them? The same operative that sent Gabe?
    I needed Adam. He would know what to do.
    I took them to the barn.
    The hinges creaked as I shoved the door open, and the children crept inside and huddled by